Developing a reliable Senior Walking Environmental Assessment Tool

BACKGROUND: Research of the effects of the built environment on physical activity often excludes certain segments of the population. The senior population, one segment perhaps most influenced by the physical features of an environment, has been understudied. Developing reliable measures of the environment is important to increase our understanding of the environmental effects on physical activity among seniors. METHODS: A review of urban planning and health literature helped identify important concepts and theories that were used to inform the development of the Senior Walking Environmental Assessment Tool (SWEAT). Urban planning and health research professionals were consulted and provided feedback on the tool. A total of 355 neighborhood segments were assessed using SWEAT. Thirty-six neighborhood segments were assessed for inter-rater reliability. RESULTS: Overall, raters exhibited good-to-excellent agreement on most items included in SWEAT. Items assessing buildings and destinations were less reliable than other categories. CONCLUSIONS: The development of a reliable senior-specific environmental measurement of detailed street level environmental features that may influence walking among seniors is important to advance this research and engage communities to consider simple environmental changes that encourage walking among seniors.     

Addiction-like Eating in Chinese Adults: An Assessment Tool and Its Associations with Modern Eating-Related Habits

Objectives: The rapid increase in Chinese obesity rates has aroused research interest in addiction-like eating (AE); however, the unavailability of assessment tools is a major barrier to further investigation. To address the research gap, this study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Addiction-like Eating Behavior Scale (AEBS) and explore associations between AE and three modern eating-related habits (i.e., ordering delivery food, eating late-night meals and watching mukbang) among Chinese adults. Methods: The STROBE checklist was followed for reporting this cross-sectional study. We conducted a telephone survey with a two-stage cluster random sampling method and acquired a probability sample of 1010 community-dwelling Chinese adults (55.2% female; age: 18–88 years, M = 38.52, SD = 14.53). Results: Results confirmed the conceptualized two-factor structure of AEBS with satisfactory model fit, reliability and validity. Chinese adults reported higher levels of AE in the context of low dietary control rather than appetitive drive. These two AE factors showed significant and positive associations with modern eating-related habits. Conclusions: The current study was the first to assess AE among Chinese adults and provided a reliable and valid assessment tool. Our correlational findings can also be utilized for designing interventions for weight management and healthy eating.     

An Obesity Risk Assessment Tool for Young Children: Validity With BMI and Nutrient Values

Objective

Demonstrate validity and reliability for an obesity risk assessment tool for young children targeting families' modifiable home environments.

The Enchytraeid Reproduction Test (ERT): A Potentially Quick and Affordable Tool for the Assessment of Metal Contaminated Soils in Emerging Economies

The enchytraeid reproduction test (ERT) was used to assess the ecotoxicity of selected mine tailings and agricultural soils from South Africa. The mine tailings had higher cumulative metal concentrations than agricultural soils. The most contaminated mine tailings significantly reduced the survival of the oligochaete Enchytraeus doerjesi whose reproduction was suppressed in all mine waste substrates. Because it reliably singled out the most contaminated substrate and was found easy to perform, we suggest that the ERT could be a quick and affordable tool for assigning intervention values for soil remediation in emerging economies such as South Africa.     

Four FACTs Spiritual Assessment Tool

The Four FACTs Spiritual Assessment Tool combines the Four Fs and the FACT Spiritual Assessment Tool of LaRocca-Pitts into a single tool. The Four FACTs Tool is specifically designed for beginning students, but can also meet the needs of professional chaplains. Though designed for use in an acute care setting, it can be easily adapted for other settings. The Four FACTs Tool is easy to learn and to use and it gathers and evaluates relevant clinical information that can then be used to develop a plan of care. In its shortened form, as ACT, it informs how the chaplain can be fully present with patients and their families, especially in a time of crisis.     

Emerging and Traditional Organic Markers in Areas with Multiple Anthropogenic Activities: Development of an Analytical Protocol and Its Application in Environmental Assessment Studies

Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology - This work describes the development of an analytical protocol combining cleanup by liquid–solid extraction and GC–MS for the...     

我国生殖内分泌相关肿瘤与环境污染的生态学相关研究

目的分析我国生殖内分泌肿瘤与环境污染的关系。方法通过中国疾病监测系统收集145个监测点1991-1999年女性乳腺癌、卵巢癌、男性前列腺癌以及睾丸癌的死亡资料,同时收集对应监测点的环境监测资料和地理面积资料。运用单因素方差分析(ANOVA)、多因素方差分析(MNOVA)以及Poisson回归模型,分析1991-1999年上述肿瘤与环境监测数据的相关性。结果我国生殖内分泌肿瘤死亡率高的地区主要分布在东部沿海地区;城市的生殖内分泌肿瘤死亡率显著高于非城市(包括县和农村地区,F>4.67P<0.05)与内分泌肿瘤相关的主要环境因素为单位面积废水排放量(乳腺癌:OR=1.619P<0.05卵巢癌及其他附件肿瘤:OR=2.077P<0.05前列腺肿瘤:OR=1.697P<0.05)和大气环境质量(乳腺癌:OR=1.303P<0.05卵巢癌及其他附件肿瘤:OR=1.628P<0.05前列腺肿瘤:OR=1.572P<0.05睾丸肿瘤:OR=1.771P<0.01)。结论环境污染可能与生殖内分泌相关肿瘤发生有关;废水和废气排放可能是导致内分泌相关肿瘤发生的原因之一,尤其是环境内分泌干扰物(EDCs)污染外环境的主要途径。     

Ethiopia: An Emerging Family Planning Success Story

From 1990 to 2011, contraceptive use in Ethiopia increased ninefold and the total fertility rate fell from 7.0 to 4.8. These are two dramatic illustrations of a family planning success story that has emerged over the last two decades and is still emerging. What are the main elements of this success? We posit that the four most significant factors are: political will, generous donor support, nongovernmental and public–private partnerships, and the government's establishment of a network of health extension workers. In this study, we look at these factors and how their interaction increased the proportion of women having both the desire to use and ability to access contraceptives. Also highlighted are some of the key lessons learned in Ethiopia that are relevant to other African countries interested in emulating the country's success.     

Ecological considerations in scrub typhus. 1. Emerging concepts

Scrub typhus infection is now known to occur in geographical and ecological areas where its presence was hitherto unsuspected—north and west of the Indus River and in south-eastern Siberia; in semi-desert, montane desert, and alpine terrain high in the Himalayas, as well as in primary jungle. Additional data are presented to support the hypothesis that “ecological islands”, containing basically similar faunas of rodents and ectoparasites, exist on scattered mountains in the Pakistan Himalayas, despite the intervening “barriers” of desert, broad rivers and massive peaks. Since scrub typhus has been demonstrated in some of these isolated areas, it is felt that the infection may exist, unrecognized, in neighbouring countries as well.     

Development of a Rapid Risk and Impact Assessment Tool to Enhance Response to Environmental Emergencies in the Early Stages of a Disaster:A Tool Developed by the European Multiple Environmental Threats Emergency NETwork(EMETNET)Project

Every year,numerous environmental disasters and emergencies occur across the globe with far-reaching impacts on human health and the environment.The ability to ...     

Integrating Omic Technologies into Aquatic Ecological Risk Assessment and Environmental Monitoring: Hurdles,Achievements, and Future Outlook

Background

In this commentary we present the findings from an international consortium on fish toxicogenomics sponsored by the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council (Fish Toxicogenomics—Moving into Regulation and Monitoring, held 21–23 April 2008 at the Pacific Environmental Science Centre, Vancouver, BC, Canada).

Objectives

The consortium from government agencies, academia, and industry addressed three topics: progress in ecotoxicogenomics, regulatory perspectives on roadblocks for practical implementation of toxicogenomics into risk assessment, and dealing with variability in data sets.

Discussion

Participants noted that examples of successful application of omic technologies have been identified, but critical studies are needed to relate molecular changes to ecological adverse outcome. Participants made recommendations for the management of technical and biological variation. They also stressed the need for enhanced interdisciplinary training and communication as well as considerable investment into the generation and curation of appropriate reference omic data.

Conclusions

The participants concluded that, although there are hurdles to pass on the road to regulatory acceptance, omics technologies are already useful for elucidating modes of action of toxicants and can contribute to the risk assessment process as part of a weight-of-evidence approach.     

Emerging role of cell-free DNA in kidney transplantation

Monitoring kidney transplants for rejection conventionally includes serum creatinine, immunosuppressive drug levels, proteinuria, and donor-specific antibody (DSA). Serum creatinine is a late marker of allograft injury, and the predictive ability of DSA regarding risk of rejection is variable. Histological analysis of an allograft biopsy is the standard method for diagnosing rejection but is invasive, inconvenient, and carries risk of complications. There has been a long quest to find a perfect biomarker that noninvasively predicts tissue injury caused by rejection at an early stage, so that diagnosis and treatment could be pursued without delay in order to minimize irreversible damage to the allograft. In this review, we discuss relatively novel research on identifying biomarkers of tissue injury, specifically elaborating on donor-derived cell-free DNA, and its clinical utility.     

Family Coaching: An Emerging Family Science Field

Although there is a rich history of collaboration and distinction among family practitioners, to remain progressive, the domains of family practice must continue to evolve based on the current practices of family professionals. Recently, family coaching (FC) has captured the professional attention of practitioners as another collaborative yet distinct field in family science. FC seeks to foster the achievement of family‐identified goals through a process‐driven relationship between a family and professional coach. In this article, the authors introduce FC and explore it as an extension to the domains of family practice model. In addition, the authors offer results from a nationwide sample of family practitioners (N = 180) regarding their experiences and opinions of FC to further substantiate the field's progression.     

The Nutrition Transition in Low-Income Countries: An Emerging Crisis

Scientists have long recognized the importance of the demographics and epidemiologic transitions in higher income countries. Only recently has it become understood that similar sets of broadly based changes are occurring in lower income countries. What has not been recognized is that concurrent changes in nutrition are also occurring, with equally important implications for resource allocation in many low-income countries. Several major changes seem to be emerging, leading to a marked shift in the structure of diet and the distribution of body composition in many regions of the world: a rapid reduction in fertility and aging of the population, rapid urbanization, the epidemiologic transition, and economic changes affecting populations in different and uneven ways. These changes vary significantly over time. In general, we find that problems of under- and overnutrition often coexist, reflecting the trend in which an increasing proportion of people consume the types of diets associated with a number of chronic diseases. This is occurring more rapidly than previously seen in higher income countries, or even in Japan and Korea. Examples from Thailand, China, and Brazil provide evidence of the changes and trends in dietary intake, physical activity, and body composition patterns.