“My Legs Affect Me a Lot. … I Can No Longer Walk to the Forest to Fetch Firewood”: Challenges Related to Health and the Performance of Daily Tasks for Older Women in a High HIV Context

Compromised health negatively impacts older persons’ ability to participate in expected social roles. Researchers have published little empirical work, however, to explore these issues in HIV endemic African settings. Qualitative interviews with 30 women, aged 60-plus, in rural South Africa, provide insight into the relationship between health and daily activities, with attention to the fulfillment of social roles. In this poor HIV endemic context, older women make connections between their compromised health and their (lack of) capacity to perform the daily tasks that they view as expected of them. By expanding the conceptualization of health to include the capacity to achieve the expectations and perform the tasks expected of one, we better understand how and why health and performance of daily activities are so intricately linked in the minds of respondents. This also provides a starting point for thinking about the social and structural support needed by older persons in these settings, especially as HIV erodes familial supports.     

The mindful attention and awareness scale is associated with lower levels of high-frequency heart rate variability in a laboratory context

Trait mindfulness has been associated with well-being. A key component of trait mindfulness is intentional attention and awareness which is most commonly measured by the Mindful Attention and Awareness Scale (MAAS). This study investigated the relationship between the MAAS and cardiovascular (HF-HRV, heart rate) reactivity to two laboratory stressors that evoked different patterns of change in heart rate (HR). One stressor (viewing a video of a surgery) evoked HR deceleration while the other stressor (mental arithmetic) evoked HR acceleration. Undergraduate students completed the MAAS and were then exposed to the two stressors while ECG (electrocardiography) was recorded. Findings support the reliability of the stressors to induce expected differential cardiovascular responses and explicate the role of parasympathetic activation. Further, a main effect for MAAS was observed indicating that across laboratory conditions, persons scoring higher on the MAAS had lower HF-HRV relative to persons scoring lower on the MAAS. These findings suggest that higher levels of intentional attention and awareness in a laboratory context might promote parasympathetic withdrawal because these participants were more vigilant, experienced higher cognitive load, and detected more threat cues. Implications for the MAAS and cardiovascular responses to stress are discussed.     

Int22h1/Int22h2‐mediated Xq28 duplication syndrome: de novo duplications,prenatal diagnoses,and additional phenotypic features

Int22h1/Int22h2‐mediated Xq28 duplication syndrome is a relatively new X‐linked intellectual disability syndrome, arising from duplications of the subregion flanked by intron 22 homologous regions 1 and 2 on the q arm of chromosome X. Its primary manifestations include variable cognitive deficits, distinct facial dysmorphia, and neurobehavioral abnormalities that mainly include hyperactivity, irritability, and autistic behavior. Affected males are hemizygous for the duplication, which explains their often more severe manifestations compared with heterozygous females. In this report, we describe the cases of nine individuals recently identified having the syndrome, highlighting unique and previously unreported findings of this syndrome. Specifically, we report for the first time in this syndrome, two cases with de novo duplications, three receiving prenatal diagnosis with the syndrome, and three others having atypical versions of the duplication. Among the latter, one proband has a shortened version spanning only the centromeric half of the typical duplication, while the other two cases have a nearly identical length duplication as the classical duplication, with the exception that their duplication's breakpoints are telomerically shifted by about 0.2 Mb. Finally, we shed light on two new manifestations in this syndrome, vertebral anomalies and multiple malignancies, which possibly expand the phenotypic spectrum of the syndrome.     

Depression as a confounding variable in the estimation of habitual sleep time

Self-reported habitual sleep time is an important variable because short and long sleep times are associated with mortality. Speculation with regard to these results usually focuses on physical health, rather than psychological factors. We investigated the role of anxiety and depression in reports of habitual sleep times by examining the relative and absolute discrepancy between individuals' initial estimates of their sleep times and sleep diaries made over a 2-week period. Results indicated that depressed mood was associated not only with a tendency initially to underestimate length of sleep (relative discrepancy), but also to exaggerate reported sleep time regardless of direction (absolute discrepancy). These results imply that studies that examine relationships between reported sleep times and mortality should take mental health factors into account.     

Global Health Crisis,Global Health Response: How Global Health Experiences Prepared North American Physicians for the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic plunged hospital systems into resource-deprived conditions unprecedented since the 1918 flu pandemic. It brought forward concerns around ethical management of scarcity, racism and distributive justice, cross-disciplinary collaboration, provider wellness, and other difficult themes. We, a group of medical educators and global health educators and clinicians, use the education literature to argue that experience gained through global health activities has greatly contributed to the effectiveness of the COVID-19 pandemic response in North American institutions. Support for global health educational activities is a valuable component of medical training, as they build skills and perspectives that are critical to responding to a pandemic or other health system cataclysm. We frame our argument as consideration of three questions that required rapid, effective responses in our home institutions during the pandemic: How can our health system function with new limitations on essential resources? How do we work at high intensity and volume, on a new disease, within new and evolving systems, while still providing high-quality, patient-centered care? And, how do we help personnel manage an unprecedented level of morbidity and mortality, disproportionately affecting the poor and marginalized, including moral difficulties of perceived care rationing?KEY WORDS: global health education, global health, medical education, COVID-19     

A brief overview of thoracic surgery in the United States

The 331 million people of the United States are served by a complex and expensive healthcare system that accounts for nearly 18% of the country’s gross domestic product. Over 90% of patients are insured by private or government-funded plans, but despite high coverage and unusually high healthcare spending, vast disparities exist within the United States population based on demographics in terms of diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes of disease. Thoracic surgeons in the United States are trained to treat patients with diseases of the chest in the operative and perioperative settings, and can accomplish this training through multiple highly competitive pathways. Thoracic surgeons perform an average of 135 operations each per year which address diseases of the lungs, trachea, esophagus, chest wall, mediastinum, and diaphragm. Video assisted thoracoscopic surgeries are the most commonly performed procedures, which are primarily completed to treat lung cancer. Lung cancer is the deadliest and second most prevalent malignancy in the United States, with over 200,000 new cases expected this year. In addition to encouragement of smoking cessation and more attention to air pollutants, increased access to lung cancer screening has significantly expedited diagnosis and reduced mortality from lung cancer in the last several years. Thoracic surgeons in the United States are tasked with treating common yet highly morbid diseases of the chest in a patient population that is diverse in terms of race, socioeconomic status, and healthcare insurance coverage. As the population ages and a shortage of thoracic surgeons looms, the importance of early diagnosis, skillful surgical management, and attention to the disparities that exist in our system cannot be overstated.     

Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program Educational Events Are Broadly Accepted and May Increase Knowledge,Self-Efficacy and Behavioral Intentions

The Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program (FMNP) in the U.S. provides coupons for the purchase of fruit and vegetables (FV) to pregnant women and children enrolled in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), and to income-eligible adults 60+ years of age. The New York State FMNP Education Event Guide was developed to support cooperative extension educators in providing information, food tastings, and cooking demonstrations at farmers’ markets (FM) to encourage consumption of FV. This paper describes implementation at seven FM in New York City, and shopping and eating behaviors in a cross-sectional survey of FM shoppers (n = 377). Three of nine lessons were implemented more than once, typically with food sampling (78.9%). FM shoppers were primarily women (81.5%), racially diverse (30.5% Black, 23.1% White), frequent shoppers (2.4 times/month), and had high FV consumption (2.24 cups fruit; 2.44 cups vegetables daily). Most FM shoppers participated in the FM education event (84%), and participants and non-participants had equivalent shopping and eating behaviors. More than 70% of FM education participants believed that the event positively impacted their knowledge, self-efficacy, and behavioral intentions. FMNP education events at FM were broadly accepted by FM shoppers of all characteristics, and may improve knowledge, self-efficacy, and behavioral intention.