Making a Visual Impression (or Not): Current Design Practices of Nutritional Websites

Understanding the influence of visual design, as the access point for online health communication, is key as Americans are increasingly sickened by an obesity epidemic. Nutritional websites that deliver critical health information should be considered as a potential strategy to fight against the grave consequences of obesity, as research indicates that consumers are consistently turning to the Internet as a resource for health information. Focusing on nutritional websites, this study analyzes the use of visual design principles that are known to greatly influence first impressions and appeal of the information from the user’s perspective. The results suggest there are opportunities for improvement to the online communication of nutritional information to increase the likelihood of users’ favorable first impressions, the critical first steps for nutritional information delivery goals.     

What Family Support Specialists Do: Examining Service Delivery

This study describes services provided by family support specialists (FSS), peer advocates in programs for children with serious psychiatric conditions, to delineate differences between recommended components of FSS services and services actually provided. An analysis of qualitative interview and observational data and quantitative survey data from 63 staff at 21 mental health programs in New York identified that FSS and other staff have generally similar ideas about FSS services, and that these perceptions of activities are generally congruent with what FSS actually did. Implications of findings are discussed in the context of developing competencies and quality indicators for FSS.     

Swine-to-Human Transmission of Influenza A(H3N2) Virus at Agricultural Fairs,Ohio, USA, 2012

Agricultural fairs provide an opportunity for bidirectional transmission of influenza A viruses. We sought to determine influenza A virus activity among swine at fairs in the United States. As part of an ongoing active influenza A virus surveillance project, nasal swab samples were collected from exhibition swine at 40 selected Ohio agricultural fairs during 2012. Influenza A(H3N2) virus was isolated from swine at 10 of the fairs. According to a concurrent public health investigation, 7 of the 10 fairs were epidemiologically linked to confirmed human infections with influenza A(H3N2) variant virus. Comparison of genome sequences of the subtype H3N2 isolates recovered from humans and swine from each fair revealed nucleotide identities of >99.7%, confirming zoonotic transmission between swine and humans. All influenza A(H3N2) viruses isolated in this study, regardless of host species or fair, were >99.5% identical, indicating that 1 virus strain was widely circulating among exhibition swine in Ohio during 2012.