Evaluation of a burn prevention program in a public school system.

The "Learn Not to Burn" prevention program is a burn prevention curriculum sponsored by the North Carolina Jaycee Burn Center, the State Department of Public Instruction, and the North Carolina Department of Insurance Fire and Rescue Division. The goal of the program is to reduce burn-related deaths and injuries in North Carolina through burn prevention education by making the "Learn Not to Burn" curriculum available to primary school children across the state at no cost to the schools. The curriculum instrument is a reusable notebook that provides a means for teachers to integrate burn prevention into regular class subject areas. At the time of initiation of this study approximately 70% of the school systems in North Carolina had been provided with the "Learn Not to Burn" curriculum.     

Sleep Problems among Mothers of Youth Stopped by the Police

Police stops are the most common form of criminal justice exposure in the USA, and are particularly common among urban youth, with 23% of them reporting a stop by the age of 15. While recent work has begun to illuminate the health impacts of police stops for these youth, little is known about the health consequences of youth police contact for the mothers of youth stopped by the police. The current study employs data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS), a sample of urban, at-risk youth and their families. Multivariate logistic regression models are conducted to examine the link between youth police stops and sleep difficulties among mothers. Additional analyses examine whether the features and consequences of police stops are associated with sleep difficulties among mothers. The findings indicate that mothers with youth who have experienced police stops are more than twice as likely to report both depression- and anxiety-related sleep difficulties compared to their counterparts. Furthermore, stops with certain features—including those characterized by intrusiveness, high trauma, and high stigma—emerged as consistently significant predictors of maternal sleep difficulties. The findings suggest that mothers who are vicariously exposed to police contact via their children are a vulnerable group. Given the non-random distribution of police contact across the population of youth, with police contact concentrated among children of color, the findings suggest that police contact may exacerbate racial inequalities in sleep, which may itself contribute to racial disparities in broader mental and physical health outcomes.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11524-021-00518-1.     

Efficacy of the lithotripsy in treating lower pole renal stones

Use of extracorporeal lithotripsy is declining in North America and many European countries despite international guidelines advocating it as a first-line therapy. Traditionally, lithotripsy is thought to have poor efficacy at treating lower pole renal stones. We evaluated the success rates of lithotripsy for lower pole renal stones in our unit. 50 patients with lower pole kidney stones ≤15 mm treated between 3/5/11 and 19/4/12 were included in the study. Patients received lithotripsy on a fixed-site Storz Modulith SLX F2 lithotripter according to a standard protocol. Clinical success was defined as stone-free status or asymptomatic clinically insignificant residual fragments (CIRFs) ≤3 mm at radiological follow-up. The mean stone size was 7.8 mm. The majority of stones (66 %) were between 5 and 10 mm. 28 % of stones were between 10 and 15 mm. For solitary lower pole stones complete stone clearance was achieved in 63 %. Total stone clearance including those with CIRFs was achieved in 81 % of patients. As expected, for those with multiple lower pole stones the success rates were lower: complete clearance was observed in 39 % and combined clearance including those with CIRFs was 56 %. Overall, complete stone clearance was observed in 54 % of patients and clearance with CIRFs was achieved in 72 % of patients. Success rate could not be attributed to age, stone size or gender. Our outcome data for the treatment of lower pole renal stones (≤15 mm) compare favourably with the literature. With this level of stone clearance, a non-invasive, outpatient-based treatment like lithotripsy should remain the first-line treatment option for lower pole stones. Ureteroscopy must prove that it is significantly better either in terms of clinical outcome or patient satisfaction to justify replacing lithotripsy.     

Online respiratory-waveform analysis using a digital desk calculator

A system for acquiring airway pressure, flow (from a pneumotachometer) and O₂ and CO₂ concentration (from a mass spectrometer) waveforms is described. Analogue signals from these sources, as well as from gas and pneumotachometer case-temperature circuits, are interfaced with a programmable digital desk calculator. The patient-read program, in five blocks, is described in detail. Major features are: a zero-flow and gas-calibration block, which automatically switches the strain gauges to ambient air and the mass spectrometer to calibration gas; a data-acquisition block which matches flow and gas signals in time, acquires mechanics and gas-exchange data for inspiratory and expiratory cycles separately, acquires mechanics data alone in the absence of a gas waveform, and records data at the onset of the CO₂ ‘plateau’ during expiration; a data-calculation block which averages data for the number of respiratory cycles read, corrects flow readings for gas viscosity and temperature, and calculates mechanics and gas-exchange data; and a printout block which prints only data falling within arbitrary limits. A flow-calibration program using a valveless piston pump is also described. The total system is portable, relatively inexpensive and, since most of it functions automatically, may be used by untrained personnel.