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Social forces shape people's reproductive health in many ways. We examined people's knowledge about reproductive health using focus group data collected from 93 participants in rural districts of Malawi. Participants' perspectives were contextualized by explaining the socioeconomic, cultural, and gender factors that determine reproductive health for rural Malawians. Strategies to improve reproductive health care in environments lacking in health infrastructure, staff, and economic resources are then provided. We call for a reproductive health agenda to target preventive care by providing information about anatomy and biology, communicating information in culturally competent ways, and educating men and women over the life course.

Hepatitis B virus (HBV)-specific T-cell responses are important in the natural history of HBV infection. The number of known HBV-specific T-cell epitopes is limited, and it is not clear whether viral evolution occurs in chronic HBV infection. We aimed to identify novel HBV T-cell epitopes by examining the relationship between HBV sequence variation and the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) type in a large prospective clinic-based cohort of Asian patients with chronic HBV infection recruited in Australia and China ( n = 119). High-resolution 4-digit HLA class I and II typing and full-length HBV sequencing were undertaken for treatment-naïve individuals (52% with genotype B, 48% with genotype C, 63% HBV e antigen [HBeAg] positive). Statistically significant associations between HLA types and HBV sequence variation were identified ( n = 49) at 41 sites in the HBV genome. Using prediction programs, we determined scores for binding between peptides containing these polymorphisms and associated HLA types. Among the regions that could be tested, HLA binding was predicted for 14/18 (78%). We identified several HLA-associated polymorphisms involving likely known anchor residues that resulted in altered predicted binding scores. Some HLA-associated polymorphisms fell within known T-cell epitopes with matching HLA restriction. Enhanced viral adaptation (defined as the presence of the relevant HLA and the escaped amino acid) was independently associated with HBeAg-negative disease ( P = 0.003). Thus, HBV appears to be under immune pressure in chronic HBV infection, particularly in HBeAg-negative disease.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is an enormous public health problem that results in injury, health problems, and substantial cost to society. Despite having a grasp of the scope of IPV, public health officials and workers know little about how to prevent it. The few empirically established primary prevention programs consist of school-based curricula targeting high school students. Additional venues for IPV prevention are needed, especially for women at elevated risk. This article describes a preventive intervention for IPV consisting of three components: (a) a structured assessment for IPV; (b) a brochure-driven intervention for women experiencing IPV, including safety planning, referrals, and advocacy; and (c) a skills-based curriculum delivered to all participants that focuses on improving relationship decisions and outcomes. While this intervention could potentially be delivered in a multitude of clinical settings, this article focuses on its delivery within a home visitation program for young, disadvantaged new mothers, a population known to be at increased risk for IPV. If found to be effective, this intervention could be incorporated into many service delivery systems, with broad-based clinical implications for IPV prevention.

This study compares work–family policy use among low wage, predominately female call center workers and their more highly paid managers. Both formal policies and the informal work–family arrangements that employees negotiate with their supervisors were examined. Consistent with the work devotion perspective, it was found that formal work–family policies are more widely used among hourly workers than managers, and those with better performance evaluations are less likely than their otherwise similar coworkers to use formal work–family policies. The ability to negotiate informal work–family arrangements and use them as a supplement to formal policies is also important to workers in this study, especially women with children and those providing care to people with special needs. Access to informal arrangements may be limited to the high performers, however. Overall, this research suggests that the work devotion framework, which derives from studies of elite workers, may be more broadly applicable than previously assumed.

Critical race theory (CRT) scholarship combines empirical and experiential knowledges, frequently in the form of storytelling, chronicles, or other creative narratives. This chapter utilizes CRT in education to challenge the silences of race-neutral storytelling in order to discuss the race-related stress Faculty of Color confront when navigating through historically White universities. Critical race scholars have expanded on Pierce's research to address how People of Color are experiencing and responding to racial microaggressions within and beyond the academy. CRT provides a useful tool to identify, analyze, and challenge racism in education and society. Certainly there are elements of fiction in the story, but the composite characters are grounded in real-life experiences, actual empirical data, and contextualized in social situations that are also grounded in real life, not fiction. Keywords:critical race theory (CRT); racial microaggressions; racism; white universities