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In 1992, the four medical schools in North Carolina and the state's dental school initiated a four-year project to more thoroughly integrate content about substance abuse into their curricula. The processes by which key faculty, administrators, and staff from all schools worked together, with each school tailoring the project's findings to its own students' needs, are discussed. (Author/MSE)

This study investigates the relationships between neighbourhood change and spatial transformation in the North Carolina Piedmont region between 1980 and 2010. The dominant patterns of neighbourhood change, on the one hand, conform to some classical models of metropolitan structure, and, on the other hand, provide new insights on what has been ignored by those models. Trajectories of neighbourhood change reflect both persistent segregation and increasing diversification. A detailed analysis of trajectories of neighbourhood change points to interesting patterns in both central-city and suburban ecological succession and transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Governor's Focus on Servicemembers, Veterans, and Their Families is a coalition of federal, state, and local agencies and professional and consumer organizations. Its goal is to develop and maximize public and private services and supports for service members in active and reserve components of the armed forces, veterans, and their families.

This qualitative study explores smoking cessation during pregnancy and the factors that contribute to remaining smoke-free and relapsing. Ninety-four women attending prenatal clinics in central North Carolina who had quit smoking before 30 weeks gestation were enrolled in an observational study that included a face-to-face interview at 4 months postpartum. Results were analyzed for common themes in the two groups: those who remained smoke-free and those who had relapsed. Fetal health motivated pregnant women to quit smoking, while stress, socializing with smokers, cravings, and easy access to cigarettes tempted women to smoke. Women who remained smoke-free postpartum overcame temptations by continuing to acknowledge the health benefits of not smoking and having a strong internal belief system, significant social support, negative experiences with renewed exposure to cigarettes, and concrete strategies for dealing with temptations. For women who relapsed postpartum, factors having the greatest influence on relapse included easy access to cigarettes, lack of social and financial support, insufficient resources for coping with the challenges of childrearing, physical addiction, reliance on cigarettes as a primary form of stress management, and feelings of regret, shame, or low self-esteem. Recommendations for relapse prevention include assessing women who quit during pregnancy for low or high risk of relapse and offering comprehensive interventions and case management for those at higher risk to address the physical, mental, behavioral, and social contexts leading to relapse.