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Objective: We sought to determine how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted academic health sciences library workshops. We hypothesized that health sciences libraries moved workshops online during the height of the pandemic and that they continued to offer workshops virtually after restrictions were eased. Additionally, we believed that attendance increased. Methods: In March 2022, we invited 161 Association of American Health Sciences Libraries members in the US and Canada to participate in a Qualtrics survey about live workshops. Live workshops were defined as synchronous; voluntary; offered to anyone regardless of school affiliation; and not credit-bearing. Three time periods were compared, and a chi square test of association was conducted to evaluate the relationship between time period and workshop format. Results: Seventy-two of 81 respondents offered live workshops. A chi square test of association indicated a significant association between time period and primary delivery method, chi-square (4, N=206) = 136.55, p< .005. Before March 2020, 77% of respondents taught in person. During the height of the pandemic, 91% taught online and 60% noted higher attendance compared to pre-pandemic numbers. During the second half of 2021, 65% of workshops were taught online and 43% of respondents felt that attendance was higher than it was pre-pandemic. Overall workshop satisfaction was unchanged (54%) or improved (44%). Conclusion: Most health sciences librarians began offering online workshops following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. More than half of respondents were still teaching online in the second half of 2021. Some respondents reported increased attendance with similar levels of satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schools in the United States increasingly incorporate social–emotional learning (SEL) as a part of comprehensive youth suicide prevention programs in schools. We reviewed the literature to investigate the inclusion of SEL in youth suicide prevention efforts. We identified several known risk factors to youth suicide, namely, hopelessness, anxiety, substance use, and child sexual abuse, then cross-walked that review to SEL competencies shown to mitigate each of those known risk factors. We found all SEL competencies, to some extent, across all the evidence-based, school-based youth suicide prevention programs we identified. Further, we found that all five SEL competencies are shown directly to address and mitigate the major, known risk factors for youth suicide. These findings suggest that SEL can play a productive role in upstream youth suicide prevention. State-level policy makers and school administrators should consider the inclusion of evidence-based SEL in efforts to address youth suicide prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This survey study examined augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) practices reported by early intervention speech-language pathologists (SLPs) across the United States (N = 376). The study examined (a) types of AAC that SLPs reported using (i.e., sign language, photographs, pictures, symbols, talking switches, and iPad apps or dedicated speech-generating devices); (b) SLPs' perspectives on the influence of child spoken language ability on AAC recommendations; (c) factors that influenced AAC decision-making within early intervention; and (d) perceived barriers associated with AAC implementation. SLPs reported that they were significantly more likely to introduce all types of AAC to children without spoken language abilities compared to children in later stages of language development. On average, they were most likely to report using or recommending sign language and photographs, and least likely to report using or recommending talking switches or speech-generating devices. Of the options provided, child expressive and receptive language abilities were rated as the most important factors to consider when determining AAC use, followed by cognitive ability, diagnosis, and chronological age. SLPs identified caregiver buy-in and carryover across providers as the most significant barriers to AAC implementation. Recommendations for future research and current AAC practices within early intervention are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oral health is a key component of overall health and there is a cost to not including it in the value-based transformation conversation. Health care needs to break down the silos that exist between dentistry and medicine so we can leverage integration to achieve value-based care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classroom teachers' responses to a 2-year professional development program are presented. Sixteen 4th- and 5th-grade teachers involved in Project SPARK completed structured interviews, questionnaires, and written evaluations of program sessions. Although in Year 1 more than half of the teachers expressed concerns about schedules and equipment management, results indicated that the program helped increase their self-confidence when teaching physical education. Participants believed that students benefitted from their enhanced knowledge and instructional behaviors. Program components most appreciated included: the input received and responsiveness of the design team; opportunities to collaborate, discuss concerns, and problem-solve with each other and the facilitators; and having on-site and large-group-session modeling. Results indicated that the teachers were less enthusiastic about a self-management curriculum due to its behavioral emphasis, yet supported the assertion that an ongoing, supportive professional development program can substantially improve classroom teachers' physical education programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To partially address the opioid crisis, some complementary and integrative health (CIH) therapies are now recommended for chronic musculoskeletal pain, a common condition presented in primary care. As such, health care systems are increasingly offering CIH therapies, and the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), the nation's largest integrated health care system, has been at the forefront of this movement. However, little is known about the uptake of CIH among patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain. As such, we conducted the first study of the use of a variety of nonherbal CIH therapies among a large patient population having chronic musculoskeletal pain. Materials and methods: We examined the frequency and predictors of CIH therapy use using administrative data for a large retrospective cohort of younger veterans with chronic musculoskeletal pain using the VHA between 2010 and 2013 (n = 530,216). We conducted a 2-year effort to determine use of nine types of CIH by using both natural language processing data mining methods and administrative and CPT4 codes. We defined chronic musculoskeletal pain as: (1) having 2+ visits with musculoskeletal diagnosis codes likely to represent chronic pain separated by 30–365 days or (2) 2+ visits with musculoskeletal diagnosis codes within 90 days and with 2+ numeric rating scale pain scores ≥4 at 2+ visits within 90 days. Results: More than a quarter (27%) of younger veterans with chronic musculoskeletal pain used any CIH therapy, 15% used meditation, 7% yoga, 6% acupuncture, 5% chiropractic, 4% guided imagery, 3% biofeedback, 2% t'ai chi, 2% massage, and 0.2% hypnosis. Use of any CIH therapy was more likely among women, single patients, patients with three of the six pain conditions, or patients with any of the six pain comorbid conditions. Conclusions: Patients appear willing to use CIH approaches, given that 27% used some type. However, low rates of some specific CIH suggest the potential to augment CIH use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While travelers to antebellum New Orleans consistently commented on a pervasive French aura in the city, exactly what and who defined this Frenchness was in flux over the first half of the nineteenth century. From the city's earliest days, residents constructed myriad and often conflicting definitions of Frenchness, but most versions associated the Frenchness of New Orleans with the city's mixedrace character. Colonial society exhibited a tripartite racial structure that legally situated free people of color, many of whom had mixed-race ancestry, between white individuals and enslaved people. Culturally and socially, however, mixedrace Francophones, known as gens de couleur libres, had for decades existed on a relatively equal footing with white Francophones. But beginning slowly in the 1830s and accelerating in the 1850s, the tripartite racial structure of New Orleans gave way to a binary one. As part of this legal, social and cultural shift, white Francophone New Orleanians began to dissociate Frenchness from its mixed-race past. They emphasized their whiteness as a way of associating themselves with Americans, thereby augmenting their own power and lessening that of gens de couleur libres. Elite gens de couleur libres countered by deploying cultural resources that demonstrated their Frenchness and its mixed-race essence. One of their most potent tools was fashion. As consumers and producers of French fashion, elite gens de couleur libres wielded their influence over New Orleans's French material culture to counter the regressive race relations of this cosmopolitan city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rising textbook costs are a concern for students, instructors, and educational institutions. In an effort to address this concern, the University at Buffalo Libraries administered a student-based e-textbook pilot program in the spring and summer of 2013. The study was designed to assess students' evolving attitudes toward e-textbooks and to explore more sustainable e-textbook implementation models. A total of 314 students across courses, grade levels, and disciplines were provided with free access to CourseSmart's e-book platform. Usage data and attitudinal data were collected and analyzed. Library insights into student-based e-textbook implementation programs are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Like other visible characteristics such as skin color, gender, or age, body size is a diffuse status characteristic that impacts perceptions, interactions, and social outcomes. Studies demonstrate that individuals hold preconceived notions about what it means to be fat and document a long list of negative stereotypes associated with fat individuals, including laziness, unintelligence, and incompetence. Such perceptions have consequences for employment, including decisions about hiring, promotion, compensation, and dismissal. In this article, we examine how body size and race interact to affect individuals’ perceptions of success, competence, health, laziness, and masculinity. Based on undergraduate students’ ratings of photographs of men, our findings demonstrate significant differences between evaluations of black and white men based on body size. Thin white men are perceived to be more intelligent, more successful, and more competent than their thin black counterparts. However, these results reverse when the men are overweight: overweight black men are seen as more intelligent and more competent than overweight white men. They are also seen as more successful and hardworking and more masculine. These results suggest that the stigma of body size differently impacts black and white men; individuals judge overweight white men more negatively than overweight black men. We discuss two possible explanations for these findings: black threat neutralization and race-based attribution theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors discuss evolution of the culture of risk in the U.S. financial market. They examine the rise of a speculative, aggressive and short-term financial culture that has misdirected the social role of financial markets. Among such roles are to promote economic growth, encourage long-term investments, and promote accountability of financial institutions. They examine the issues behind the meltdown of the financial market in the years 2007-2009.

In the years since the September 11 attacks, scholars and commentators have criticized the emergence of both legal developments and policy rhetoric that blur the lines between war and terrorism. Unrecognized, but equally as damaging to democratic ideals--and potentially more devastating in practical effect--is the expansion of this trend beyond the context of terrorism to a much wider field of nonwar emergencies. Indeed, in recent years, war and national security rhetoric has come to permeate the legal and policy conversations on a wide variety of natural and technological disasters. This melding of disaster and war for purposes of justifying exceptions to ordinary constitutional and democratic norms is particularly apparent in governmental restrictions on the flow of its communications in disasters, as limitations on information flow that might be warranted when there are thinking enemies (such as in times of war) are invoked in disaster scenarios lacking such thinking enemies. The extension of wartime transparency exceptionalism into nonthinking-enemy disasters--reflected in both legislation and official rhetoric--risks the illegitimate construction of enemies by government, the unwarranted transformation of public spaces into war zones from which the public can be more easily excluded, and the inappropriate reliance on notions of the "fog of war" to justify communication failures and overbroad access restrictions. Only by consciously disaggregating dissimilar forms of emergencies and removing the rhetoric of war from disaster decisionmaking can the government make appropriate determinations about the provision of information in times of community or national crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The health maintenance examination is an opportunity to focus on disease prevention and health promotion. The patient history should include screening for tobacco use, alcohol misuse, intimate partner violence, and depression. Premenopausal women should receive preconception counseling and contraception as needed, and all women planning or capable of pregnancy should take 400 to 800 mcg of folic acid per day. High-risk sexually active women should be counseled on reducing the risk of sexually transmitted infections, and screened for chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis. All women should be screened for human immunodeficiency virus. Adults should be screened for obesity and elevated blood pressure. Women 20 years and older should be screened for dyslipidemia if they are at increased risk of coronary heart disease. Those with sustained blood pressure greater than 135/80 mm Hg should be screened for type 2 diabetes mellitus. Women 55 to 79 years of age should take 75 mg of aspirin per day when the benefits of stroke reduction outweigh the increased risk of gastrointestinal hemorrhage. Women should begin cervical cancer screening by Papanicolaou test at 21 years of age, and if results have been normal, screening may be discontinued at 65 years of age or after total hysterectomy. Breast cancer screening with mammography may be considered in women 40 to 49 years of age based on patients' values, and potential benefits and harms. Mammography is recommended biennially in women 50 to 74 years of age. Women should be screened for colorectal cancer from 50 to 75 years of age. Osteoporosis screening is recommended in women 65 years and older, and in younger women with a similar risk of fracture. Adults should be immunized at recommended intervals according to guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite popular claims that racism and discrimination are no longer salient issues in contemporary society, members of racially underrepresented groups continue to experience disparate treatment in everyday public interactions. The context of full-service restaurants is one such public setting wherein African Americans, in particular, encounter racial prejudices and discriminatory treatment. To further understand the pervasiveness of such anti-Black attitudes and actions within the restaurant context, this article analyzes primary survey data derived from a community sample of servers (N = 200). Participants were asked a series of questions ascertaining information about the racial climate of their workplaces. Findings reveal substantial server negativity toward African Americans’ tipping and dining behaviors. Racialized discourse and discriminatory behaviors are also shown to be quite common in the restaurant context. The anti-Black attitudes and actions that the authors document in this research are illustrative of the continuing significance of race in contemporary society, and the authors encourage further research on this relatively neglected area of inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objectives: To identify perspectives on smoking cessation programs in Appalachian Kentucky, a region with particularly high smoking rates and poor health outcomes. Methods: Insufficient existing research led us to conduct 12 focus groups (smokers and nonsmokers) and 23 key informant interviews. Results: Several findings previously not described in this high-risk population include (1) transition from pro-tobacco culture toward advocacy for tobacco cessation approaches, (2) region-specific challenges to program access, and (3) strong and diverse social influences on cessation. Conclusions: To capitalize on changes from resistance to support for smoking cessation, leaders should incorporate culturally appropriate programs and characteristics identified here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the industrial organization and unionism of New York City laundry workers, focusing on the period 1930 to 1950. It explores issues of race and gender and notes that laundry workers were mainly women and people of color. The author considers tensions between trade union leaders and laundry workers. Unions examined include the Women's Trade Union League (WTUL), the American Federation of Labor (AFL)-affiliated Laundry Workers International Union (LWIU), the Congress of Industrial Organizations (ClO)-affiliated Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA), and the ACWA-affiliated Laundry Workers Joint Board of Greater New York (LWJB). The influence of communism is also discussed.

The article reports on the findings of a study and an inquiry about the K-2 school children's use and understanding of Internet and the implications of Internet use in teaching and education in the U.S. It looks into the range of digital literacies among children and offers insights for teachers, researchers, and parents to help educate them on the concepts, purposes, and safe uses of the Internet. It shows the limits of children's knowledge and opportunities for instruction about Internet use.

The article discusses the issues surrounding U.S. teachers' use of social networking media and their First Amendment rights. It suggests the formulation of a school district policy that lays the guidelines on the use of technology and social media. Cases of teachers who have been dismissed are reviewed. The authors also offer recommendations for the formulation of quality social networking policy.

The US. Forest Service and other federal agencies often face tough choices about how to reconcile competing congressional mandates for multiple use and environmental protection of public lands. The balance they achieve will determine the long-term health of many of our nation's ecosystems and the sustainability of the invaluable services they perform. Providing agency scientists and managers with the flexibility and systemic incentives to intelligently address the questions they face is therefore crucial. As the Forest Service actively reworks its planning rule, past failures provide valuable lessons about where improvements to biodiversity protections are needed and what forms they should take. The 2010 decision by the Ninth Circuit in Native Ecosystems Council v. Tidwell highlights some of the problems inherent in the current system, including a management indicator species mandate that lacks scientific support, front-loaded environmental analysis which fails to facilitate learning and perpetuates unsuccessful practices, and a lack of transparency in Forest Service decision making that can render the National Forest Management Act's biodiversity mandate judicially unenforceable. The new planning rule should address these deficiencies with strong requirements for native species viability, use of the best available science (including full disclosure of uncertainties), and a truly adaptive management framework based on ongoing monitoring, frequent reevaluation, and changed practices when failures occur. While the draft rule issued in Februaiy 2011 takes tentative steps in this direction, it does not achieve the meaningful, enforceable changes needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the weight discriminations in the U.S. It says that fat stigma in the country is widespread which lead to various social disadvantages for the overweight individuals such as employment discrimination, sexism and gender inequality. It mentions that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has declared the health risks of overweight and obesity including coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes and hypertension.

Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the most prevalent forms of this disease, with the medial compartment most commonly affected. The direction of external forces and limb orientation during walking results in an adduction moment that acts around the knee, and this parameter is regarded as a surrogate measure of medial knee compression. The knee adduction moment is intimately linked with the development and progression of knee OA and is, therefore, a target for conservative biomechanical intervention strategies, which are the focus of this Review. We examine the evidence for walking barefoot and the use of lateral wedge insoles and thin-soled, flexible shoes to reduce the knee adduction moment in patients with OA. We review strategies that directly affect the gait, such as walking with the foot externally rotated ('toe-out gait'), using a cane, lateral trunk sway and gait retraining. Valgus knee braces and muscle strengthening are also discussed for their effect upon reducing the knee adduction moment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental justice scholars have suggested that because chemical plants and other hazardous facilities emit more pollutants where they face the least resistance, disadvantaged communities face a special health risk. In trying to determine whether race or income has the bigger impact on a neighborhood’s exposure to pollution, however, scholars tend to overlook the facilities themselves and the effect of their characteristics on emissions. In particular, how do the characteristics of facilities and their surrounding communities jointly shape pollution outcomes? We propose a new line of environmental justice research that focuses on facilities and how their features combine with communities’ features to create dangerous emissions. Using novel fuzzy-set analysis techniques and the EPA’s newly developed Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators, we test the influence of facility and community factors on chemical plants’ health-threatening emissions. Contrary to the idea that community characteristics have singular, linear effects, findings show that facility and community factors combine in a variety of ways to produce risky emissions. We speculate that as chemical firms experiment with different ways of producing goods and externalizing pollution costs, new ‘‘recipes of risk’’ are likely to emerge. The question, then, will no longer be whether race or income matters most, but in which of these recipes do they matter and how. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Community health workers are recognized in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as important members of the health care workforce. The evidence shows that they can help improve health care access and outcomes; strengthen health care teams; and enhance quality of life for people in poor, underserved, and diverse communities. We trace how two states, Massachusetts and Minnesota, initiated comprehensive policies to foster far more utilization of community health workers and, in the case of Minnesota, to make their services reimbursable under Medicaid. We recommend that other states follow the lead of these states, further developing the workforce of community health workers, devising appropriate regulations and credentialing, and allowing the services of these workers to be reimbursed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Something is missing in the current discussion about economic policy to return the U.S. economy to growth. One side calls for more stimulus; the other worries about driving up the deficit. A stimulus might cure a crisis; a deficit could interfere with future monetary and fiscal policy. But even if the short-term crisis is overcome, without an unmanageable deficit, the long term awaits. And the authors contend that it presents a different set of problems that are not being faced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on why schools should engage parents and the community-at-large in curriculum development. It explains that many U.S. schools do not have the necessary information for developing a curriculum that will prepare students to cope with 21st-century experiences because they do not provide a solid direction and philosophical mission which community stakeholders can provide. It suggests a strong collaboration between curriculum specialists and public relations specialists who provide data on the evolving needs of community stakeholders.

An interview with American History Professor Nell Irvin Painter is presented. Topics include her book "The History of White People," the book's intent with regard to race relations in U.S. history, and the U.S. Naturalization Law of 1790 and its historical role in immigration of people of color to the U.S.

The article explores how the global economic crises has developed, what policies are being enacted to remedy the situation, and if these policies will be effective. It notes that the financial crisis in the U.S., which started in 2007, is deeply rooted in the decades of liberalization of the financial markets, that led to excesses and widespread misuse of those markets for rent-seeking. It discusses the monetary and financial solutions implemented by the U.S. since the economic bubble started. The role of the financial sector in solving the global economic crises is also explored.

The article discusses "Anglo-Saxonism," or glorification of the Anglo-Saxon heritage of Americans, in the thought of 19th-century American writer and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. The evolution of racial or proto-racial thinking about whiteness and white people in the United States is discussed, beginning with U.S. president Thomas Jefferson's admiration for the Anglo-Saxons of England, as well as mention by Emerson's mentor, Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle, of the bonds of Anglo-Saxon kinship between Britons and Americans. Emerson's book "English Traits" (1856), lauding the strong masculine characteristics of the English, said to be inherited from their Saxon ancestors, is also discussed.

The article describes the current global financial crises in 2009. It argues that the crises were a result of the misuse and inadequate understanding of several financial instruments like the mortgage backed securities (MBS) and collaterized debt obligations (CDO). Efforts of countries to fight the crisis include the issuance of new directives by the European Commission aimed at improving financial regulations in the U.S. and $700 billion rescue plan of the U.S. It also examines the role of the banking system in the finance sector.

We surveyed 157 Norwegian judges about their knowledge and beliefs about eyewitness testimony, and compared their answers to a prior survey of 160 US judges. Although the Norwegian judges were somewhat more knowledgeable than the US judges, both groups had limited knowledge of eyewitness testimony. The Norwegian judges, like the US judges, frequently differed from eyewitness experts in their responses to such important issues as whether eyewitness confidence is related to identification accuracy at trial and what is the best method for conducting identification procedures. As was true for the US judges, more knowledgeable Norwegian judges had many of the beliefs that may be necessary for reducing and mitigating the effects of eyewitness error. The results suggest that increasing judges' knowledge of eyewitness testimony may be an important component of the solution to eyewitness error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory research compares the characteristics of United States Millennials as portrayed by Howe and Strauss (2000), with those of a small sample of graduate Millennials from the University of Otago, New Zealand. Although the Otago data strongly supported some characteristics, such as team orientation and a strong sense of immediacy and connectivity, other characteristics such as parental co-purchasing were less supported. Characteristics such as social and religious conservatism had very limited support, while other characteristics were much stronger in the Otago environment than in the original seven characteristics - notably the expectations of higher education, the level of independence and modesty. The paper concludes with implications for tertiary teaching in New Zealand and elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]