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Objectives: To examine perceptions of Sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) policies and programs focused on the first 1000 days-gestation through age 2 years-among community stakeholders in Washington Heights and the South Bronx, two neighborhoods in New York City with disproportionately high prevalence of childhood obesity., Methods: A multilevel framework informed interview guide development. Using purposeful sampling, we recruited study participants who were (1) able to speak English or Spanish and (2) resided or employed in Washington Heights or the South Bronx. Participants included community leaders (local government officials, community board members, and employees from community- and faith-based organizations) as well as community members. Trained research staff conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews. Using immersion/crystallization and template style coding, the study team performed thematic analysis until no new relevant themes emerged., Results: Among the 19 female study participants, perceived facilitators to SSB policy and program implementation included sustained partnerships with broad coalitions; continual education and clear messaging; and increased accessibility to healthier beverages. Perceived barriers included systems-level challenges accessing programs that support healthy beverage options, and individual-level lack of access to affordable healthy beverages. Acceptable potential intervention strategies included messaging that emphasizes health in pregnancy and infancy; policies that require healthy beverages as the default option in restaurants; and policies that remove SSBs from childcare settings. Some strongly favored SSB excise taxes while others opposed them, but all participants supported reinvestment of SSB tax revenue into health resources among marginalized communities., Conclusions: A multi-pronged approach that incorporates engagement, access, equitable reinvestment of revenue, and continual clear messaging may facilitate implementation of policies and programs to reduce SSB consumption in the first 1000 days., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

There is anecdotal and incidental research evidence suggesting that self-inflicted injury is experienced as less painful than when the same injury is applied by another person. We tested the hypothesis that the sensitivity and the ability to tolerate pain differs depending on the person applying the painful stimulus. Self-selected healthy undergraduate students were obtained from the University of Stirling participant panel. None were suffering chronic pain or taking any form of analgesic drug. The participants applied a pressure algometer to themselves and to other participants. Depending on the type of trial, each was terminated when the participant experienced the algometer as either "painful" (for threshold reading) or "unbearable" (for tolerance reading). Both measures of pain, threshold and tolerance, were significantly higher when the algometer had been self-applied compared with when it was applied by another person. The mean difference for pain thresholds was 0.27MPa (95% confidence interval 0.10-0.44, P=0.002), and the mean difference for pain tolerance readings was 0.25MPa (95% confidence interval 0.03-0.48, P=0.028). An unexpected finding was that the mean tolerance score was less when females applied the algometer (P<0.01). When a painful stimulus was self-inflicted this resulted in significantly less pain and a greater ability to tolerate the pain compared with when the same stimulus was applied by another person. If the findings generalized to a clinical context, certain painful or discomforting procedures, such as mammography, removal of wound dressings and lancet withdrawal of blood, should be adapted for self-application by patients.