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Objectives Haiti remains a principal placement country for intercountry adoptees to the United States. This project reports the health status of children adopted from Haiti arriving to the U.S. and compares them to intercountry adoptees from other regions. Methods A retrospective chart review was conducted of adoptees placed in the U.S. from Haiti (n=87), age and sex matched with intercountry adoptees placed in the U.S. from Asia (n=87) and Latin America (n=87) between January 2010 and November 2019. Data on immunization status, contagious diseases, and nutrition and growth were analyzed via linear, logistic, and multinomial regression. Results After adjusting for age, sex, and standardized height, children adopted from Haiti, compared to adoptees from Latin America and Asia, demonstrated a lack of immunity to hepatitis B (OR=5.89;6.87), increased immunity to hepatitis A (OR=0.38;0.30), infection by two or more parasites (OR=8.43;38.48), high lead levels (OR=23.79;7.04), and anemia (OR=15.25;9.18). Unexpectedly, children adopted from Haiti had greater standardized height (-1.28 vs. -1.82 and -2.13) and standardized weight (-0.32 vs. -0.57 and -1.57) than their counterparts from Latin America and Asia. Conclusions Children adopted from Haiti face complex medical challenges undoubtedly related to the country's low socioeconomic status (SES) and the impact of recurrent natural disasters and governmental neglect on public health infrastructure. Appropriate care is critical in preventing and avoiding transmission of infectious diseases in adoptees and family members. The high incidence of anemia and elevated lead levels may further exacerbate the developmental effects of early institutional deprivation., Author(s): Priya E. George [sup.1] , Anna V. Gamble [sup.1] , Elise F. Palzer [sup.2] , Ann M. Brearley [sup.2] , Dana E. Johnson [sup.3] , Judith K. Eckerle [sup.1] [...]

The use of real and relevant data in the statistics classroom is an ideal for many teachers of statistics, as these offer clear benefits for engagement with the kinds of real world applications that students will encounter in the future. Yet, the time required to identify and obtain well-documented data and to prepare classroom teaching materials is often prohibitive. In this paper we review the many benefits of using real and relevant data, and use these to define the characteristics of a well-documented health sciences data resource. We review the barriers to using real and relevant data in teaching. Lastly, we introduce the Teaching of Statistics in the Health Sciences (TSHS) Resources Portal (https://www.causeweb.org/tshs/), a source for well-documented health-related datasets and teaching materials. This dynamic resource provides a means to both obtain and contribute peer-reviewed educational materials. The target audience of the tool is teachers of statistics in health sciences settings, particularly those who teach introductory and applied courses in the graduate or post-graduate setting, but we expect that other statistics educators seeking rich, well-documented datasets will also find the Portal a useful resource.

Kangaroo care (KC), skin-to-skin contact between infants and caregivers, is encouraged in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) to support health through improved weight, growth, and infant–maternal attachment while reducing the incidence of sepsis and infant pain. However, the optimal duration and frequency of KC to maximize health outcomes is unknown. Given parents' time stressors, identifying optimal KC time is critical. A literature review was undertaken on May 28, 2021 via querying the PubMed database from January 1, 1995, to May 28, 2021, regarding KC and NICUs with 442 results. Eleven studies met the eligibility criteria of (1) comparative KC between infants and adult caregivers in NICUs as a randomized controlled trial, (2) peer-reviewed articles in English, (3) study subjects ≥5, (4) health outcomes, and (5) KC sessions >1. Infant physical growth parameters, infant neurodevelopment, infant stress via salivary cortisol levels, and breastfeeding outcomes appear to increase with KC as compared with standard care (SC) without KC. Improvements were observed with longer KC duration, 2 h/d as compared with 1 h/d, for neurodevelopment and breastfeeding outcomes, but no greater improvement with longer KC duration was shown for reducing infant stress through salivary cortisol levels. Regarding maternal stress, the influence of KC duration showed mixed Parental Stressor Score: NICU scores. Further study on the impact of KC duration and frequency on health outcomes and dose–response relationship would help determine how much and how frequent KC is needed to improve specific health outcomes for infants and their mothers. Key Points Data on kangaroo care duration's health impacts is lacking. Establishing dose–response for kangaroo care is needed. Kangaroo care for longer improves some but not all outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Severe neonatal jaundice and its progression to kernicterus is a leading cause of death and disability among newborns in poorly-resourced countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. The standard treatment for jaundice using conventional phototherapy (CPT) with electric artificial blue light sources is often hampered by the lack of (functional) CPT devices due either to financial constraints or erratic electrical power. In an attempt to make phototherapy (PT) more readily available for the treatment of pathologic jaundice in underserved tropical regions, we set out to test the hypothesis that filtered sunlight phototherapy (FS-PT), in which potentially harmful ultraviolet and infrared rays are appropriately screened, will be as efficacious as CPT. Methods/design This prospective, non-blinded randomized controlled non-inferiority trial seeks to enroll infants with elevated total serum/plasma bilirubin (TSB, defined as 3 mg/dl below the level recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics for high-risk infants requiring PT) who will be randomly and equally assigned to receive FS-PT or CPT for a total of 616 days at an inner-city maternity hospital in Lagos, Nigeria. Two FS-PT canopies with pre-tested films will be used. One canopy with a film that transmits roughly 33% blue light (wavelength range: 400 to 520 nm) will be used during sunny periods of a day. Another canopy with a film that transmits about 79% blue light will be used during overcast periods of the day. The infants will be moved from one canopy to the other as needed during the day with the goal of keeping the blue light irradiance level above 8 μW/cm2/nm. Primary outcome: FS-PT will be as efficacious as CPT in reducing the rate of rise in bilirubin levels. Secondary outcome: The number of infants requiring exchange transfusion under FS-PT will not be more than those under CPT. Conclusion This novel study offers the prospect of an effective treatment for infants at risk of severe neonatal jaundice and avoidable exchange transfusion in poorly-resourced settings without access to (reliable) CPT in the tropics. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01434810

This paper reinvestigates the use of transient fluorescence spectroscopy of polar aromatics in solution as a method to determine microscopic solvation dynamics. It is shown that the compounds previously employed as polar fluorescent probes tend to fall into three photophysical classes depending upon: (i) whether the photon induced change in μ occurs simultaneously with photon absorption (ii) whether solvent motion subsequent to photon absorption is required to induce the change in μ; or (iii) whether two excited-state isomers with different μ’s are present simultaneously. The consequence of the different classes on microscopic solvation dynamic measurements is discussed with a molecular example for each class: (i) 4-aminophthalimide, (ii) 4-(9-anthryl)-N, N-dimethylaniline, and (iii) bianthryl, respectively. In addition, we introduce a new transient fluorescence procedure for the determination of solvation dynamics that has advantages over the traditional transient Stokes-shift method. Finally, for the first time, extensive measurements on the solvation dynamics of a polar aprotic solvent have been made. The observed dynamics of the solvent (glycerol triacetate) are highly nonexponential; this has important implications for chemical reactions in similar solvents. Interestingly, the experimentally observed microscopic dynamics are in qualitative agreement with predictions of the dielectric continuum model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]