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The U.S. psychology workforce is considerably less diverse than the population that it serves. While several recruitment and admission practices are effective for diversifying psychology training programs, upstream recruitment of underrepresented candidates is particularly promising. Aiming to diversify the clinical psychology graduate program applicant pool, the Student Training Equity Project (STEP) was developed to promote and evaluate upstream recruitment of undergraduate students of color interested in psychology graduate studies. This study used a mixed-method design to evaluate immediate outcomes for three STEP programmatic strategies. Survey results suggest that STEP networking events were associated with undergraduate research and mentorship opportunities. Findings suggest that STEP funding supported students in producing research products (e.g., manuscripts) that might bolster graduate application materials. STEP website engagement data showed over 1,000 views per year, and highlighted ways to improve outreach. More controlled evaluation is needed to determine whether STEP contributed to diversification of the applicant pool.

IntroductionThe innate immune response is an important first checkpoint in the evolution of an infection. Although adaptive immunity is generally considered the immune component that retains antigenic memory, innate immune responses can also be affected by previous stimulations. This study evaluated the impact of vaccination on innate cell activation by TLR7/8 agonist R848, as well as seasonal variations.MethodsTo this end, blood samples from a cohort of 304 food and retail workers from the Quebec City region were collected during three visits at 12-week intervals. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells and polymorphonuclear neutrophils were isolated during the first and third visits and were stimulated with R848 to assess the innate immune response.ResultsOur results show that IL-8 production after stimulation decreased after vaccination. In addition, the IL-8 response was significantly different depending on the season when the visit occurred, for both COVID-19 vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals.DiscussionThis study highlights that innate immune responses can be affected by SARS-CoV-2 vaccination and fluctuate seasonally.

Ping Du,1 Tiffany Cristarella,2 Camille Goyer,2 Yola Moride2,3 1Global Evidence and Outcomes, Takeda Development Center Americas, Inc., Cambridge, MA, USA; 2YolaRX Consultants Inc., Montreal, QC, Canada; 3Center for Pharmacoepidemiology and Treatment Sciences, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ, USACorrespondence: Ping Du, Email pd7561@gmail.comAbstract: Congenital (cTTP) and immune-mediated (iTTP) thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura are serious and rare clotting disorders resulting from a deficiency in the ADAMTS13 enzyme. A systematic review was conducted using the Ovid® MEDLINE & Embase databases to synthesize the epidemiology and burden of cTTP and iTTP worldwide (from January 1, 2010, to February 6, 2020, with an update that covered the period January 1, 2020–February 11, 2022). Outcomes of interest were incidence and prevalence of TTP, incidence of acute episodes, mortality, burden of illness (eg complications, healthcare utilization, patient-reported outcomes) and disease management. A total of 221 eligible observational studies were included. The incidence rate of acute episodes ranged from 0.19– 0.35 person-years in adult patients with cTTP, and 1.81– 3.93 per million persons per year for iTTP in the general population. Triggers of acute episodes were similar for cTTP and iTTP, with pregnancy and infection the most commonly observed. Exacerbation in patients with iTTP varied widely, ranging from 2.4– 63.1%. All-cause mortality was observed in 0– 13.4% of patients with cTTP, across studies and follow-up periods, and in 1.1% (median follow-up: 0.4 years) to 18.8% (1 year) of patients with iTTP during acute episodes. Cardiovascular, renal, and neurological disease were common complications. TTP also led to work disturbances, feelings of anxiety and depression, and general activity impairment. TTP treatment regimens used were generally reflective of current treatment guidelines. The evidence identified describes a high patient burden, highlighting the need for effective treatment regimens leading to improvements in outcomes. Considerable evidence gaps exist, particularly for disease epidemiology, patient-reported outcomes, costs of disease management, and associated healthcare resource utilization. This review may help increase disease awareness and highlights the need for additional real-world studies, particularly in geographical regions outside the United States and Western Europe.Keywords: thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, epidemiology, burden of illness, disease management, patient-reported outcomes, ADAMTS13

Potatoes are a globally significant food crop, valued not only for their caloric content but also for their significant contribution to vital nutrients for human health, such as vitamins, amino acids, and phenolic compounds. The chemical composition of potatoes—including ascorbic acid (a.k.a. vitamin C), tyrosine, chlorogenic acid, tryptophan, phenylalanine, protein, and thiamine (a.k.a. vitamin B1)—is highly influenced by nutrient management. However, the impact of potassium (K) fertilizer rates on potato quality remains largely unknown. Conducted over two years in Idaho and Oregon, this study investigates how K fertilization and cultivar impact the biochemical composition of potato tubers. Results showed that ascorbic acid content was higher in tubers grown in Idaho, especially in the cultivar Clearwater Russet, with a significant increase observed at the highest K fertilizer rate (896 kg ha−1). Tyrosine levels were largely influenced by cultivar, with Russet Burbank exhibiting substantially higher content, while K fertilization generally reduced tyrosine levels. Chlorogenic acid content was also higher in Idaho-grown tubers, while tryptophan and phenylalanine contents were notably higher in Russet Burbank, with tryptophan levels peaking in Oregon-grown tubers. The protein content of tubers was 23 % higher in 2020 compared to 2021, and on average, Russet Burbank had approximately 13 % higher protein content than Clearwater Russet. Thiamine content varied significantly between years, with a marked increase observed in 2021. These findings underscore the crucial role of environmental conditions, genetic factors, and nutrient management on the nutritional quality of potato tubers, offering valuable insights for optimizing crop production.

Suspensions remove students from the learning environment at high rates throughout the United States. Policy and theory highlight social groups that face disproportionately high suspension rates-racial-minoritized students, students with a prior suspension, and students with disabilities. We used an active placebo-controlled, longitudinal field experiment (Nteachers = 66, Nstudents = 5822) to test a scalable "empathic-mindset" intervention, a 45- to 70-min online exercise to refocus middle school teachers on understanding and valuing the perspectives of students and on sustaining positive relationships even when students misbehave. In preregistered analyses, this exercise reduced suspension rates especially for Black and Hispanic students, cutting the racial disparity over the school year from 10.6 to 5.9 percentage points, a 45% reduction. Significant reductions were also observed for other groups of concern. Moreover, reductions persisted through the next year when students interacted with different teachers, suggesting that empathic treatment with even one teacher in a critical period can improve students' trajectories through school.

This article presents a portrait of sexual violence on university campuses (SVUC) at six universities in Québec (Canada) and explores differences and similarities in the experiences of students, professors and employees. Data are drawn from the "Enquête Sexualité, Sécurité et Interactions en Milieu Universitaire" (ESSIMU). They reveal disturbing rates of SVUC among students (36.2%), professors (38.8%) and employees (38.7%). The results show that the hierarchical status of perpetrators was higher than that of victims for a significant proportion of professors (33%) and employees (50.7%). When asked about the type of assistance they would want in the event of SVUC, the majority of students, professors and employees affirmed they would want support during the reporting/complaint process, information about available recourse within the university to report the incident, and psychological support provided by a resource outside the university.

As the field of public health rises to the demands of real-time surveillance and rapid data-sharing needs in a postpandemic world, it is time to examine our approaches to the dissemination and accessibility of such data. Distinct challenges exist when working to develop a shared public health language and narratives based on data. It requires that we assess our understanding of public health data literacy, revisit our approach to communication and engagement, and continuously evaluate our impact and relevance. Key stakeholders and cocreators are critical to this process and include people with lived experience, community organizations, governmental partners, and research institutions. In this viewpoint paper, we offer an instructive approach to the tools we used, assessed, and adapted across 3 unique overdose data dashboard projects in Rhode Island, United States. We are calling this model the “Rhode Island Approach to Public Health Data Literacy, Partnerships, and Action.” This approach reflects the iterative lessons learned about the improvement of data dashboards through collaboration and strong partnerships across community members, state agencies, and an academic research team. We will highlight key tools and approaches that are accessible and engaging and allow developers and stakeholders to self-assess their goals for their data dashboards and evaluate engagement with these tools by their desired audiences and users.

Background: The dominant perspective in society is that stress has negative consequences, and not surprisingly, the vast majority of interventions for coping with stress focus on reducing the frequency or severity of stressors. However, the effectiveness of stress attenuation is limited because it is often not possible to avoid stressors, and avoiding or minimizing stress can lead individuals to miss opportunities for performance and growth. Thus, during stressful situations, a more efficacious approach is to optimize stress responses (i.e., promote adaptive, approach-motivated responses). Objectives and Conclusions: In this review, we demonstrate how stress appraisals (e.g., [Jamieson, J. P., Nock, M. K., & Mendes, W. B. (2012). "Mind over matter: reappraising arousal improves cardiovascular and cognitive responses to stress." "Journal of Experimental Psychology: General," 141(3), 417-422. doi:10.1037/a0025719]) and stress mindsets (e.g., [Crum, A. J., Salovey, P., & Achor, S. (2013). "Rethinking stress: The role of mindsets in determining the stress response." "Journal of Personality and Social Psychology," 104(4), 716-733. doi:10.1037/a0031201]) can be used as regulatory tools to optimize stress responses, facilitate performance, and promote active coping. Respectively, these interventions invite individuals to (a) perceive stress responses as functional and adaptive, and (b) see the opportunity inherent in stress. We then propose a novel integration of reappraisal and mindset models to maximize the utility and effectiveness of stress optimization. Additionally, we discuss future directions with regard to how stress responses unfold over time and between people to impact outcomes in the domains of education, organizations, and clinical science.

The risk of aberrant growth of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived cells in response to DNA damage is a potential concern as the tumor suppressor genes TP53 and CDKN2A are transiently inactivated during reprogramming. Herein, we evaluate the integrity of cellular senescence pathways and DNA double-strand break (DSB) repair in Sendai virus reprogrammed iPSC-derived human fibroblasts (i-HF) compared to their parental skin fibroblasts (HF). Using transcriptomics analysis and a variety of functional assays, we show that the capacity of i-HF to enter senescence and repair DSB is not compromised after damage induced by ionizing radiation (IR) or the overexpression of H-RASV12. Still, i-HF lines are transcriptionally different from their parental lines, showing enhanced metabolic activity and higher expression of p53-related effector genes. As a result, i-HF lines generally exhibit increased sensitivity to various stresses, have an elevated senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP), and cannot be immortalized unless p53 expression is knocked down. In conclusion, while our results suggest that i-HF are not at a greater risk of transformation, their overall hyperactivation of senescence pathways may impede their function as a cell therapy product.

Research with community samples suggests that non-affective features of families, such as the amount of time parents and adolescents spend together, affect depressive symptoms in adolescents. It is possible, however, that spending time with parents not only protects against the onset of depressive symptoms, but also reduces symptoms in adolescents who are already depressed. The current study was designed to test this formulation while also examining whether affective dimensions of family functioning - specifically parental warmth - accounted for or moderated observed associations. Finally, we tested the reverse direction of the associations, examining whether greater severity of depression in adolescents results in parents spending less time with them. Forty-one adolescents (ages 14 to 17 years) who met criteria for a current major depressive episode participated in the present study with one parent. Once each month for six time points, dyads completed reports of depressive symptoms and the amount of time parents and adolescents spent with each other. Participants also completed measures of parental warmth. Results of lagged multilevel modeling indicated that spending more time with a parent predicted fewer depressive symptoms in adolescents at the following assessment relative to their mean; in contrast, greater severity of depressive symptoms did not predict spending less time with a parent at the following assessment. In contrast, parental warmth did not account for or moderate the association between time together and depressive symptoms. These results suggest that non-affective dimensions of family life, specifically spending more time with parents, have beneficial effects on depressive symptoms in adolescents diagnosed with depression.

Background: Obesity is a serious public health concern, challenging health professionals worldwide. Women with obesity have an increased risk of triggering psychological disorders, due to the weight stigma. Stigmatization of weight-related health correlates with behavior and contributes to a vicious cycle of obesogenic processes. Objective: Our objective is to analyze the association between the presence of mental suffering, risk of mental disorders, and eating behaviors in lean, overweight, and obese women. Methods: A total of 169 adult women aged between 20 and 39 years were included, and participants signed the informed consent, answered a questionnaire on eating habits, the Self Report Questionnaire (SRQ-20), the Scale of Depression, Anxiety and Stress (DASS-21), and the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire—R21 (TFEQ-R21). Results: The presence of mental suffering was higher in the lean group (26.9%) compared to the overweight and obese group (57.8%). The overweight and obese group had significantly higher scores for the SRQ, DASS, and TFEQ-R21 (p = 0.001 for all analyses), except when evaluating cognitive restraint. Several correlations among scores were found and summarized. There was no significant effect of body mass index on emotional eating, albeit body mass index exerts effects on the DASS score and on binge eating behavior, both of which present mediation effects on emotional eating. Conclusions: These results support the connection between mental health status and the presence of overweight and obesity and emphasize that mental health risks also need specific targeting in public policy.

Different housing initiatives, policies and programs favouring or impacting social mix at the neighbourhood level exist in Canadian cities, including in the city of Montreal. Social mix was (and still is) part of the political discourse along with local planning practices as a means of including the most deprived and marginalized populations within the urban space through social housing. With the aim of developing a more inclusive city, the local administration has recently adopted an inclusionary zoning by-law which was received positively by scholars and housing advocates, although the considerable criticism for its limited scope. Inspired by a constructivist analysis of public and social policies and based on a study of collective identity of housing groups using document analysis, the goal of this paper is to explore how urban social movements evaluate this housing policy, and how, despite the policy objective of inclusiveness, it cannot satisfactorily address core housing needs of disadvantaged populations. Keywords: housing, inclusionary zoning, collective action, Montreal Différents programmes, politiques et initiatives de logement favorisant ou influençant la mixité sociale à l'échelle des quartiers existent dans les villes canadiennes, y compris à Montréal. La mixité sociale a fait (et fait) partie du discours politique et des pratiques de planification locales comme moyen d'inclure les populations les plus défavorisées et marginalisées grâce au logement social. Dans le but de développer une ville plus inclusive, l'administration locale a récemment adopté un nouveau règlement de zonage d'inclusion qui a été reçu positivement par les universitaires et les groupes de défense du logement, malgré les nombreuses critiques en raison de sa portée limitée. Inspiré d'une analyse constructiviste des politiques publiques et sociales et basé sur une étude de l'identité collective des groupes de défense du logement à l'aide d'une recherche documentaire, cet article explore comment les mouvements sociaux urbains évaluent cette politique du logement et comment, malgré des objectifs de mixité sociale, le règlement ne peut pas répondre de manière satisfaisante aux besoins en logement des populations défavorisées. Mots-clés : logement, zonage d'inclusion, action collective, Montréal, Introduction Throughout the 20th century, social mix was the object of various studies and was embodied in urban planning practices. It was and still is seen as a counterweight to [...]

Abstract Background The dual COVID-19 and overdose emergencies amplified strain on healthcare systems tasked with responding to both. One downstream consequence of the pandemic in the USA and Canada was a surge in drug overdoses resulting from public health-restricted access to services and an increasingly toxic unregulated drug supply. This study aimed to describe changes implemented by programs prescribing pharmaceutical alternatives to the drug supply during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods An environmental scan used surveys and qualitative interviews with service providers across Canada to examine pharmaceutical alternative prescribing practices and programs before and during the pandemic. This study summarized the nature, frequency, and reasons for pandemic-driven service delivery changes using directed content analysis, counts, and thematic analysis. Results Eighty-two of the 103 participating sites reported 1193 unique changes in physical space (368), client protocols (347), program operations (342), ancillary services (127), and staffing (90). Four qualitative themes describing the reasons for these changes emerged, namely (1) decreasing risk of COVID-19 infection; (2) decreasing risk of overdose; (3) prioritizing acute care of COVID-19 patients; and (4) improving client access to treatment. Conclusions While most changes were aimed at decreasing risk of COVID-19 infection, some were found to be at odds with the measures needed to combat the overdose crisis; others met dual objectives of decreased risk of both overdose and infection. Further research should examine which changes should be kept or reversed once COVID-19-related public health measures are lifted.