Forever Chemicals (PFAS): An Overview for Maternity and Pediatric Health Care Professionals.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) constitute a large class of chemicals with widespread exposure in the United States. They are commonly used in products because they repel water, stain, and grease. Concerns about the health impacts from PFAS exposures continue to grow as science has linked this chemical family with a wide range of health effects.

Clinical and inflammatory features of traffic-related diesel exposure in children with asthma.

Background: Epidemiologic studies have revealed associations between traffic-related pollutants such as diesel particulate matter (PM) and asthma outcomes in children, but the inflammatory features associated with diesel PM exposure in children with asthma are not understood.

Objective: To evaluate symptoms, exacerbations, and lung function measures in children with uncontrolled asthma and their associations with residential proximity to major roadways and to determine associations between diesel PM exposure and systemic inflammatory cytokines, circulating markers of T-cell activation and exhaustion, and metabolomic features using biomarker studies.

Methods: Children 5 to 17 years of age with physician-diagnosed, uncontrolled asthma despite treatment with an asthma controller medication completed a research visit involving questionnaires, lung function testing, and venipuncture for biomarker studies.

Innovative Learning Activities to Prepare Nursing Students for the Next Generation NCLEX.

The purpose of this course innovation was to introduce Next Generation NCLEX (NGN)-style questions and create supplemental cooperative learning assignments (CLAs) to enhance content mastery in a prelicensure maternity course. The course itself is divided into three modules focusing on maternal, newborn, and women's health. Three CLAs and two Canvas quizzes were developed to reinforce the course content and integrate NGN-style case studies and questions.

Environmental Injustice Is Associated With Poorer Asthma Outcomes in School-Age Children With Asthma in Metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia.

Background: Environmental justice mandates that no person suffers disproportionately from environmental exposures. The Environmental Justice Index (EJI) provides an estimate of the environmental burden for each census tract but has not yet been used in asthma populations.

Objective: We hypothesized that children from census tracts with high environmental injustice determined by the EJI would have a greater burden of asthma exacerbations, poorer asthma control, and poorer lung function over 12 months.

Clustering by chemicals: A novel examination of chemical pollutants and social vulnerability in children and adolescents.

Background: Inhaled air pollutants are environmental determinants of health with negative impacts on human health. Air pollution has been linked to the incidence and progression of disease, with its effects unequally distributed across the population. Children compared to adults are a highly vulnerable group and suffer disproportionately from systemic environmental inequities exacerbated by social determinants.

The Health Status of Hispanic Agricultural Workers in Georgia and Florida.

To examine the health status of Hispanic agricultural workers in Florida and Georgia. Health data from agricultural workers in the Farm Worker Family Health Program (June 2019) and research studies in Florida (May 2015 and May 2019) were examined. Data from 728 agricultural workers were collected through sociodemographic questionnaire and clinical data.

Obesity Is Associated with Sustained Symptomatology and Unique Inflammatory Features in Children with Asthma.

Background: Obesity complicates the clinical manifestations of asthma in children. However, few studies have examined longitudinal outcomes or markers of systemic inflammation in obese asthmatic children.

Objective: We hypothesized that obese children with asthma would have: (1) poorer clinical outcomes over 12 months, (2) decreased responsiveness to systemic corticosteroid administration, (3) greater markers of systemic inflammation, and (4) unique amino acid metabolites associated with oxidative stress.

A global child health perspective on climate change, migration and human rights.

Current indicators of anthropogenic climate change are foreboding and demand immediate collaborative action and policy change to reduce carbon emissions rapidly. Human and environmental effects of climate change are already widespread. Large-scale disruptive disasters and weather-related events have downstream and cascading effects on livelihoods, national economies, population health and global human rights.

Polybrominated Diphenyl Ether Serum Concentrations and Depressive Symptomatology in Pregnant African American Women.

(1) Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) were widely produced in the United States until 2004 but remain highly persistent in the environment. The potential for PBDEs to disrupt normal neuroendocrine pathways resulting in depression and other neurological symptoms is largely understudied. This study examined whether PBDE exposure in pregnant women was associated with antenatal depressive symptomatology.

Analyzing the predictors of health care utilization in the agricultural worker population using decision tree analysis: Does language matter?

Objectives: To analyze the predictors of health care utilization among respondents to the National Agricultural Worker Survey. Specifically, we hypothesized that English proficiency would predict utilization of health care services within the last 2 years.

Methods: Using the 2015-2016 National Agricultural Worker Survey, we performed a secondary data analysis to analyze the predictors of health care utilization within the last 2 years in the United States' agricultural worker population.

Lessons Learned from Data Collection as Health Screening in Underserved Farmworker Communities.

Background: Girasoles is an academic-community partnership investigating heat-related illness (HRI) among farm-workers. An unexpected outcome is health screening and intervention for participants without access to health care.

Objectives: We present a case of renal failure in a farmworker, detected during data collection, to illustrate how academic-community collaboration can result in clinical benefits for study participants.

The Neonatal Microbiome: Implications for Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Nurses.

Nursing care of the neonate in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is complex, due in large part to various physiological challenges. A newer and less well-known physiological consideration is the neonatal microbiome, the community of microorganisms, both helpful and harmful, that inhabit the human body. The neonatal microbiome is influenced by the maternal microbiome, mode of infant birth, and various aspects of NICU care such as feeding choice and use of antibiotics.

The Postpartum Maternal and Newborn Microbiomes.

Biological and environmental changes to maternal and newborn microbiomes in the postnatal period can affect health outcomes for the mother-baby dyad. Postpartum sleep deprivation and unmet dietary needs can alter commensal bacteria within the body and disrupt gut-brain communication. Perineal injury and breast infections also change microbial community composition, potentiating an environment favoring pathogen growth.

Classification of Heat-Related Illness Symptoms Among Florida Farmworkers.

Background: Farmworkers working in hot and humid environments have an increased risk for heat-related illness (HRI) if their thermoregulatory capabilities are overwhelmed. The manifestation of heat-related symptoms can escalate into life-threatening events. Increasing ambient air temperatures resulting from climate change will only exacerbate HRI in vulnerable populations.

Deleterious Effects From Occupational Exposure to Ethylene Thiourea in Pregnant Women.

Human exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) has become common as a result of widespread application of these chemicals to the food supply, environmental contamination, and occupational exposures (Caserta et al., 2011). However, relatively little is known about the effects of EDCs such as ethylene thiourea (ETU) in developing fetuses and the lasting implications of this disruption on human development from birth through adulthood.

Novel Analytic Methods Needed for Real-Time Continuous Core Body Temperature Data.

Affordable measurement of core body temperature (T) in a continuous, real-time fashion is now possible. With this advance comes a new data analysis paradigm for occupational epidemiology. We characterize issues arising after obtaining T data over 188 workdays for 83 participating farmworkers, a population vulnerable to effects of rising temperatures due to climate change.