African-American and Hispanic children's beverage intake: Differences in associations with desire to drink, fathers' feeding practices, and weight concerns.

Relationships of African-American and Hispanic fathers' feeding practices and weight concerns and preschoolers' desire to drink with children's beverage intake were examined, and associations between fathers' feeding practices and children's weight status were evaluated. Fathers' (Hispanic n = 61, African-American n = 49) difficulty in child feeding, use of food to calm, use of food as reward, and concern about the child being under and overweight as well as their child's desire to drink were assessed. Preschoolers' (ages 2 to 5) total sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB), fruit juice, and water intake were measured by a modified beverage intake questionnaire.

Assessing Initial Validity and Reliability of a Beverage Intake Questionnaire in Hispanic Preschool-Aged Children.

Background: Understanding the relationship between high-calorie beverage consumption and weight gain requires an accurate report of dietary intake. A critical need exists to develop and test the psychometrics of brief quantitative tools for minority pediatric populations.

Objective: To modify the adult beverage intake questionnaire (BEVQ-15) for Hispanic preschool-aged children (BEVQ-PS) and test its validity and test-retest reliability in children aged 3 to 5 years.

Federal nutrition program changes and healthy food availability.

Background: Literature on food environments is expanding rapidly, yet a gap exists regarding the role of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) on healthy food availability.

If you stock it, will they buy it? Healthy food availability and customer purchasing behaviour within corner stores in Hartford, CT, USA.

Objective: Literature on food environments has expanded rapidly, yet most research focuses on stores and community characteristics without integrating customer-level data. The present study combines customer shopping behaviour with store food inventory data.

Design: Face-to-face interviews were conducted with customers shopping in corner stores to measure food shopping behaviour, household food security and demographics.

Parental information, motivation, and behavioral skills correlate with child sweetened beverage consumption.

Objective: To evaluate fit of the Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills (IMB) model applied to sweetened beverage (SB) consumption in children.

Design: Cross-sectional. Parents completed a home beverage inventory and IMB survey regarding SB consumption.

A phase II study of isoflavones, erlotinib, and gemcitabine in advanced pancreatic cancer.

Background: The EGFR/Akt/NF-κB signalling pathway is frequently deregulated in pancreatic cancer and contributes to cell growth, metastasis and chemoresistance. An isoflavone, genistein, inactivates Akt and NF-κB and enhances the anti-tumor activity of erlotinib and gemcitabine in experimental systems of pancreas cancer. This phase II study was undertaken to determine the effects of adding isoflavone to a regimen of gemcitabine and erlotinib on survival in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer.

Rapid weight gain during the first year of life predicts obesity in 2-3 year olds from a low-income, minority population.

As the prevalence of childhood obesity increases, researchers continue to attempt to identify factors contributing to obesity. The purpose of this study was to define the relationship between birth weight, rapid weight gain (RWG), and early childhood obesity in a low-income, inner-city minority population. In this retrospective chart review, researchers documented every medical encounter recorded in the chart from birth to 3 years for 203 3 year old minority children from low-income families living in an urban area.

Parental perceptions of overweight during early childhood.

Prior to developing an overweight prevention program, researchers examined perceptions of overweight during early childhood among minority, low-socioeconomic status (SES) parents of preschoolers living in Hartford, Connecticut (USA). Content analysis of 10 focus groups (average size = 7) and 18 follow-up interviews revealed parents have a distorted, detached view of clinically defined overweight preschoolers, and they do not include weight in their definition of health. The result is a disconnect in communicating with health care providers regarding overweight during early childhood.

Phase-II study of dose attenuated schedule of irinotecan, capecitabine, and celecoxib in advanced colorectal cancer.

Background: The cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) enzyme plays a major role in tumor progression and resistance to chemotherapy. A Phase-II study was undertaken to determine the activity of a dose attenuated schedule of irinotecan, capecitabine, and the COX-2 inhibitor celecoxib in patients with advanced colorectal cancer.

Methods: The eligibility criteria included a pathologically or cytologically confirmed diagnosis of adenocarcinoma of the colon or rectum that was metastatic.

Food insecurity and gender are risk factors for obesity.

Objective: Examine relationships between adult obesity, childhood overweight, and food insecurity.

Design: Cross-sectional retrospective study.

Setting: Community settings in Hartford, Connecticut.

Comparative effectiveness of zinc protoporphyrin and hemoglobin concentrations in identifying iron deficiency in a group of low-income, preschool-aged children: practical implications of recent illness.

Objective: The goal was to assess the influence of recent infection on screening tests for iron depletion (zinc protoporphyrin and hemoglobin) among low-income, preschool-aged children.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted at community sites and ambulatory care clinics in Hartford, Connecticut, and included 180 preschool-aged children. Iron depletion was defined as serum ferritin levels of < or = 15 microg/L.

Differing perspectives of inner-city parents and pediatric clinicians impact management of iron-deficiency anemia.

Objective: To ascertain the beliefs and experiences of inner-city pediatric clinicians and parents regarding anemia in young children.

Design: Focus groups and in-depth interviews.

Setting: Pediatric clinics and community agencies in Hartford, Connecticut.

A universal product code scanner is a feasible method of measuring household food inventory and food use patterns in low-income families.

This study assesses the feasibility of using a Universal Product Code (UPC) scanner to record the home food inventory of limited-resource families. Feasibility was based on UPC scanner accuracy, time involved, and researcher/study participant feedback. Program staff members completed a traditional line-item inventory and UPC scan of 5,920 food items during 51 separate visits to the homes of 32 families.

Managing anemia in low-income toddlers: barriers, challenges and context in primary care.

Iron-deficiency remains a concern among low-income toddlers in the U.S. This formative study describes how primary care providers serving high-risk 1- to 3-year-old children in an urban ambulatory care setting approach anemia.

A phase II study of celecoxib, gemcitabine, and cisplatin in advanced pancreatic cancer.

Background: Pancreatic cancer is amongst the most chemoresistant malignancies. Expression of the cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) enzyme plays a major role in tumor progression and resistance to therapy. A Phase II study was undertaken to determine the effect of gemcitabine by fixed-dose rate infusion (FDR), cisplatin and the COX-2 inhibitor, celecoxib, on the 6-month survival rate in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer.

A phase II study of carboplatin and paclitaxel in adenocarcinoma of unknown primary.

Background: Cisplatin-based combination chemotherapy is commonly used in the treatment of carcinoma of unknown primary site. Paclitaxel has shown promising activity as a single agent in a number of malignancies. This study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy and toxicity of combination carboplatin and paclitaxel in patients with adenocarcinoma of unknown primary site (ACUP).