Lessons learned from the Alberta Border Testing Pilot Program.

Background: During the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, countries implemented border control and quarantine measures to reduce transmission. The Alberta Border Testing Pilot Program (ABTPP) allowed international travellers entering Alberta to reduce their quarantine period following two negative COVID-19 tests. We evaluated participant experiences with the ABTPP and implementation.

Implementation of a 2-for-1 Price Incentive for Fruits and Vegetables in a Grocery Retail Setting.

Background And Purpose: There is growing interest in expanding healthy eating interventions in the retail setting. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the implementation of a successful 2-for-1 price incentive for fruits and vegetables (F&V), including frozen and canned, that took place in partnership with a large chain grocery retailer in Maine. Intervention Approach.

Comparing Online and In-Store Grocery Purchases.

Objective: To describe the grocery shopping patterns of people who shopped both online and in-store and evaluate whether shoppers purchased fewer unhealthy, impulse-sensitive items online.

Design: Secondary analysis of 44 weeks of grocery transaction data collected for fruit and vegetable incentive trials in 2 Maine supermarkets.

Participants: A total of 137 primary household shoppers who shopped at least once in-store and online (curbside pickup) for 5,573 total transactions MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES AND ANALYSIS: Paired t tests and descriptive analyses compared online and in-store transactions with respect to frequency, total spending, number of items purchased, and spending on 10 food groups and 34 subgroups.

Comparing shopper characteristics by online grocery ordering use among households in low-income communities in Maine.

Objective: Online grocery shopping could improve access to healthy food, but it may not be equally accessible to all populations - especially those at higher risk for food insecurity. The current study aimed to compare the socio-demographic characteristics of families who ordered groceries online v. those who only shopped in-store.

Virology analysis of chronic hepatitis B virus-infected patients treated for 28 days with JNJ-56136379 monotherapy.

Four weeks of once-daily oral JNJ-56136379 (JNJ-6379; 25, 75, 150 or 250 mg), a class-N capsid assembly modulator (CAM-N), was well tolerated with potent antiviral activity in treatment-naïve, chronic hepatitis B e antigen-positive and hepatitis B e antigen-negative patients (NCT02662712). Hepatitis B virus (HBV) genome sequence analysis, using HBV DNA next-generation sequence technology, was performed, and impact of substitutions on efficacy was assessed. Analyses focused on HBV core protein amino acid positions associated with JNJ-6379 and/or other CAMs in vitro resistance, and those within the CAM-binding pocket.

Supermarket Purchases Over the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Benefit Month: A Comparison Between Participants and Nonparticipants.

Introduction: The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program provides financial assistance for food and beverage purchases to approximately 1 in 7 Americans, with benefits distributed once monthly. Most Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits are spent early in the month, leading to decreased caloric intake later in the month. The effects of this early benefit depletion on the types of foods and beverages purchased over the course of the month is unclear.

Financial Incentives Increase Purchases Of Fruit And Vegetables Among Lower-Income Households With Children.

The high cost of fruit and vegetables can be a barrier to healthy eating, particularly among lower-income households with children. We examined the effects of a financial incentive on purchases at a single supermarket by primary shoppers from low-income households who had at least one child. Participation in an in-store Cooking Matters event was requested for incentivized subjects but optional for their nonincentivized controls.

Make It Fresh, for Less! A Supermarket Meal Bundling and Electronic Reminder Intervention to Promote Healthy Purchases Among Families With Children.

Objective: To evaluate the effects of a supermarket meal bundling and electronic reminder intervention on food choices of families with children.

Design: Quasi-experimental (meal bundling) and randomized, controlled trial (electronic reminders).

Setting: Large supermarket in Maine during 40-week baseline and 16-week intervention periods in 2015-2016.

Important considerations in the derivation of background at sediment sites.

In the United States, there is an absence of federal guidance related to deriving and applying background concentrations at contaminated sediment sites. This absence has resulted in significant variability, uncertainty, and disagreement regarding how representative background concentrations of chemicals of concern should be derived for these sites. The present article discusses important considerations in the derivation of representative background concentrations to be used in the evaluation of contaminated sediment sites.

Current Trends and Practices of Intensive Care Unit Visitations.

Background: Few topics have existed for decades and created as much of a debate as when discussing appropriate visitation policies for patients. Studies have continued to document the conflicted opinions of nurses to commit to fully open visiting hours for various reasons. Family members are very definite in their desire to be at their loved one's bedside.

A Supermarket Double-Dollar Incentive Program Increases Purchases of Fresh Fruits and Vegetables Among Low-Income Families With Children: The Healthy Double Study.

Objective: To carry out a pilot study to determine whether a supermarket double-dollar fruit and vegetable (F&V) incentive increases F&V purchases among low-income families.

Design: Randomized controlled design. Purchases were tracked using a loyalty card that provided participants with a 5% discount on all purchases during a 3-month baseline period followed by the 4-month intervention.

Transactions at a Northeastern Supermarket Chain: Differences by Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Use.

Introduction: Although one in seven Americans receives Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, little is known about how these benefits for food are spent because individual-level sales data are not publicly available. The purpose of this study is to compare transactions made with and without SNAP benefits at a large regional supermarket chain.

Methods: Sales data were obtained from a large supermarket chain in the Northeastern U.

Advancing antimicrobial stewardship: Summary of the 2015 CIDSC Report.

Background: Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is recognized as an important global public health concern that has a cross-cutting impact on human health, animal health, food and agriculture and the environment. The Communicable and Infectious Disease Steering Committee (CIDSC) of the Pan-Canadian Public Health Network (PHN) created a Task Group on Antimicrobial Stewardship to look at this issue from a Canadian perspective.

Objective: To summarize the key findings of the Task Group Report that identified core components of antimicrobial stewardship programs, best practices, key challenges, gaps and recommendations to advance stewardship across jurisdictions.

Conformance with supportive care quality measures is associated with better quality of life in patients with cancer receiving palliative care.

Purpose: As palliative care further integrates into cancer care, descriptions of how supportive care quality measures improve patient outcomes are necessary to establish best practices.

Methods: We assessed the relationship between conformance to 18 palliative care quality measures and quality of life from data obtained using our novel point-of-care, electronic quality monitoring system, the Quality Data Collection Tool for Palliative Care (QDACT-PC). All patients with cancer from January 2008 through March 2011 seen in the Carolinas Palliative Care Consortium were evaluated for demographic, disease, prognostic, performance status, and measure conformance variables.

Collecting data on quality is feasible in community-based palliative care.

Background: Quality measurement in palliative care requires robust data from standardized data collection processes. We developed and tested the feasibility of the Quality Data Collection Tool version 1.0 (QDACTv1.

The velcro mustache: a potential barrier to effective bag-and-mask ventilation in neonates on nasal cpap: two case reports.

Hudson prongs (Hudson RCI, Teleflex Medical, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina) (a device to deliver nasal continuous positive airway pressure) are often secured with a "Velcro mustache" in neonatal intensive care units. We report 2 premature infants who required bag-and-mask ventilation while on Hudson prongs secured with a Velcro mustache. Effective ventilation was achieved only after removing the Velcro mustache.

Evaluation of a real-time polymerase chain reaction assay using analyte-specific reagents for detection of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus nasal carriage.

Objective: To validate a real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay for the detection of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) that is capable of accommodating 30 patient samples in a single batch without compromising the level of sensitivity and specificity associated with PCR testing.

Study Design: A real-time PCR analyte-specific reagent (ASR) assay was compared to conventional culture methods using dual swab samples collected from the nares of 151 patients.

Results: Of the 151 specimens, 49 (32%) were positive for MRSA by PCR, whereas 40 (26%) were positive by culture methods.

Worksite health promotion: the value of the Tune Up Your Heart program.

Successful wellness initiatives at DaimlerChrysler Canada Incorporated (DCCI) led to a unique partnership between key stakeholders that allowed implementation of Tune Up Your Heart, a program aimed at improving workforce cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. Volunteers were screened and stratified according to their CVD risk. Interventions were tailored to risk level and included goal setting, monitoring progress, and company-wide education programs.

Pulmonary histoplasmosis.

Pulmonary manifestations of histoplasmosis were last reviewed in Seminars in 2004. This review highlights the management of the most common clinical syndromes, emphasizing recognition, diagnosis, and treatment. The reader is referred to the earlier review for subjects not fully addressed herein.

Transfusion-related acute lung injury: a thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura treatment-associated case report and concise review.

Blood products are frequently required immediately prior to, during, or just after an apheresis procedure. Transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI) is now the leading cause of transfusion-related mortality, surpassing ABO-incompatible hemolytic reactions. The reported incidence of TRALI varies but is estimated at 1 in 5,000 transfusions.

Pharmacological characteristics of Ro 115-1240, a selective alpha1A/1L-adrenoceptor partial agonist: a potential therapy for stress urinary incontinence.

Objective: To describe the preclinical pharmacology of Ro 115-1240, a peripherally acting selective alpha1A/1L-adrenoceptor (AR) partial agonist, compared with the alpha1A/1L-AR full agonist amidephrine, as AR agonists have some utility in the treatment of stress urinary incontinence (SUI) but are limited by undesirable cardiovascular and central nervous system side-effects.

Results: In radioligand-binding studies Ro 115-1240 had greater affinity for alpha1A than for alpha1B and alpha1D subtypes. The potency and intrinsic activity of amidephrine and Ro 115-1240 relative to noradrenaline were determined in native and cell-based assays using human recombinant alpha1-ARs; they acted as selective alpha1A/1L-AR full and partial agonists, respectively.