Publications by authors named "Carlos Chavez"

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is one of the largest federal food and nutrition program serving women and young children and has a low coverage rate of about 50 percent. There is no peer-reviewed article that compares maternal perceptions of challenges and barriers to WIC participation by language and participation status. We compare challenges and barriers faced by English-speaking mothers to those faced by Spanish-speaking mothers to enrollment and retention in WIC within each group: current participants (n = 43), prior participants (dropouts; n = 27), and eligible non-participants (n = 18), using focus groups we conducted in Missouri in 2021-2023.

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Known and emerging data continue to document the significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on traditionally marginalized communities living in the United States, particularly Latinx. However, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, no validated measures were available to assess how this health crisis affected Latinx communities. The present study sought to assess the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in a sample of Latinx adults living in the United States ( = 2,300).

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Objective: A high office blood pressure (BP) is associated with cognitive decline. However, evidence of 24-h ambulatory BP monitoring is limited, and no studies have investigated whether longitudinal changes in 24-h BP are associated with cognitive decline. We aimed to test whether higher longitudinal changes in 24-h ambulatory BP measurements are associated with cognitive decline.

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Aquaculture is a rapidly growing food production technology, but there are significant concerns related to its environmental impact and adverse social effects. We examine aquaculture outcomes in a three pillars of sustainability framework by analyzing data collected using the Aquaculture Performance Indicators. Using this approach, comparable data has been collected for 57 aquaculture systems worldwide on 88 metrics that measure social, economic, or environmental outcomes.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Golf cart-related injuries have significantly increased, especially among children, with the incidence doubling since 2020; 46% of these injuries involved kids with a median age of 11.5 years.
  • - Most injuries occurred on weekends during the summer, primarily in the late afternoon to evening, with ejection from the cart leading to more severe outcomes.
  • - Recommendations include enhancing awareness and safety education at rental shops about seat belt use and enforcing safety rules to reduce accidents, particularly in areas where golf carts are restricted.
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The implementation of imaging methods that enable sensitive and specific observation of anatomical structures has been a constant in the evolution of endodontic therapy. Cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) enables 3-dimensional (3D) spatial anatomical navigation in the 3 volumetric planes (sagittal, coronal and axial) which translates into great accuracy for the identification of endodontic pathologies/conditions. CBCT interpretation consists of 2 main components: (i) the generation of specific tasks of the image and (ii) the subsequent interpretation report.

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Background: Evidence shows that high 24-h blood pressure (BP) variability increases cardiovascular risk. We investigated whether 24-h BP variability relates to mortality and cardiovascular risk due to inherent variability and/or hypertensive loads in 24-h BP.

Methods: A total of 1,050 participants from the Maracaibo Aging Study (mean age, 66 years; women, 67.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates how family financial stress and individual factors like food insecurity and race affect mental health in Puerto Rican adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • A sample of 119 adolescents, aged 13 to 17, was surveyed to explore the link between family financial stress and psychological distress, considering the moderating effects of family violence, food insecurity, and demographics.
  • Results indicate that food insecurity contributes to psychological distress, and racial identity influences the impact of family financial stress on mental health, with significant effects observed primarily in racial minority participants.
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Objectives: We explored racial differences in discrimination, perceived inequality, coping strategies, and mental health among 869 Latinx adolescents ( = 15.08) in the US. We then examined the moderating effects of race and perceived inequality in the associations between discrimination and coping strategies, and between discrimination and mental health.

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Vitamin B12 deficiency may cause neurological and hematological alterations. Its assessment should be easy considering that the access to its measurement is available in majority of the clinical laboratories. The presence of technical interference when measuring vitamin B12 can lead to an erroneous or a more difficult diagnosis of conditions as pernicious anemia.

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Several studies have assessed crop water requirements based on soil properties, but these have been on a small scale or on soils with similar textures. Here, a data base of soil measurements in the field and laboratory from sites across Irrigation District 023, San Juan del Rio, Queretaro, Mexico was sampled, collected, analyzed, and integrated. The data base, named, NaneSoil, contains information on 900 samples obtained from irrigated plots.

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Objective: Sexual minority adults of Latinx descent faced compounded intersectional stressors during the COVID-19 pandemic across socioeconomic and health domains. Latinx people have experienced some of the highest COVID-19 infection, hospitalization, and mortality rates in the United States in addition to significant economic challenges. Yet, current data have not observed the unique pandemic-related experiences of sexual minority Latinx (SML) adults.

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This study explored Latino Migrant Farmworker (LMFW) youths' perceptions regarding access to health care in the United States (U.S.).

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Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated previously existing disparities and introduced new challenges for individuals living at the intersection of marginalized identities, such as Latinx women. For instance, increases in alcohol use have been noted during the COVID-19 pandemic, yet it is unclear which circumstances experienced are more likely to predict alcohol use among Latinx women.

Method: The present study sought to identify the profile of intersectional factors, namely immigrant status, socioeconomic standing, and age, and COVID-19 stressors that predicted high or hazardous alcohol use among 1,227 Latinx women living in the United States.

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Objectives: In a sample of Mexican American adolescents ( = 398; 51% females; aged 13-17), we examined the associations between psychological distress, COVID-19 household economic stress, COVID-19 academic stress, and whether these associations varied by adolescents' gender and by parents/caregivers' essential worker status.

Method: First, linear regression models assessed the main effects of household economic and academic stress on psychological distress. Second, the moderating effects of gender and parents/caregivers' essential worker status on the association between household economic and academic stress, and psychological distress were examined.

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Objectives: Racial/ethnic discrimination is a common and salient stressor for many individuals. Although discrimination can impair personal and relational well-being, little is known about its influences on the process of considering dissolution (i.e.

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Background: Twenty-four-hour and nighttime blood pressure (BP) levels are more strongly associated with cardiovascular risk than office or daytime BP measurements. However, it remains undocumented which of the office and ambulatory BP measurements have the strongest association and predictive information in relation to the presence of type I, or arteriolosclerosis type, cerebral small vessel diseases (CSVD).

Methods: A subset of 429 participants from the Maracaibo Aging Study [aged ≥40 years (women, 73.

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A framework termed "the citizenship shield" is introduced to conceptualize how legal protections buffer against negative health outcomes among Latinx immigrants in the United States. In this study, we tested the citizenship shield framework in the context of the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Latinx immigrants. We investigated the connection between immigration status, discrimination, food insecurity, and negative health outcomes.

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Background: Mean arterial pressure (MAP) drives ocular perfusion. Excessive 24-h MAP variability relates to glaucoma, however, whether this is due to dips or increases in the blood pressure (BP) is undocumented. We investigated the association of open-angle glaucoma (OAG) in relation to the 5 largest MAP dips/increases over 24-h, henceforth called dips/blips.

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This study addresses the risk and vulnerability of Chilean salmon production to hazards resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic threat, including limited access to farms, limited processing capacity and reduced market demand. The role of different management approaches in reducing risk and vulnerability is also explored. Results suggest that concession areas having the largest accumulated and current biomass have the highest risk, which is also transferred to the municipal level.

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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has disproportionately impacted communities of color (CoC) amid increasing incidents of racial injustices and racism. In this article, we describe our culturalist methodologies for designing and implementing a multi-ethnic, interdisciplinary national needs assessment developed in partnership with CoC. Instead of a typical western-centric social science approach that typically ignores and perpetuates structural racism and settler colonialism, the research team implemented culturalist and community-partnered approaches that were further contextualized to the context of structural racism and settler colonialism.

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Pesticides used to control insects, such as pyrethroids, are neurotoxicants, yet adolescent researchers often overlook their potential role in adolescent psychological adjustment. This brief report is guided by bioecological theory and considers the possible independent and interactive effects of environmental pyrethroid pesticide exposure for adolescent depressive symptoms. Self-reported adolescent appraisals of the parent-child relationship and depressive symptoms were obtained from a convenience sample of impoverished, predominantly Latino urban youth ( = 44).

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Hypoperfusion of the optic nerve might be involved in the pathogenesis of normal-tension glaucomatous optic neuropathy (GON). Mean arterial pressure (MAP) drives ocular perfusion, but no previous studies have addressed the risk of GON in relation to blood pressure (BP) variability, independent of BP level. In a cross-sectional study, 93 residents of Maracaibo, Venezuela, underwent optical coherence tomography, visual field assessments and 24-h ambulatory BP monitoring between 2011 and 2016.

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