Legislative Health Notes: Preliminary Learnings From Piloting a New Policy Analysis Tool.

Context: In 2018, the Health Impact Project (the Project) developed and tested a new health in all policies (HiAP) tool called "legislative health notes" to provide state and local legislators with peer-reviewed evidence, public health data, and local data that illustrate potential positive and negative health and equity effects of proposed bills.

Objectives: The Project sought to refine the health note methodology while piloting the tool in the Colorado and Indiana General Assemblies, and with the Council of the District of Columbia, and worked with affiliates to introduce them in North Carolina, Ohio, and California.

Design And Participants: External partners solicited feedback on health notes via semistructured interviews and surveys from legislators, legislative staff, and expert reviewers who were familiar with health notes in each of these jurisdictions.

Impact of community health workers on diabetes management in an urban United States Community with high diabetes burden through the COVID pandemic.

Objective: Community Health Worker (CHW) interventions are promising approaches to increasing access to health care, garnering better health outcomes, and decreasing health inequities for historically marginalized populations. This study examines the impact of a health system-based CHW program embedded in the Diabetes Impact Project - Indianapolis Neighborhoods (DIP-IN), a large, place-based, multi-year intervention to reduce diabetes burden. We assessed the CHW program's effectiveness in managing glucose control and reducing diabetes-associated complications across the COVID timeline.

Factors influencing the implementation of an intimate partner violence intervention in nurse home visiting: A qualitative descriptive study.

Aims: To identify factors that influenced: (1) integration of an intimate partner violence intervention into the Nurse-Family Partnership programme and (2) utilization of the intervention with fidelity to the clinical pathway by nurses in their home visits.

Design: A qualitative descriptive study embedded in the intervention arm (n = 7 sites) of a 15-site cluster randomized clinical trial to evaluate the intimate partner violence intervention.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews (n = 13) were conducted with supervisors.

Policy perceptions of US state public health and child and family services regarding maternal opioid use and neonatal exposure.

Objective: To explore how state legislatures and departments of health are responding to the public health and economic issues of increases in opioid use disorder and the impact on pregnant women and infants.

Design: The design was a non-experimental descriptive study using a mixed methods survey research approach.

Setting: Electronic and telephone survey of individuals from state departments of health associated with departments of behavioral health and substance use, or child and family services.

Physician understanding and application of surrogate decision-making laws in clinical practice.

Background: Although state surrogate laws are the most common way surrogate decision makers are identified, no studies have been conducted to determine physician understanding of these laws or how these laws are utilized during clinical practice. The purpose of this study is to better understand how surrogate decision-making laws function in practice.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey of 412 physicians working in Indiana hospitals was conducted between November 2014 and January 2015 to determine physicians' knowledge of Indiana's surrogate decision-making law and physicians' approaches to hypothetical cases using the law in clinical practice.

Integrative review: postcraniotomy pain in the brain tumour patient.

Aim: To conduct an integrative review to examine evidence of pain and associated symptoms in adult (≥21 years of age), postcraniotomy, brain tumour patients hospitalized on intensive care units.

Background: Healthcare providers believe craniotomies are less painful than other surgical procedures. Understanding how postcraniotomy pain unfolds over time will help inform patient care and aid in future research and policy development.

Fighting Prescription Drug Abuse Through State Policy: The Role of Nursing in Successful Implementation.

Prescription drug abuse has become a top public health concern in the United States in recent years. Changes in prescribing practices and the way in which health providers manage pain resulted from national quality improvement efforts in the 1990s. Most efforts to reduce morbidity and mortality associated with the prescription drug abuse epidemic occur through policy initiatives at the state level.

An integrated approach to gene discovery and marker development in Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua).

Atlantic cod is a species that has been overexploited by the capture fishery. Programs to domesticate this species are underway in several countries, including Canada, to provide an alternative route for production. Selective breeding programs have been successfully applied in the domestication of other species, with genomics-based approaches used to augment conventional methods of animal production in recent years.

Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) CC chemokines: Diversity and expression analysis.

Chemokines are a large, diverse group of small cytokines that can be classified into several families, including the CC chemokines that are characterized by two adjacent cysteines near their amino terminus. CC chemokines play a pivotal role in host defense mechanisms by inducing leukocyte chemotaxis under physiological and inflammatory conditions. Analysis of CC chemokines from teleost fishes indicates that the number of CC chemokine genes and their tissue expression patterns vary largely in this group of vertebrates.

Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) hemoglobin genes: multiplicity and polymorphism.

Background: Hemoglobin (Hb) polymorphism, assessed by protein gel electrophoresis, has been used almost exclusively to characterize the genetic structure of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) populations and to establish correlations with phenotypic traits such as Hb oxygen binding capacity, temperature tolerance and growth characteristics. The genetic system used to explain the results of gel electrophoresis entails the presence of one polymorphic locus with two major alleles (HbI-1; HbI-2). However, vertebrates have more than one gene encoding Hbs and recent studies have reported that more than one Hb gene is present in Atlantic cod.

Student evaluation of a standardized comprehensive testing program.

Computer-based, standardized, comprehensive testing is becoming a popular assessment tool in nursing education.This study sought to determine student response and satisfaction regarding such testing at a large state nursing school. Surveys that reviewed the entire testing process were provided to all students taking the computerized testing.

Clinical site selection by students through use of an internet database.

Use of the Internet in nursing education has greatly expanded during the past decade and will continue to be a force in the future. The authors describe the development and maintenance of an Internet Web site created to assist in the placement of individual students on particular clinical sites for their Capstone Practicum course in a baccalaureate school of nursing. Issues related to development, maintenance, and use of the program are included.

Nursing students can help support evidence-based practice on clinical nursing units.

Aims: A research study was designed to explore whether research utilization projects underwent by student nurses could have an impact on nursing practice on clinical nursing units.

Background: The use of evidence-based practice is becoming essential for nursing managers and nursing staff, but there are many barriers to implementing research findings in practice. Student nurses can be used to assist when staff nurses do not have time during the work day.

Developing and using online courses to prepare nurses for employment in critical care.

Using online courses is one way to simplify orientation programs and leverage educator resources. Three critical care courses were created using a distributed authoring model with geographically diverse clinical experts. A companion online orientation course prepares preceptors to assist with clinical application.

What rewards do clinical preceptors in nursing think are important?

This article explores the use of preceptors for a capstone course in a baccalaureate curriculum. Nursing faculty, nursing managers, and staff educators from local hospitals developed a survey to determine the range of items that would serve as recognition or rewards for staff working in a preceptor role. The challenge was to identify rewards that are meaningful to the preceptors and financially feasible for the organization and the School of Nursing.

Rho and Rho-kinase (ROCK) signaling in adherens and gap junction assembly in corneal epithelium.

Purpose: To examine whether Rho and its downstream target, a Rho-associated kinase (ROCK), are involved in the regulation of the assembly of cadherin-mediated cell adhesion and connexin 43 (Cx43) gap junctions in corneal epithelium.

Methods: Rho and ROCK activities in rabbit corneal epithelial cells in culture were inhibited by microinjection of a Clostridium botulinum ADP-ribosyltransferase (C3) and treatment with a ROCK specific inhibitor (Y-27632), respectively. Immunocytochemical and Western blot techniques were used to study the distribution and relative concentrations of E-cadherin and Cx43.