Small + Safe + Well: lessons learned from a Total Worker Health® randomized intervention to promote organizational change in small business.

Background: Leadership commitment to worker safety and health is one of the most important factors when organizations develop and implement a Total Worker Health® approach. We aimed to assess the effectiveness of a Total Worker Health ("TWH") leadership development program that targeted owners and other senior-level leadership positions on changing organizational and worker outcomes from baseline to one-year later.

Methods: The Small + Safe + Well study included small businesses from a variety of industries in the state of Colorado, USA that were participating in Health Links™.

Latin American Agricultural Workers' Job Demands and Resources and the Association With Health Behaviors at Work and Overall Health.

In the present study, we describe the job demands and job resources (JD-R) experienced by agricultural workers in three Latin American countries and their relationship to proactive health behaviors at work and overall health. Following previous research on the JD-R model, we hypothesized that job demands (H1) would be negatively related to agricultural workers' self-reported overall health. On the other hand, we hypothesized that job resources (H2) would be positively related to agricultural workers' overall health.

Model-Based Optimization of Laser Excitation and Detection Improves Spectral Contrast in Noninvasive Diffuse Raman Spectroscopy.

Spatially offset Raman spectroscopy (SORS) is a powerful technique for subsurface molecular analysis of optically turbid samples. Numerical modeling of light propagation has been used to investigate opportunities for improving spectral contrast and signal to noise ratio when imaging regions of interest located 0-4.5 mm below the surface in polymer bulk material.

Body Composition, Anemia, and Kidney Function among Guatemalan Sugarcane Workers.

Rates of anemia among agricultural workers, who are also at risk for kidney injury and chronic kidney disease of unknown cause (CKDu), are unknown. We evaluated body composition through the sum of three skinfolds among 203 male sugarcane cutters and assessed the relationship of variables related to nutrition, anemia (hemoglobin < 13 g/dL), and elevated hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c ≥ 5.7%) with estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) using linear regression.

Total Worker Health and Small Business Employee Perceptions of Health Climate, Safety Climate, and Well-Being during COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic created workplace challenges for employee safety and health, especially in small enterprises. We used linear mixed-effects regression to examine changes in health climate, safety climate, and worker well-being, prior to the pandemic and at two timepoints during it. We also examined whether employees at organizations that had received a TWH leadership development intervention prior to COVID-19 would better maintain pre-pandemic perceptions of climates and well-being.

A pilot study of changes in Total Worker Health® policies and programs and associated changes in safety and health climates in small business.

Background: There is little longitudinal research on whether changes to Total Worker Health® (TWH) policies and programs are associated with changes in health climate and safety climate. We hypothesize that as TWH policies and programs change, employees will report changes in safety climate and health climate from baseline to 1 year.

Methods: Twenty-five diverse small businesses and their employees participated in assessments completed approximately 1 year apart.

Profiles of total worker health® in United States small businesses.

Background: The Total Worker Health® (TWH) approach is a best practice method to protect and promote worker safety, health, and well-being. Central to this approach is leadership support and health and safety climates that support day-to-day use of health and safety policies and programs. There is some research that supports these relationships, but there is limited research amongst small businesses.

Risk factors for persistent abnormality on chest radiographs at 12-weeks post hospitalisation with PCR confirmed COVID-19.

Background: The long-term consequences of COVID-19 remain unclear. There is concern a proportion of patients will progress to develop pulmonary fibrosis. We aimed to assess the temporal change in CXR infiltrates in a cohort of patients following hospitalisation for COVID-19.

Impact of Advising on Total Worker Health Implementation.

Objective: Little is understood about the mechanisms for improving the adoption and implementation of Total Worker Health® (TWH) in workplace settings. The primary objective of this study was to identify whether the delivery of TWH advising is associated with subsequent changes in TWH in small-to-medium sized businesses.

Methods: We conducted a longitudinal study of a TWH intervention in 200 organizations completing Health Links Healthy Workplace Assessments™ between October 2016 and December 2019.

Workplace Screening Identifies Clinically Significant and Potentially Reversible Kidney Injury in Heat-Exposed Sugarcane Workers.

An epidemic of chronic kidney disease of unknown origin (CKDu) has emerged in the past two decades in agricultural communities, characterized by progressive renal failure with a dearth of early clinical symptoms. The aim of this study is to improve understanding of the natural history of this disease and to evaluate the impact of an educational and behavioral intervention on the trajectories of renal decline among a cohort of Guatemalan sugarcane workers. We identified groups of workers based on their kidney function during a longitudinal parent study conducted among sugarcane workers during the 2016-2017 harvest season.

Equilibrative nucleoside transporter 1 expression in primary human hepatocytes is highly variable and determines uptake of ribavirin.

Aims Ribavirin is a nucleoside analogue and remains a necessary component of both interferon-based and directly acting anti-viral regimens for the treatment of hepatitis C virus infection. The achievable concentration of ribavirin within hepatocytes is likely to be an important determinant of therapeutic outcome. In vitro expression levels of equilibrative nucleoside transporter 1 (ENT1) has been shown to be a predictor of treatment response in patients receiving nucleoside-based chemotherapeutic agents.

Bilinguals at the "cocktail party": dissociable neural activity in auditory-linguistic brain regions reveals neurobiological basis for nonnative listeners' speech-in-noise recognition deficits.

We examined a consistent deficit observed in bilinguals: poorer speech-in-noise (SIN) comprehension for their nonnative language. We recorded neuroelectric mismatch potentials in mono- and bi-lingual listeners in response to contrastive speech sounds in noise. Behaviorally, late bilinguals required ∼10dB more favorable signal-to-noise ratios to match monolinguals' SIN abilities.

Unusually high impact of influenza B during the early 2012-2013 influenza season in Wales--epidemiology and clinical analysis of the first 100 cases.

Background: Influenza B is often regarded as the milder form of the disease. The early 2012-2013 season in Wales saw the highest rate of influenza B-associated primary care consultations since 1994-1995 and considerable hospitalisations.

Objectives: This report summarises features of the first 100 confirmed cases during 2012-2013 in Wales.

Mannan binding lectin-associated serine protease 1 is induced by hepatitis C virus infection and activates human hepatic stellate cells.

Mannan binding lectin (MBL)-associated serine protease type 1 (MASP-1) has a central role in the lectin pathway of complement activation and is required for the formation of C3 convertase. The activity of MASP-1 in the peripheral blood has been identified previously as a highly significant predictor of the severity of liver fibrosis in hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, but not in liver disease of other aetiologies. In this study we tested the hypotheses that expression of MASP-1 may promote disease progression in HCV disease by direct activation of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) and may additionally be up-regulated by HCV.

Strategies to increase influenza vaccination rates: outcomes of a nationwide cross-sectional survey of UK general practice.

Objective: To identify practice strategies associated with higher flu vaccination rates in primary care.

Design: Logistic regression analysis of data from a cross-sectional online questionnaire.

Setting: 795 general practices across England.

Trehalose: a review of properties, history of use and human tolerance, and results of multiple safety studies.

This paper contains a review of the history, natural occurrence, human consumption, metabolism, manufacture, and the results of eight standardized animal safety studies using trehalose. Trehalose (alpha,alpha-trehalose) is a naturally occurring sugar containing two D-glucose units in an alpha,alpha-1,1 linkage. Trehalose functions in many organisms as an energy source or a protectant against the effects of freezing or dehydration.

Visuospatial ability in cortical dementia.

The level and pattern of visuospatial ability were comparatively examined in patients with putative cortical dementia (CD) and acute right hemisphere (RH) injury. Visuospatial ability was evaluated using measures of block construction, spatial reasoning, hemispatial search, and visuoconstructive copy. The incidence of neglect was also determined using special index measures derived from the spatial tasks.

Occult cancer in patients with acute pulmonary embolism.

An association between venous thrombosis and cancer was first suggested by Trousseau, and has been confirmed by multiple postmortem studies. Clinical studies have shown that thrombophlebitis migrans may occur before malignancies become clinically evident, and therefore serves as a clue to occult cancer. A relation between occult cancer and the commoner deep venous thrombosis and pulmonary embolism has not been established.

T and B lymphocytes of the regional lymph nodes in patients with carcinoma of uterine cervix.

A comparative study of the peripheral blood and the regional lymph nodes lymphocyte subpopulations at 25 patients with carcinoma of uterine cervix was carried out by non-immune rosettes and immunofluorescence methods. The lymph nodes of ten women not affected with any disease, but operated on the occasion of the traumas were investigated as a control. The patients had a significant reduction of the relative amount of T cells and increase of number of B cells in their lymph nodes as compared with the control group.