Connect: Cultivating Academic-Community Partnerships to Address Our Communities' Complex Needs During Public Health Crises.

Background: Black and Latino communities have been disproportionately impacted by coronavirus disease 2019 and we sought to understand perceptions and attitudes in four heavily impacted New Jersey counties to develop and evaluate engagement strategies to enhance access to testing.

Objective: To establish a successful academic/community partnership team during a public health emergency by building upon longstanding relationships and using principles from community engaged research.

Methods: We present a case study illustrating multiple levels of engagement, showing how we successfully aligned expectations, developed a commitment of cooperation, and implemented a research study, with community-based and health care organizations at the center of community engagement and recruitment.

Community- Versus Health Care Organization-Based Approaches to Expanding At-Home COVID-19 Testing in Black and Latino Communities, New Jersey, 2021.

At-home COVID-19 testing offers convenience and safety advantages. We evaluated at-home testing in Black and Latino communities through an intervention comparing community-based organization (CBO) and health care organization (HCO) outreach. From May through December 2021, 1100 participants were recruited, 94% through CBOs.

Experiences of Black and Latinx health care workers in support roles during the COVID-19 pandemic: A qualitative study.

Black and Latinx individuals, and in particular women, comprise an essential health care workforce often serving in support roles such as nursing assistants and dietary service staff. Compared to physicians and nurses, they are underpaid and potentially undervalued, yet play a critical role in health systems. This study examined the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic from the perspective of Black and Latinx health care workers in support roles (referred to here as HCWs).

Black and Latinx Community Perspectives on COVID-19 Mitigation Behaviors, Testing, and Vaccines.

Importance: Black and Latinx communities have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, yet little work has sought to understand their perspectives.

Objective: To explore the experiences of Black and Latinx communities during the pandemic to better understand their perspectives on COVID-19 mitigation behaviors (eg, mask wearing), testing, and vaccines.

Design, Setting, And Participants: In this community-engaged qualitative study conducted with 18 community-based organizations and 4 health care organizations between November 19, 2020, and February 5, 2021, in New Jersey counties severely affected by the pandemic, group and individual interviews were used to purposively sample 111 Black and Latinx individuals.

Secukinumab as a potential trigger of inflammatory bowel disease in ankylosing spondylitis or psoriatic arthritis patients.

Objective: Real-world secukinumab gastrointestinal-related adverse events (GIRAE) data during treatment for AS and PsA are lacking. We aimed to obtain this through baseline evaluation of pre-existing IBD rates and predictors of GIRAE.

Methods: Patient electronic and paper records commencing secukinumab from 10 UK hospitals between 2016 and 2019 were reviewed.

Recruiting Older African Americans to Brain Health and Aging Research Through Community Engagement: Lessons from the African-American Brain Health Initiative at Rutgers University-Newark.

The African-American Brain Health Initiative at Rutgers University-Newark is a university-community partnership combining community engagement, education and training, and brain health research. Partnering with community-based organizations, it promotes brain health literacy, Alzheimer's awareness, brain-healthy lifestyle choices, and participation in brain research for older African Americans in Greater Newark, New Jersey. Our approach to recruitment relies on building trust through long-term relationships; communicating health knowledge through trusted community leaders; recruiting subjects through targeted efforts; and cultivating research participants as ambassadors.

ABCA7 risk variant in healthy older African Americans is associated with a functionally isolated entorhinal cortex mediating deficient generalization of prior discrimination training.

Using high-resolution resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the present study tested the hypothesis that ABCA7 genetic risk differentially affects intra-medial temporal lobe (MTL) functional connectivity between MTL subfields, versus internetwork connectivity of the MTL with the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), in nondemented older African Americans. Although the association of ABCA7 risk variants with Alzheimer's disease (AD) has been confirmed worldwide, its effect size on the relative odds of being diagnosed with AD is significantly higher in African Americans. However, little is known about the neural correlates of cognitive function in older African Americans and how they relate to AD risk conferred by ABCA7.

APOE ε4 status in healthy older African Americans is associated with deficits in pattern separation and hippocampal hyperactivation.

African Americans are 1.4 times more likely than European Americans to carry the apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4 allele, a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, little is known about the neural correlates of cognitive function in older African Americans and how they relate to genetic risk for AD.

Interdisciplinary Disaster Drill Simulation: Laying the Groundwork for Further Research.

Aim: The aim of this study was to examine the effect of using serial simulations with progression through the nursing curriculum.

Background: Simulation provides a way to learn without fear of failure and increase critical thinking and clinical decision-making skills. Learning in an interdisciplinary simulation provides a greater understanding of teamwork and communication skills.

Murine atrial HL-1 cells express highly active peptidylglycine alpha-amidating enzyme.

Peptidylglycine-alpha-hydroxylating monooxygenase (PHM; EC 1.14.17.

Alzheimer's disease and total plasma aminothiols.

Background: Plasma homocysteine is elevated in Alzheimer's disease, but little is known regarding levels of related aminothiols in the disease. We therefore determined total plasma homocysteine, cysteine, and glutathione levels in patients and control subjects and investigated their relationship with cognitive scores.

Methods: We performed a prospective, case-controlled survey based in two UK Psychogeriatric Assessment Centres.

Effects of temperature on stability of blood homocysteine in collection tubes containing 3-deazaadenosine.

Background: The accuracy of homocysteine (Hcy) results is currently compromised by the requirement to separate the plasma within 1 h of sample collection. We studied the effect of temperature on the stability of plasma Hcy over a 72-h time course in blood collected into evacuated tubes containing either EDTA alone or both EDTA and 3-deazaadenosine (3DA).

Methods: We recruited 100 volunteers, including both diseased and healthy individuals with a range of baseline plasma Hcy values, from two centers.