Randomized controlled trial of an interactive internet smoking cessation program with long-term follow-up.

Background: Internet programs for smoking cessation are widely available but few controlled studies demonstrate long-term efficacy.

Purpose: To determine the 13-month effectiveness of an Internet program presenting a set sequence of interactive steps, and the role of depressed affect.

Methods: In a randomized controlled trial sponsored by the American Cancer Society, a treatment condition (n = 1,106) was compared to a control site (n = 1,047).

Making a case for the examination of ethnicity of Blacks in United States Health Research.

Important differences between Blacks of different ethnicities in the U.S. in chronic disease morbidity and mortality have been reported.

Breast feeding, bottle feeding, and maternal autonomic responses to stress.

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the effects of breast feeding on autonomic nervous system (ANS) response to stressors.

Methods: Sympathetic and parasympathetic activities were examined before, during, and after standard laboratory stressors in women who were either exclusively breast feeding (n=14) or nonexclusively breast feeding (n=14), and in non-postpartum controls (n=15).

Results: Mothers who breast fed exclusively showed greater levels of parasympathetic cardiac modulation and slower heart rate (HR) throughout the session and less HR increase and preejection period (PEP) shortening to mental arithmetic (MA) than did nonexclusive breast feeders and controls.

Effects of trial order and differential conditioning on acquisition of differential shock expectancy and skin conductance conditioning to masked stimuli.

Research suggests that when people are fear conditioned to masked spiders and snakes (electric shocks are contingent on only spiders or snakes), they acquire a conditional skin conductance response and can predict the occurrence of shocks even though they are unable to identify the masked spiders and snakes. Because in prior studies trial order was not completely random, it is unclear if findings were due to the contingencies from differential conditioning or a restricted trial order or both. When participants were assigned to four groups to disentangle effects of trial order and differential conditioning to masked pictures in acquisition, effects were obtained only for trial order.

Cardiovascular reactivity to mental arithmetic and cold pressorin African Americans, Caribbean Americans, and white Americans.

Background: Caribbean Americans and African Americans, two of the largest Black ethnic groups in the United States, differ in cardiovascular-disease-related mortality rates.

Purpose: Cardiovascular reactivity to psychological stress may be an important marker or mediator of risk for cardiovascular disease development in Blacks in the United States, yet little attention has been paid to ethnicity among Blacks in reactivity research. This study examined cardiovascular reactivity to psychological stress in African American, Caribbean American, and White American participants.