Objective: To evaluate how Texas health care professionals who care for patients experiencing medically complex pregnancies navigate abortion restrictions.
Methods: We conducted qualitative in-depth interviews with health care professionals across Texas who cared for patients with life-limiting fetal diagnoses or who had existing or developed health conditions that adversely affected pregnancy. We conducted the first round of interviews March-June 2021 and the second round of interviews January-May 2022 after the implementation of Texas Senate Bill 8 (SB8), which prohibited most abortions after detection of embryonic cardiac activity.
In the United States, abortion is safe and common, but highly stigmatized and frequently targeted by legislation that aims to restrict access. Numerous obstacles impede access to abortion care, including logistical barriers like cost and transportation, limited clinic availability, and state-mandated waiting periods. Accurate abortion information can also be hard to access.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: After the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of family planning services decreased, but there are limited data on how safety net providers were affected.
Methods: Between November 2020 and March 2021, we conducted in-depth interviews with administrators at health departments, federally qualified health centers, and specialized family planning organizations across Texas about pandemic-related changes in family planning services. We analyzed interview transcripts using an inductive thematic approach.
Objectives: Political and public health responses to the COVID-19 pandemic changed provision of abortion care and exacerbated existing barriers. We aimed to explore experiences of individuals seeking abortion care in 2 abortion-restrictive states in the United States where state policies and practice changes disrupted abortion provision during the pandemic.
Study Design: We conducted 22 semistructured interviews in Texas (n = 10) and Ohio (n = 12) to assess how state executive orders limiting abortion, along with other public health guidance and pandemic-related service delivery changes, affected individuals seeking abortion care.
Purpose: The American Society of Clinical Oncology Clinical Practice guidelines recommend that non-physicians such as nurses, social workers, and psychologists should be prepared to discuss fertility and sexual concerns with patients. However, literature showed that the utilization rate of sexual and reproductive care for women with cancer remained low. We conducted a scoping review to describe non-physicians' roles, barriers, and facilitators providing sexual and reproductive health (SRH) care to women of reproductive age with cancer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRegulatory T cell (Treg) adoptive cell therapy (ACT) represents an emerging strategy for restoring immune tolerance in autoimmune diseases. Tregs are commonly purified using a CD4CD25CD127 gating strategy, which yields a mixed population: 1) cells expressing the transcription factors, FOXP3 and Helios, that canonically define lineage stable thymic Tregs and 2) unstable FOXP3Helios Tregs. Our prior work identified the autoimmune disease risk-associated locus and costimulatory molecule, CD226, as being highly expressed not only on effector T cells but also, interferon-γ (IFN-γ) producing peripheral Tregs (pTreg).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCombinations of anti-cancer drugs can overcome resistance and provide new treatments. The number of possible drug combinations vastly exceeds what could be tested clinically. Efforts to systematically identify active combinations and the tissues and molecular contexts in which they are most effective could accelerate the development of combination treatments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: The Hyde Amendment and related policies limit or prohibit Medicaid coverage of abortion services in the United States. Most research on cost-related abortion barriers relies on clinic-based samples, but people who desire abortions may never make it to a healthcare center. To examine a novel, pre-abortion population, we analyzed a unique qualitative dataset of posts from Reddit, a widely used social media platform increasingly leveraged by researchers, to assess financial obstacles among anonymous posters considering abortion.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe identify the Plasmodium falciparum acetyl-coenzyme A synthetase (PfAcAS) as a druggable target, using genetic and chemical validation. In vitro evolution of resistance with two antiplasmodial drug-like compounds (MMV019721 and MMV084978) selects for mutations in PfAcAS. Metabolic profiling of compound-treated parasites reveals changes in acetyl-CoA levels for both compounds.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The LGBTQ health disparities literature documents barriers to comprehensive and queer-inclusive care. Queer cisgender women and gender expansive individuals assigned female at birth experience myriad health disparities related to reproductive health, in part owing to the health care system. However, few studies have examined how queer individuals cope with and overcome barriers to queer-competent reproductive health care.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe document abortion method decision-making through analyzing posts on Reddit, a popular social media platform.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSupportive father involvement during pregnancy can positively impact maternal and child outcomes. Father participation in prenatal care is increasing, yet little research exists to understand how mothers and fathers experience father participation in prenatal care and their preferences for father participation. We interviewed expectant first-time mothers (N = 22) and fathers (N = 20) to learn about fathers' participation in prenatal care, perceptions of providers' treatment of fathers, and preferences for father participation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn malaria, chemical genetics is a powerful method for assigning function to uncharacterized genes. MMV085203 and GNF-Pf-3600 are two structurally related napthoquinone phenotypic screening hits that kill both blood- and sexual-stage parasites in the low nanomolar to low micromolar range. In order to understand their mechanism of action, parasites from two different genetic backgrounds were exposed to sublethal concentrations of MMV085203 and GNF-Pf-3600 until resistance emerged.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFparasites rely heavily on glycolysis for ATP production and for precursors for essential anabolic pathways, such as the methylerythritol phosphate (MEP) pathway. Here, we show that mutations in the glycolytic enzyme, phosphofructokinase (PFK9), are associated with resistance to a primary sulfonamide glycoside (PS-3). Flux through the upper glycolysis pathway was significantly reduced in PS-3-resistant parasites, which was associated with reduced ATP levels but increased flux into the pentose phosphate pathway.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFReproductive justice is an intersectional social movement, theory, and praxis well aligned with social work's mission and values. Yet, advancing reproductive justice-the right to have children, to not have children, to parent with safety and dignity, and to sexual and bodily autonomy-has not been a signature area of scholarship and practice for the field. This article argues that it is critical for social work to advance reproductive justice to truly achieve the grand challenge of closing the health gap.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe search for antimalarial chemotypes with modes of action unrelated to existing drugs has intensified with the recent failure of first-line therapies across Southeast Asia. Here, we show that the trisubstituted imidazole MMV030084 potently inhibits hepatocyte invasion by Plasmodium sporozoites, merozoite egress from asexual blood stage schizonts, and male gamete exflagellation. Metabolomic, phosphoproteomic, and chemoproteomic studies, validated with conditional knockdown parasites, molecular docking, and recombinant kinase assays, identified cGMP-dependent protein kinase (PKG) as the primary target of MMV030084.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSexual minority women (SMW) face both increased risk for unintended pregnancy and barriers to achieving wanted pregnancy, but little research investigates SMW's pregnancy desires. To fill this gap, we conducted five focus groups and 11 in-depth interviews with 20-30-year-old SMW in three US cities. Findings highlight that the heteronormative pregnancy planning paradigm lacks salience for SMW.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCompared with their heterosexual peers, sexual minority women (SMW; e.g., queer, bisexual, lesbian, pansexual) have an elevated risk for unintended pregnancy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe malaria parasite Plasmodium and other apicomplexans such as Toxoplasma evolved from photosynthetic organisms and contain an essential, remnant plastid termed the apicoplast. Transcription of the apicoplast genome is polycistronic with extensive RNA processing. Yet little is known about the mechanism of apicoplast RNA processing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To describe a group of young sexual minority women's experiences with and preferences for sexual identity disclosure in the context of contraceptive care.
Methods: In Chicago, Illinois, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Madison, Wisconsin, investigators conducted five focus groups (n=22) and 11 interviews with women aged 20-30 years who identified as something other than heterosexual. Focus groups explored social norms regarding contraceptive care; interviews documented individual experiences with contraceptive care.
J Womens Health (Larchmt)
January 2019
Context: Sexual minority women (SMW) are less likely to use sexual and reproductive health care services and receive contraceptive counseling than their heterosexual peers. The role of recent sexual partners and the type of information provided when SMW access health services are unclear.
Methods: The National Survey of Family Growth 2006-2015 was used to document sexual orientation disparities in the use of sexual and reproductive health services and counseling in clinical settings among 20,703 women.
To identify the factors that have influenced dental hygienists to pursue post-graduate education opportunities, specifically dental (DDS, DMD) as compared to academic doctoral degrees, such as doctor of philosophy (PhD) or doctor of education (EdD). A convenience sample of dental hygienists with doctoral degrees were identified from multiple sources (n=140) and sent a 27-item web-based survey. Univariate logistic regression analysis was used to explore the influence of independent variables (respondents' demographic and personal characteristics, influential persons and experiences, encouraging and motivating factors) on the respondents' decision to pursue either a dental or an academic doctoral degree.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe family planning needs of sexual minority women (SMW) are an understudied but growing area of research. SMW have family planning needs, both similar to and distinct from their exclusively heterosexual peers. Specifically, SMW experience unintended pregnancies at higher rates than their exclusively heterosexual peers, but factors that increase this risk are not well understood.
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