Yield of Low-Dose Computerized Tomography Screening for Lung Cancer in High-Risk Workers: The Case of 7189 US Nuclear Weapons Workers.

Objectives: To determine the lung cancer screening yield and stages in a union-sponsored low-dose computerized tomography scan program for nuclear weapons workers with diverse ages, smoking histories, and occupations.

Methods: We implemented a low-dose computerized tomography program among 7189 nuclear weapons workers in 9 nonmetropolitan US communities during 2000 to 2013. Eligibility criteria included age, smoking, occupation, radiographic asbestos-related fibrosis, and a positive beryllium lymphocyte proliferation test.

The choice of facilitators in medical tourism.

The study identified which of the four facilitators (themselves, agents, insurers, or doctors) consumers are most likely to use when they travel for various medical procedures. A survey conducted between 2011 and 2014 yielded 964 responses. The multinomial logistic regression results showed that being 51-64 years old was positively related to going on their own or using agents to arrange for knee replacements.

Landscape Analysis of Adult Florida Panther Habitat.

Historically occurring throughout the southeastern United States, the Florida panther is now restricted to less than 5% of its historic range in one breeding population located in southern Florida. Using radio-telemetry data from 87 prime-aged (≥3 years old) adult panthers (35 males and 52 females) during the period 2004 through 2013 (28,720 radio-locations), we analyzed the characteristics of the occupied area and used those attributes in a random forest model to develop a predictive distribution map for resident breeding panthers in southern Florida. Using 10-fold cross validation, the model was 87.

Medical tourists: who goes and what motivates them?

This study relates consumers' attitudes toward medical tourism to a number of consumer characteristics, such as age, education, income, and insurance status. Principal components analysis of the attitudes of 289 consumers from various communities of North Carolina resulted in three attitude-related factors: economic, treatment-related, and travel-related. Major findings include: (a) the uninsured and low-income consumers are more sensitive to economic factors than the insured and the middle-income consumers; (b) the 51- to 64-year-olds are less motivated by economic factors than young adults; (c) surprisingly, the better one's health, the more one is motivated by treatment-related factors.

Triangle of prevention: a union's experience promoting a systems-of-safety health and safety program.

After years of watching company health and safety programs fail to prevent major incidents, injuries, illness, and death in industrial workplaces, union health and safety staff and rank and file activists took up the challenge of creating a union-run alternative program. Named the Triangle of Prevention (TOP), the program successfully engages both local unions and management in incident and near-miss reporting and investigation, root cause analysis, recommending and tracking solutions, and learning and sharing lessons. In all phases, TOP uses a hierarchical, systems-of-safety-based approach to hazard identification, reporting, prevention and control while aiming to engage the union, its members, and all other employees of a worksite.

Actualizing a provider alliance to expand health services access to a low-income urban community.

Social change to facilitate health care access for vulnerable populations sometimes involves model-driven innovative structures and innovative planning and implementation approaches. This paper described and analyzed the rationale, conceptual framework, program components, and implementation of the South Central Health Care Alliance (SCHCA) implemented in South Los Angeles from January 2002 to December 2004. The program development and implementation was guided by an integrated framework linking the Open Systems Theory, the Social Cognitive Theory, the Health Belief Model, and the Preventive Health Education and Medical Home Project.

The Union RAP: industry-wide research-action projects to win health and safety improvements.

Unions are ripe to engage in community-based participatory research (CBPR). We briefly profile 3 United Steelworker CBPR projects aimed at uncovering often-undocumented, industry-wide health and safety conditions in which US industrial workers toil. The results are to be used to advocate improvements at workplace, industry, and national policy levels.

The Preventive Health Education and Medical Home Project: a predictive and contextual model for low-income families.

The Preventive Health Education and Medical Home Project (PHEMHP) is a predictive and contextual model intended to reduce low levels of health services utilization and improve preventive health techniques and disease self-management for low-income families in South Central Los Angeles, with the ultimate goal of attaching each child to a medical home. The model is designed to be implemented through educational and case management strategies. This paper presents the conceptual framework, critical intervention activities, and the different implementation variations the PHEMHP has already assumed.

Beyond Texas City: the state of process safety in the unionized U.S. oil refining industry.

The March 2005 British Petroleum (BP) Texas City Refinery disaster provided a stimulus to examine the state of process safety in the U.S. refining industry.

Neuroprotection with delayed calpain inhibition after transient forebrain ischemia.

Objective: Delayed neurodegeneration after transient global brain ischemia offers a therapeutic window for inhibiting molecular injury mechanisms. One such mechanism is calpain-mediated proteolysis, which peaks 24 to 48 hrs after transient forebrain ischemia in rats. This study tests the hypothesis that delayed calpain inhibitor therapy can reduce brain calpain activity and neurodegeneration after transient forebrain ischemia.

Efficient replication, and evolution of Sindbis virus genomes with non-canonical 3'A/U-rich elements (NC3ARE) in neonatal mice.

Sindbis virus (SIN) is a mosquito-transmitted animal RNA virus. We previously reported that SIN genomes lacking a canonical 19 nt 3'CSE undergo novel repair processes in BHK cells to generate a library of stable atypical SIN genomes with non-canonical 3'A/U-rich elements (NC3AREs) adjacent to the 3' poly(A) tail [1]. To determine the stability and evolutionary pressures on the SIN genomes with NC3AREs to regain a 3'CSE, five representative SIN isolates and a wild type SIN were tested in newborn mice.

Developmental status of neurons selectively vulnerable to rapidly triggered post-ischemic caspase activation.

Caspase activation occurs within 1h of reperfusion in discrete cell populations of the adult rat brain following transient forebrain ischemia. Based on the proximity of these cells to regions of adult neurogenesis and the known susceptibility of developing neurons to apoptosis, we tested the hypothesis that rapidly triggered post-ischemic caspase activation occurs in immature neurons or neuroprogenitor cells. Adult male Long Evans rats were injected with BrdU to label mitotic cells 1, 7, or 28 days prior to being studied.

Provider practice, overweight and associated risk variables among children from a multi-ethnic underserved community.

Two hundred and eight medical records subdivided into two age groups, < 2 years (n = 49), and two to 17 years (n = 159) were used to assess providers' practice of documentation and intervention for overweight and associated risk variables, among children from a multi-ethnic inner-city population. The Body Mass Index (BMI) and/or weight to height ratio > or = 90th percentile for age and sex were used to define overweight, or at risk for overweight. Documentation for excessive weight and intervention, resident-physician training level, demographics, blood pressure, and cholesterol values were recorded.

Comparison of calpain and caspase activities in the adult rat brain after transient forebrain ischemia.

The role of calpain and caspase family proteases in postischemic neuronal death remains controversial. This study compared the timing, location, and relative activity of calpains and caspases in the adult rat brain following 10 min of transient forebrain ischemia. Western blots of cortical, striatal, and hippocampal homogenates demonstrated a alpha-spectrin cleavage pattern indicative of predominant calpain activity, which peaked between 24 and 48 h after reperfusion.

Knowledge and management of diarrhea among underserved minority parents/caregivers.

Objective: Dehydration resulting from diarrhea continues to be a cause of morbidity, mortality, and increased health care costs in the United States. This study assesses parental knowledge of the causes and signs of diarrhea and dehydration. It also examines parental-care practices during an episode of diarrhea.