Meal Improves Iron Status of Childbearing Age Women and Prevents Stunting in Their Toddlers in Northern Ghana.

Globally, iron deficiency (ID) is the most common form of nutritional deficiency, particularly in young children and childbearing age women. ID can lead to stunting and impaired cognitive development in children, as well as adverse maternal health and birth outcomes. In this study, the efficacy of an alternative food-to-food fortification utilizing indigenous iron-rich food sources was investigated in a quasi-experimental study.

Feature selection of ultrahigh-dimensional covariates with survival outcomes: a selective review.

Many modern biomedical studies have yielded survival data with high-throughput predictors. The goals of scientific research often lie in identifying predictive biomarkers, understanding biological mechanisms and making accurate and precise predictions. Variable screening is a crucial first step in achieving these goals.

Practice and Educational Gaps in Radiation Therapy in Dermatology.

Guidelines for appropriate use of superficial radiation therapy are based on decades of research; although no formal appropriate use criteria have been developed, they are warranted. Superficial radiation in the outpatient dermatologic setting is the least expensive form of radiation treatment. Although higher cure rates may be possible with Mohs surgery, this should never argue against dermatologists retaining and refining a modality, nor should we limit its use by our successors.

Efficient quantile marginal regression for longitudinal data with dropouts.

In many biomedical studies independent variables may affect the conditional distribution of the response differently in the middle as opposed to the upper or lower tail. Quantile regression evaluates diverse covariate effects on the conditional distribution of the response with quantile-specific regression coefficients. In this paper, we develop an empirical likelihood inference procedure for longitudinal data that accommodates both the within-subject correlations and informative dropouts under missing at random mechanisms.

Superficial x-ray in the treatment of basal and squamous cell carcinomas: a viable option in select patients.

Background: Effective nonsurgical modalities are limited in the treatment of basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC).

Objective: We sought to evaluate the efficacy and viability of superficial x-ray therapy in the treatment of BCC and SCC in an outpatient setting.

Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed on 1715 histologically confirmed primary cutaneous BCC and SCC treated with superficial x-ray therapy at Dermatology Associates of Tallahassee in Florida between 2000 and 2010.

An examination of pathways from childhood maltreatment to adolescent binge drinking.

Considerable clinical and empirical evidence has accumulated over the past decades indicating that there is a strong association between childhood maltreatment and heavy episodic drinking in adolescence, but there is a paucity of empirically based knowledge about the processes linking the association. The aim of this paper is to examine mechanisms that might account for the association between childhood maltreatment and heavy episodic drinking in adolescence. Using a nationally representative sample of adolescents (ages ranging 12-21; N = 6,337), this study examined the role of individual self-regulatory processes in the associations, controlling for age, gender, race/ethnicity, peer substance use, parental alcoholism, and parent-child conflict.

Personality and alcohol use: the role of impulsivity.

Research has shown that personality traits associated with impulsivity influence alcohol use during emerging adulthood, yet relatively few studies have examined how distinct facets of impulsivity are associated with alcohol use and abuse. We examine the influence of impulsivity traits on four patterns of alcohol use including frequency of alcohol use, alcohol-related problems, binge drinking, and alcohol use disorders (AUDs) in a community sample of young individuals (N=190). In multivariate regression analyses that controlled for peer and parental alcohol use, psychological distress, and developmental correlates (i.

Childhood sexual abuse and adolescent substance use: a latent class analysis.

Children who have exposure to child sexual abuse (CSA) are at particular risk for developing substance abuse in adolescence, but the extent to which CSA may shape patterns of adolescent substance use remains uncertain. The aim of this paper is to characterize the variations in patterns of adolescent substance use and to examine the association between CSA and qualitatively distinct patterns of adolescent substance use. Latent class analyses identified homogenous groups of adolescents with similar patterns of substance use using a sample of 1019 adolescents (mean age: 15.