Communities conquering COVID-19: Black and Latinx community perspectives on the impact of COVID-19 in regions of Michigan hardest hit by the pandemic.

Introduction: In Michigan, the COVID-19 pandemic severely impacted Black and Latinx communities. These communities experienced higher rates of exposure, hospitalizations, and deaths compared to Whites. We examine the impact of the pandemic and reasons for the higher burden on communities of color from the perspectives of Black and Latinx community members across four Michigan counties and discuss recommendations to better prepare for future public health emergencies.

Multiple DNA repair pathways prevent acetaldehyde-induced mutagenesis in yeast.

Acetaldehyde is the primary metabolite of alcohol and is present in many environmental sources including tobacco smoke. Acetaldehyde is genotoxic, whereby it can form DNA adducts and lead to mutagenesis. Individuals with defects in acetaldehyde clearance pathways have increased susceptibility to alcohol-associated cancers.

Widespread mutagenesis and chromosomal instability shape somatic genomes in systemic sclerosis.

Systemic sclerosis is a connective tissue disorder characterized by excessive fibrosis that primarily affects women, and can present as a multisystem pathology. Roughly 4-22% of patients with systemic sclerosis develop cancer, which drastically worsens prognosis. However, the mechanisms underlying systemic sclerosis initiation, propagation, and cancer development are poorly understood.

"It Felt Like I Was Being Tailored to the Treatment Rather Than the Treatment Being Tailored to Me": Patient Experiences of Helpful and Unhelpful Psychotherapy.

Objective: This qualitative study explores patients' experiences of psychotherapy, focusing on elements perceived as helpful or unhelpful and suggestions for improvement in the context of public mental health care.

Methods: A total of 148 adults (Mean age = 32.24, SD = 9.

The Revised Pathogenic Beliefs Scale: A Transtheoretical Measure of Maladaptive Beliefs That Are Associated with Psychological Distress.

Pathogenic beliefs are maladaptive cognitive schema that may obstruct a person's ability to achieve meaningful goals in their life. This study sought to revise a previously existing measure of pathogenic beliefs (the Pathogenic Beliefs Scale) by improving the quality of items and separating the ratings of the presence of a pathogenic belief from the distress associated with it. In Study 1 ( = 272), we used item-response theory to identify 21 items from an initial pool of 44 items.