Publications by authors named "JoAnna Williams"

Background: Physical activity is essential for long-term health, yet data from before the COVID-19 pandemic showed only 41% of 10- to 11-year-olds met the UK government's physical activity recommendations. Children's physical activity was limited during the national COVID-19 lockdowns. It is important to measure children's physical activity in the recovery period to assess the short- and medium-term impact of the lockdowns.

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Background And Objectives: Schools play a crucial role in facilitating physical activity among children, but the COVID-19 pandemic has affected both children's physical activity and the school environment. It is essential to understand between-school differences in children's physical activity post lockdown, to determine if and how the role of schools has changed.

Design And Participants: Active-6 is a natural experiment comparing postlockdown accelerometer-estimated physical activity to a pre-COVID-19 comparator group.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the impacts of COVID-19 lockdowns on health-related quality of life (HRQL), capability well-being, and family financial strain in children and their parents, highlighting a lack of research on these changes post-lockdown.
  • Data were collected from 393 parent-child pairs in Wave 1 (May-December 2021) and 436 in Wave 2 (January-July 2022), using questionnaires and accelerometers to assess HRQL, capability well-being, and physical activity.
  • Findings indicated that while HRQL and capability well-being scores remained stable between waves, financial strain significantly worsened from Wave 1 to Wave 2, suggesting economic pressures could impact overall well-being despite similar health-related quality
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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates how motivation influences physical activity levels in parents and caregivers of primary school children in England, particularly during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
  • It employs a mixed-methods approach, collecting quantitative data through surveys and accelerometer measurements across multiple waves, as well as qualitative data from interviews with parents about their exercise motivations and behaviors.
  • Findings indicate that intrinsic motivation and identified regulation (personal value placed on exercise) are linked to increased physical activity, while amotivation (lack of motivation) correlates with lower activity levels.
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Background: The COVID-19 lockdowns and social distancing measures, including school closures, had a major impact on children's physical activity in England, with data showing an initial reduction in activity in the short-term post-lockdown phase of the pandemic followed by a recovery on average in the medium-term post-lockdown period. The school environment is an important context for child physical activity. The purpose of this study is to understand the changes that took place to school physical activity environments once schools reopened after lockdowns.

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Article Synopsis
  • Physical activity is crucial for children's health, but it has decreased with age and even more so due to COVID-19 lockdowns, leading to higher sedentary behavior among kids.
  • A study analyzed physical activity patterns of children before and after lockdowns, identifying various activity profiles, including one with very low moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) that affected 19% of kids.
  • Post-lockdown, the percentage of children in the least active profiles increased significantly, with notable differences based on gender and socioeconomic status, highlighting the need for targeted interventions to boost activity levels in inactive groups.
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  • The study examined how children's participation in active clubs in England was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis, utilizing a mix of questionnaire data and qualitative interviews.
  • Findings revealed that school-based club participation increased post-pandemic, while community-based club participation decreased, with lower attendance frequency overall.
  • Economic factors influenced participation rates, with children from lower-educated households and girls attending community clubs less, and over half of the school clubs offering free sessions to parents.
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Current clinical tests for Parkinson's disease (PD) provide insufficient diagnostic accuracy leading to an urgent need for improved diagnostic biomarkers. As microRNAs (miRNAs) are promising biomarkers of various diseases, including PD, this systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to assess the diagnostic accuracy of biofluid miRNAs in PD. All studies reporting data on miRNAs expression in PD patients compared to controls were included.

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Article Synopsis
  • The COVID-19 pandemic affected children's physical activity levels, which have only partially rebounded to pre-pandemic numbers, with 41% still not meeting activity guidelines in the UK.
  • A study involving interviews and focus groups revealed themes including increased screen time, disrupted social and emotional development, and mental health challenges for families, leading to increased barriers for children's activity.
  • The findings suggest a "new normal" for children's physical activity characterized by structured activities, with particular concerns for girls and children from lower socio-economic backgrounds facing more significant challenges.
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Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in marked impacts on children's physical activity, with large reductions in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) reported during lockdowns. Previous evidence showed children's activity levels were lower and sedentary time higher immediately post-COVID lockdown, while there was little change in parental physical activity. We need to know if these patterns persist.

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Background: Restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic have led to increased screen-viewing among children, especially during strict periods of lockdown. However, the extent to which screen-viewing patterns in UK school children have changed post lockdowns is unclear. The aim of this paper is to examine how screen-viewing changed in 10-11-year-old children over the 2020-21 COVID-19 pandemic, how this compares to before the pandemic, and the influences on screen-viewing behaviour.

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Background: Recent policies have recommended early-life interventions to prevent caries. The four nations of the UK each have a national universal children's health programme, through which health visitors and their wider team (HVTs) promote health in the early years. HVT visits offer an opportunity to support parents to improve their child's oral health.

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Background: Dental caries in childhood is a burden on the daily lives of children and their families, and associated with poor oral health in adulthood. In England, dental caries is the most common reason for young children to be admitted to hospital. It is believed that most tooth extractions (due to decay) for children aged 10 years and under, could be avoided with improved prevention and early management.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study looks at how educational programs for parents can help stop abusive head trauma (AHT) in young kids caused by shaking or hitting.
  • They searched for different research studies to see if these programs work, focusing on how parents react when their babies cry.
  • The results showed some improvements in how parents respond to crying, but the evidence isn’t very strong about preventing AHT or helping parents feel better overall.
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Background: Active-6 is exploring how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted physical activity behaviour among Year 6 children (aged 10-11 years) and their parents in Southwest England. Initial findings from the Active-6 project have shown a 7-8 min decrease in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and an increase in sedentary behaviour among children following the easing of restrictions in the UK in latter half of 2021. This finding suggests that the pandemic has had a persistent impact on child physical activity behaviour.

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Aotearoa New Zealand's population is ageing. Increasing life expectancy is accompanied by increases in prevalence of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and ageing-related disorders. The multicentre Dementia Prevention Research Clinic longitudinal study aims to improve understanding of AD and dementia in Aotearoa, in order to develop interventions that delay or prevent progression to dementia.

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The New Zealand Genetic Frontotemporal Dementia Study (FTDGeNZ) is an emerging longitudinal study of a large New Zealand pedigree with genetic frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Natural history studies of genetic FTD cohorts provide a unique opportunity to identify biomarkers of pre-symptomatic dementia, as carriers can be identified and studied decades before expected symptom onset. FTDGeNZ was established in 2016 with the aim of identifying the earliest pre-symptomatic biomarkers of FTD, in collaboration with international multi-centre cohorts.

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Background: Restrictions due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic reduced physical activity provision for both children and their parents. Recent studies have reported decreases in physical activity levels during lockdown restrictions, but these were largely reliant on self-report methods, with data collected via unrepresentative self-report surveys. The post-pandemic impacts on children's activity levels remain unknown.

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Introduction: The accurate interpretation of the cosyntropin (adrenocorticotropic hormone [ACTH]) stimulation test requires method- and assay-specific cutoffs of the level of cortisol. Compared with a historical cutoff (18 μg/dL) for polyclonal antibody-based immunoassays, lower thresholds were proposed for the Roche Elecsys II assay, which uses a monoclonal antibody. However, cutoffs for other commonly adopted, monoclonal antibody-based cortisol assays were not yet available.

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Introduction: Cognitive impairments are a common and significant issue for young people with a severe mental illness. Young people with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression all experience significant cognitive problems that impede their ability to return to work or study. These neurocognitive problems are frequently exacerbated by social cognitive deficits that interfere with their ability to integrate into the community and understand the social and emotional nuances about them.

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Article Synopsis
  • * It analyzed 62 studies on various factors affecting mental health, finding strong support for positive classroom management, physical activity access, and peer mentoring as effective interventions.
  • * The review calls for more research on school management practices and policies that affect mental health, especially regarding socioeconomic inequalities, as existing studies show limited impact on these disparities.
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Astrocytes actively regulate numerous cell types both within and outside of the central nervous system in health and disease. Indeed, astrocyte morphology, gene expression and function, alongside the content of astrocyte-derived extracellular vesicles (ADEVs), is significantly altered by ageing, inflammatory processes and in neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Here, we review the relevant emerging literature focussed on perturbation in expression of microRNA (miRNA), small non-coding RNAs that potently regulate gene expression.

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Introduction: Early intervention in Alzheimer's disease (AD) requires the development of an easily administered test that is able to identify those at risk. Focusing on microRNA robustly detected in plasma and standardizing the analysis strategy, we sought to identify disease-stage specific biomarkers.

Methods: Using TaqMan microfluidics arrays and a statistical consensus approach, we assessed plasma levels of 185 neurodegeneration-related microRNA, in cohorts of cognitively normal amyloid β-positive (CN-Aβ+), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and Alzheimer's disease (AD) participants, relative to their respective controls.

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Cold coagulation of the cervix for cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN), when compared with cervical excision, has previously demonstrated comparable cure rates and a reduction in the rate of spontaneous preterm birth. In the present report the healing pattern in the cervices of two women after cold coagulation is described. Both women underwent cold coagulation due to CIN3, which was found on pre-treatment cervical punch biopsies.

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RNA sequencing offers unprecedented access to the transcriptome. Key to this is the identification and quantification of many different species of RNA from the same sample at the same time. In this study we describe a novel protocol for simultaneous detection of coding and non-coding transcripts using modifications to the Ion Total RNA-Seq kit v2 protocol, with integration of QIASeq FastSelect rRNA removal kit.

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