The Development of a Digital Patient Navigation Tool to Increase Colorectal Cancer Screening Among Federally Qualified Health Center Patients: Acceptability and Usability Testing.

Background: Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) are an essential place for historically underserved patients to access health care, including screening for colorectal cancer (CRC), one of the leading causes of cancer death in the United States. Novel interventions aimed at increasing CRC screening completion rates at FQHCs are crucial.

Objective: This study conducts user testing of a digital patient navigation tool, called eNav, designed to support FQHC patients in preparing for, requesting, and completing CRC screening tests.

Identifying Frequently Endorsed Benefits and Barriers to Breast Cancer Screening for African-Born Women in the NYC Metropolitan Area: a Pilot Study.

Most cancer screening data report on Black participants without distinguishing nativity, limiting our understanding of the needs of distinct groups within the African diaspora. The purpose of this pilot study was to assess demographic characteristics and perceptions of the benefits of and barriers to mammography among African immigrant women in New York City (NYC). Forty-two women who were 40 years or older, born in Africa, and English and/or French-speaking were recruited from African immigrant communities in NYC to complete a survey.

Intolerance of uncertainty, experiential avoidance, and trust in physician: a moderated mediation analysis of emotional distress in advanced cancer.

We tested whether patients' trust in physician moderated the hypothesized indirect association between intolerance of uncertainty (IU; inability to tolerate the unknown) and emotional distress through the mediator, experiential avoidance (EA; efforts to avoid negative emotions, thoughts, or memories), in patients with advanced cancer. The sample included 108 adults with Stage III or IV cancer (53% female; M = 63 years) recruited from a metropolitan cancer center. All constructs were measured by standardized self-report instruments.

HBV screening among West Africans living in the US: Influences of stigma, health literacy, and self-efficacy.

Background: Applying theoretically informed constructs using an adaptation of the "Theory of Planned Behavior," this study assessed social-cognitive and sociocultural determinants of HBV screening among West Africans living in the US to inform solutions to testing gaps.

Methods: We developed and administered a theory-based survey in both English (41%) and French (59%) from September 2021 to April 2022 to a sample of West African-born individuals (n = 162). Predictors of HBV screening included: attitudes, perceived behavioral control or self-efficacy, and subjective norms along with health literacy (HL), language proficiency, and stigma of HBV infection.

Multimorbidity and Depressive Symptoms in Older Adults: A Contextual Approach.

Background And Objectives: Among older adults, depressive symptoms increase with each chronic illness; however, specific disease-related stressors (e.g., pain) and contextual moderators (interpersonal, sociocultural, temporal) of this relationship remain understudied.

Breast arterial calcification rates in a diverse, urban group of screening mammography patients.

Purpose: Breast arterial calcifications (BAC), detected by digital mammography are a potential marker of coronary artery disease (CAD). Past BAC research has been limited by having primarily racially and ethnically homogeneous samples, samples at higher risk for CAD, and neglecting to explore the influence of women's health factors. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of, and factors associated with, BAC in an ethnically and racially diverse group.

Psychological Distress, Obsessive Compulsive Thoughts about Drinking, and Alcohol Consumption in Young Adult Drinkers.

Psychological distress is an important predictor of heavy drinking, especially among lower-income drinkers. The mechanisms underlying this effect have not been well characterized. One possibility is that distressed individuals are more vulnerable to obsessive and compulsive thoughts about drinking.

The indirect influence of 'invisible' support on pulmonary function among adults with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Individuals living with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) often require support from family or friends. We examined whether invisible support - support that is provided but goes unnoticed - is related to pulmonary function, and whether this association is mediated by depressive symptoms and illness perceptions. Sixty-six dyads of individuals with COPD and their informal caregivers reported on receipt and provision of support, respectively.

Affective mechanisms of stress-induced cigarette craving: Considerations of gender and race/ethnicity.

Objective: Among the major impediments to successful smoking cessation are strong cravings, especially during times of heightened stress. Affective responses to stress (e.g.

Common paraverbal errors during hypnosis intervention training.

There is growing literature to support the use of hypnosis as an evidence-based behavioral medicine intervention to manage a wide variety of symptoms and side effects associated with cancer and its treatment (e.g., pain, nausea, fatigue).

Effect of a Self-management Support Intervention on Asthma Outcomes in Older Adults: The SAMBA Study Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Older adults with asthma have worse control and outcomes than younger adults. Interventions to address suboptimal self-management among older adults with asthma are typically not tailored to the specific needs of the patient.

Objective: To test the effect of a comprehensive, patient-tailored asthma self-management support intervention for older adults on clinical and self-management outcomes.

Illness Uncertainties Tied to Developmental Tasks Among Young Adult Survivors of Hematologic Cancers.

Purpose: Young adulthood is a period of building autonomy, relationships, and careers. Experiencing cancer as a young adult (YA) is an "off-time" event in the normative adult life cycle and may interrupt age-specific goals. The majority of prior research on illness uncertainty centers on medical concerns about recurrence or mortality.

Sex differences in affect-triggered lapses during smoking cessation: A daily diary study.

Introduction: Smoking lapses during a cessation attempt are common and are thought to be a key predictor of full relapse. Positive and negative affective states have been hypothesized as important precipitants of lapses during quit attempts, although findings have been mixed. Accumulating evidence suggests that women may smoke more when experiencing negative affective states, while men may smoke more when experiencing positive affective states.

Mindfulness buffers the effects of cue-induced craving on alcohol demand in college drinkers.

Alcohol consumption among young adult college students represents a significant public health problem. The presence of alcohol-related cues in drinkers' environments can trigger powerful alcohol cravings, which may influence drinking outcomes. Less is known about how this cue-induced craving influences behavioral economic demand for alcohol.

Direct and Indirect Effects of Psychological Distress on Stress-Induced Smoking.

Objective: Numerous studies have modeled the effects of stress in the laboratory, demonstrating that smokers who are exposed to experimental stressors exhibit significant increases in acute psychological distress. Whether these stress reactions are predictive of stress-induced smoking during an actual quit attempt, however, has not been examined. Furthermore, the possibility that such effects are particularly strong among smokers with higher ambient levels of distress has not been addressed.

A Single Session of Attentional Bias Modification Reduces Alcohol Craving and Implicit Measures of Alcohol Bias in Young Adult Drinkers.

Background: Attentional bias modification (ABM) techniques for reducing problematic alcohol consumption hold promise as highly accessible and cost-effective treatment approaches. A growing body of literature has examined ABM as a potentially efficacious intervention for reducing drinking and drinking-related cognitions in alcohol-dependent individuals as well as those at-risk of developing problem drinking habits.

Methods: This study tested the effectiveness of a single session of visual probe-based ABM training in a cohort of 60 non-treatment-seeking young adult drinkers, with a focus on examining mechanisms underlying training efficacy.

Can attitudes about smoking impact cigarette cravings?

Cigarette cravings, especially those in response to environmental stressors and other smoking-related triggers (e.g., passing by a favorite smoking spot), are important contributors to smoking behavior and relapse.

Attentional bias to alcohol stimuli predicts elevated cue-induced craving in young adult social drinkers.

Considerable evidence has identified biased cognitive processing of alcohol-related stimuli as an important factor in the maintenance of alcohol-seeking and relapse among individuals suffering from alcohol use-disorders (AUDs). In addition, a large body of research has demonstrated that exposure to alcohol cues can elicit powerful alcohol cravings. Little is known, however, about the possible relationship between attentional bias and cue-induced cravings, and even less is known about these processes in social drinkers without a personal history of AUDs.

Favorable associations with alcohol and impaired self-regulation: A behavioral economic analysis.

Background: Recent research has demonstrated that both poor self-regulation and favorable implicit associations toward alcohol can play important roles in predicting drinking. Less well studied, however, is how the interplay between implicit associations and self-regulation may impact decisions about alcohol consumption. Behavioral economics is one important tool that may provide insight into the cognitive processes that impact demand for alcohol and drinking decisions.

Gender and Impulsivity: Effects on Cue-Induced Alcohol Craving.

Background: Numerous studies have demonstrated that trait impulsivity is linked to increased risk of developing alcohol-use disorders and other substance abuse. Impulsivity has also been shown in some studies to potentiate cue-induced drug cravings. Despite considerable evidence of gender differences in impulsivity and drug craving among individuals suffering from alcohol dependence and other drug use, little research has focused on these processes in healthy young men and women who may be at risk for developing alcohol-use disorders.

Impulsivity moderates the relationship between previous quit failure and cue-induced craving.

Introduction: Poor inhibitory control has been shown to be an important predictor of relapse to a number of drugs, including nicotine. Indeed, smokers who exhibit higher levels of impulsivity are thought to have impaired regulation of urges to smoke, and previous research has suggested that impulsivity may moderate cue-induced cigarette cravings. To that end, we conducted a study to evaluate the interplay between failed smoking cessation, cue-induced craving, and impulsivity.

Reward dependence moderates smoking-cue- and stress-induced cigarette cravings.

Background: Cigarette cravings following exposure to smoking cues in a smoker's environment are thought to play an important role in cessation failure. The possibility that dispositional factors may impact cue-induced cravings, though intriguing, has received little attention. According to Cloninger's Tridimensional Personality Theory, factors such as reward dependence (RD), harm avoidance (HA), and novelty seeking (NS) may figure prominently in risk for addiction, as well as relapse, in individuals attempting to abstain from drug and alcohol use.

Cue-induced cigarette and food craving: a common effect?

Cue-induced cravings may hinder behavior change efforts such as smoking cessation. Correlation of cue-induced cravings across multiple stimuli would provide evidence for a cue-reactive phenotype that may have implications for behavior change therapies. The purpose of this study was to examine relationships between cue-induced cravings for cigarettes and cue-induced cravings for a highly preferred food (chocolate) in a sample of smokers not subjected to lengthy deprivation for either of these two appetitive outcomes.

Cue-induced cigarette cravings and smoking cessation: the role of expectancies.

Introduction: Cue-induced cigarette cravings have been oft studied as potentially important predictors of smoking cessation outcomes. The literature on the relationship between cue-induced cravings and cessation, however, remains mixed. One possible explanation for the discrepant results in the literature may be the as-yet untested variability in expectancies of craving.

Genetic predictors of cue- and stress-induced cigarette craving: an exploratory study.

Unlabelled: Cigarette cravings in response to environmental cues and stressors are widely recognized as important predictors of smoking cessation outcomes. Accumulating evidence suggests that genetics plays a role in these craving responses, as well as in smoking cessation more generally. Previous studies of genetic polymorphisms have been limited by examination of single candidate genes and the use of broadly defined phenotypes (e.