Community health information needs assessment in the mid-south region of the United States indicates new roles for public libraries.

Background: Libraries provide public access to information that may be used to inform healthcare decisions. Exploring the health information needs of library-users could improve community health outcomes, especially during times of crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to identify the health information needs of library-users to explore the potential role of libraries in advancing community health.

C-reactive protein (CRP) in high altitude Bolivian peri-urban adolescents varies by adiposity, current illness, height, socioeconomic status, sex, and menarcheal status: The potential benefits and costs of adipose reserves in arduous environments.

Objectives: In non-industrialized and low-income populations, adipose stores can serve as a valuable buffer against harsh conditions such as seasonal food scarcity. However, these reserves may incur costs due to adipocytes' production of pro-inflammatory cytokines; inflammation is associated with increased risk for cardiometabolic diseases later in life. Life history theory posits that, especially in populations with high juvenile mortality, higher adiposity may nonetheless be advantageous if its benefits in early life outweigh its later costs.

Socioeconomic impacts on Andean adolescents' growth: Variation between households, between communities and over time.

Background/objectives: We evaluated potential socioeconomic contributors to variation in Andean adolescents' growth between households within a peri-urban community undergoing rapid demographic and economic change, between different community types (rural, peri-urban, urban) and over time. Because growth monitoring is widely used for assessing community needs and progress, we compared the prevalences of stunting, underweight, and overweight estimated by three different growth references.

Methods: Anthropometrics of 101 El Alto, Bolivia, adolescents (Alteños), 11.

The role of biocultural approaches in assessing interventions for maternal weight and gestational weight gain.

Public health and other researchers express growing concern for the role of maternal adiposity and gestational weight gain in driving the obesity epidemic and health disparities based on race and class. Biocultural scholars must continue to contribute to conversations on how best to address issues of population health including the developmental context of obesity, drawing from both evolutionary and social theory. I discuss a number of intervention studies designed to address gestational weight gain in low-income and minority women and consider the degree to which they address the social, political, and economic context, and developmental history of mothers.

Secular trends in adult stature among the Makushi of Guyana in the 20th Century.

Objective: This study describes secular trends in physical stature, Cormic Index (CI), and body mass index (BMI) of adult Makushi Amerindians born between 1910 and 1980, compares the stature of these Makushi adults to Makushi adults measured in 1921, and provides contextual data to inform the findings.

Methods: Pearson's correlation was used to assess the relationship between year of birth and physical stature, BMI, and CI for 231 females and 113 males, 20 to 90 years of age measured in 2000 to 2001. Wilcoxon's test was used to compare physical stature of Makushi adults measured in 2000 to 2001 with that of 40 Makushi adults measured in 1921.

An intervention to reassure patients about test results in rapid access chest pain clinic: a pilot randomised controlled trial.

Background: Most people referred to rapid access chest pain clinics have non-cardiac chest pain, and in those diagnosed with stable coronary heart disease, guidance recommends that first-line treatment is usually medication rather than revascularisation. Consequently, many patients are not reassured they have the correct diagnosis or treatment. A previous trial reported that, in people with non-cardiac chest pain, a brief discussion with a health psychologist before the tests about the meaning of potential results led to people being significantly more reassured.

A biocultural perspective on fictive kinship in the Andes: social support and women's immune function in El Alto, Bolivia.

This article examines the influence of emotional and instrumental support on women's immune function, a biomarker of stress, in the city of El Alto, Bolivia. It tests the prediction that instrumental support is protective of immune function for women living in this marginal environment. Qualitative and quantitative ethnographic methods were employed to assess perceived emotional and instrumental support and common sources of support; multiple linear regression analysis was used to model the relationship between social support and antibodies to the Epstein-Barr virus.

Instrumental social support and women's body composition in El Alto, Bolivia.

Instrumental social support, or aid in the form of labor or money, may exert a positive influence on economic welfare and food security. Several investigators have found a positive relationship between social support and nutritional status, while others have found a negative association between social support and central adiposity. In the rural Andes, extra-household economic cooperation has long been an important adaptive strategy, and the breakdown of these relationships is one reason for high rates of rural-to-urban migration, including to the Bolivian city of El Alto.

Medical Decisions Made by Surrogates for Persons with Advanced Dementia within Weeks or Months of Death.

Background: Surrogates make all medical decisions for persons with advanced dementia. This study describes the types of medical decisions that surrogates faced prior to the person's death and their perceived difficulty and satisfaction with those decisions.

Methods: Seventy-six surrogates of nursing home residents meeting hospice criteria for dementia were followed longitudinally and interviewed following the death of the person with dementia.

Nutritional status of Makushi Amerindian children and adolescents of Guyana.

Background: Amazonian Indians are in the midst of a rapid cultural transition. The developments affecting Amazonian Indians present an opportunity to address important public health problems through public and private initiatives, but to do so it is imperative to begin with information on the health status of these peoples and the underlying factors affecting it. However, relatively few such data are available for this vast region.

Predictors of mortality in nursing home residents with advanced dementia.

This analysis uses data from the Care of Nursing Home Residents with Advanced Dementia (CareAD) study to investigate which factors increase the risk of death in patients who are in the advanced stages of dementia. The hypothesis of this analysis was that specific illnesses with known high mortality would be associated with increased risk of death in the population of nursing home residents with advanced dementia, after controlling for demographic variables and disease-stage variables. Baseline data on 123 end-stage dementia nursing home residents were analyzed with a Cox proportional hazards regression.

Prevalence and treatment of neuropsychiatric symptoms in advanced dementia.

Neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) are common in dementia, although little is known about their prevalence and treatment near the end of life. This study used a retrospective review of the medical records of 123 hospice-eligible nursing home residents with advanced dementia to investigate the prevalence of NPS and NPS-targeted pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments. The most prevalent NPS were agitation or aggression (50.

A Prolog-based centroid algorithm for isovolume extraction from finite element torso simulations.

Computer modeling and simulation of the human torso provides a rapid and non-invasive means to observe the effects of implanted defibrillators. The objective of this study was to improve a method of extracting data from an implanted defibrillator simulation for subsequent visualization. Electrical quantities, such as the potential and gradient fields, are computed at points throughout various regions of a three-dimensional (3-D) torso model via a finite element solution.