Academic Careers in Advocacy: Aligning Institutional Values Through Use of an Advocacy Portfolio.

Academic children's hospitals must embrace advocacy as a central component of their missions to discover new knowledge and improve the health of the communities and patients they serve. To do so, they must ensure faculty have both the tools and the opportunities to develop and articulate the work of advocacy as an academic endeavor. This can be accomplished by integrating the work of advocacy at the community and policy-change levels into the traditional value systems of academic medicine, especially the promotions process, to establish its legitimacy.

The Catch to Confidentiality: The Use of Electronic Health Records in Adolescent Health Care.

Purpose: This study aims to understand pediatric health-care providers' expectations and the practices they employ to protect confidentiality in electronic health records (EHRs) and subsequently how EHRs affect the documentation and dissemination of information in the course of health-care delivery to adolescent minors.

Methods: Twenty-six pediatric health-care providers participated in in-depth interviews about their experiences using EHRs to understand a broad spectrum of expectations and practices guiding the documentation and dissemination of information in the EHR. A thematic analysis of interviews was conducted to draw findings and conclusions.

Reducing injury risk from body checking in boys' youth ice hockey.

Ice hockey is an increasingly popular sport that allows intentional collision in the form of body checking for males but not for females. There is a two- to threefold increased risk of all injury, severe injury, and concussion related to body checking at all levels of boys' youth ice hockey. The American Academy of Pediatrics reinforces the importance of stringent enforcement of rules to protect player safety as well as educational interventions to decrease unsafe tactics.

Menstrual irregularity and musculoskeletal injury in female high school athletes.

Context: The female athlete triad describes the interrelatedness of energy availability, menstrual function, and bone density. Although associations between triad components and musculoskeletal injury (INJ) have been reported in collegiate athletes, limited information exists about menstrual irregularity (MI) and INJ in the high school population.

Objective: To determine the prevalence of and relationship between MI and INJ in high school athletes.

National Athletic Trainers' Association position statement: prevention of pediatric overuse injuries.

Objective: To provide certified athletic trainers, physicians, and other health care professionals with recommendations on best practices for the prevention of overuse sports injuries in pediatric athletes (aged 6-18 years).

Background: Participation in sports by the pediatric population has grown tremendously over the years. Although the health benefits of participation in competitive and recreational athletic events are numerous, one adverse consequence is sport-related injury.

Associations between disordered eating, menstrual dysfunction, and musculoskeletal injury among high school athletes.

Study Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Objectives: To determine the prevalence of, and association between, disordered eating (DE), menstrual dysfunction (MD), and musculoskeletal injury (MI) among high school female athletes.

Background: Female athlete triad (Triad) syndrome is the interrelatedness of DE, MD, and low bone mass.

Family history predicts stress fracture in active female adolescents.

Objective: Increased physical activity and menstrual irregularity have been associated with increased risk for stress fracture among adult women active in athletics. The purposes of this study were to determine whether menstrual irregularity is also a risk factor for stress fracture in active female adolescents and to estimate the quantity of exercise associated with an increased risk for this injury.

Patients And Methods: A case-control study was conducted of 13- to 22-year-old females diagnosed with their first stress fracture, each matched prospectively on age and self-reported ethnicity with 2 controls.

Effects of nutrition, puberty, and gender on bone ultrasound measurements in adolescents and young adults.

Purpose: Quantitative ultrasound (QUS) evaluation of bone is attractive for evaluating skeletal status in adolescents, but its use is limited in the United States due to sparse pediatric reference data. This study evaluated associations between radial and tibial speed of sound (SOS) measurements via QUS and demographic, anthropometric and nutritional variables.

Methods: We enrolled 151 healthy participants, aged 11-26 years, during routine visits to an urban adolescent clinic.

Adolescent bone health.

Pediatric and adolescent care professionals have increasingly recognized the importance of understanding the skeletal health of their patients. Peak bone mass, the "bone bank" on which an individual will draw for their entire adult life, is likely achieved by late adolescence, with the critical window for accumulation occurring much earlier. This review outlines the known conditions that are associated with impaired bone mineral accrual and clinical settings in which the evaluation of "at-risk" adolescents should be considered.

Exposure to the mass media, body shape concerns, and use of supplements to improve weight and shape among male and female adolescents.

Objective: To assess the prevalence and correlates of products used to improve weight and shape among male and female adolescents.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted of 6212 girls and 4237 boys who were 12 to 18 years of age and enrolled in the ongoing Growing Up Today Study. The outcome measure was at least weekly use of any of the following products to improve appearance, muscle mass, or strength: protein powder or shakes, creatine, amino acids/hydroxy methylbutyrate (HMB), dehydroepiandrosterone, growth hormone, or anabolic/injectable steroids.

Correlates of stress fractures among preadolescent and adolescent girls.

Objective: Although stress fractures are a source of significant morbidity in active populations, particularly among young female athletes, the causes of stress fractures have not been explored among females <17 years of age or in the general population. The purpose of this study was to examine correlates of stress fractures in a large, population-based, national, cohort study of preadolescent and adolescent girls.

Methods: A cross-sectional analysis of data from 5461 girls, 11 to 17 years of age, in the Growing Up Today Study, an ongoing longitudinal study of the children of registered female nurses participating in Nurses' Health Study II, was performed.