Brain health: Pathway to primary prevention of neurodegenerative disorders of environmental origin.

While rising global rates of neurodegenerative disease encourage early diagnosis and therapeutic intervention to block clinical expression (secondary prevention), a more powerful approach is to identify and remove environmental factors that trigger long-latencybrain disease (primary prevention) by acting on a susceptible genotype or acting alone. The latter is illustrated by the post-World War II decline and disappearance of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Parkinsonism-Dementia Complex (ALS/PDC), a prototypical often-familial neurodegenerative disease formerly present in very high incidence on the island of Guam. Lessons learned from 75 years of investigation on the etiology of ALS/PDC include: the importance of focusing field research on the disease epicenter and patients with early-onset disease; soliciting exposure history from patients, family, and community to guide multidisciplinary biomedical investigation; recognition that disease phenotype may vary with exposure history, and that familial brain disease may have a primarily environmental origin.

Assessing community response to wildfire smoke: A multimethod study using social media.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess health-related responses to wildfire smoke on social media. We examined whether seasonal wildfire smoke is an active topic on Twitter, the correlation between fine particulate matter (PM ) and Twitter search terms, and dimensions of community-level expression to wildfire smoke through tweets.

Design: Search terms were identified using a conceptual model developed and refined by healthcare providers and public health experts.

Integrating Arts with STEM to Foster Systems Thinking.

Interest is growing among out-of-school time (OST) educators in integrating the arts into STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) programming (e.g., Kelton & Saraniero, 2018).

Psychometric Evaluation of the Creighton Competency Evaluation Instrument in a Population of Working Nurses.

Background And Purpose: This study explored the psychometric properties of the Creighton Competency Evaluation Instrument (C-CEI), previously validated for use with nursing students, to assess simulation performance among registered nurses working 12-hour shifts. Valid and reliable measurements are needed to test clinical and simulation competencies and characterize the effects of fatigue on nursing performance.

Methods: Trained raters scored nurses' patient care performance in simulation scenarios using the C-CEI.

Adapting and Testing the Self-Efficacy in Environmental Risk Reduction Instrument Among Spanish-Speaking Populations.

Background And Purpose: The purpose of this study was to adapt and test the Self-Efficacy in Environmental Risk Reduction instrument in a Spanish-speaking population.

Methods: Harkness' model of cross-cultural survey design was used to adapt the instrument. We sampled 95 adult, Spanish speakers from a federally qualified health clinic.