What is in a food store name? Leveraging large language models to enhance food environment data.

Introduction: It is not uncommon to repurpose administrative food data to create food environment datasets in the health department and research settings; however, the available administrative data are rarely categorized in a way that supports meaningful insight or action, and ground-truthing or manually reviewing an entire city or neighborhood is rate-limiting to essential operations and analysis. We show that such categorizations should be viewed as a classification problem well addressed by recent advances in natural language processing and deep learning-with the advent of large language models (LLMs).

Methods: To demonstrate how to automate the process of categorizing food stores, we use the foundation model BERT to give a first approximation to such categorizations: a best guess by store name.

A group prenatal care intervention reduces gestational weight gain and gestational diabetes in American Samoan women.

Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the preliminary effectiveness of an intervention to mitigate adverse pregnancy outcomes associated with pre-pregnancy obesity in American Samoa.

Methods: We enrolled n = 80 low-risk pregnant women at <14 weeks' gestation. A complete case analysis was conducted with randomized group assignment (group prenatal care-delivered intervention vs.

Looking Across and Within: Immigration as a Unifying Structural Factor Impacting Cardiometabolic Health and Diet.

Introduction: Immigration has been identified as an important social determinant of health (SDH), embodying structures and policies that reinforce positions of poverty, stress, and limited social and economic mobility. In the public health literature with regard to diet, immigration is often characterized as an individual-level process (dietary acculturation) and is largely examined in one racial/ethnic subgroup at a time. For this narrative review, we aim to broaden the research discussion by describing SDH common to the immigrant experience and that may serve as barriers to healthy diets.

A Culturally Specific Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Program to Improve Diet in Immigrant Communities in Brooklyn, New York.

Anti-Asian and anti-immigrant sentiment has surged in the country in the last 3 years. Food insecurity is also on the rise; in our local needs assessment of n = 1,270 Asian American adults in New York City, accessing food was cited as the number 1 priority among those who needed help. Finally, racial discrimination and food access are related to fear of being attacked-driving feelings of safety and therefore willingness to travel for food.

A qualitative study to inform the development of a subsidized community-supported agriculture program for Chinese Americans in Brooklyn, New York, U.S.

The objective of this study was to inform the development of a subsidized, culturally adapted Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) program for the Chinese American (CA) community in Brooklyn, New York (NY), USA. We conducted interviews with CA adults to understand their eating and shopping behaviors, interests in CSAs, and recommendations for educational content to inform the development of a subsidized and culturally adapted CSA. We then conducted thematic analysis of those interviews and identified major themes.

Preterm birth among Pacific Islanders in the United States and the US-affiliated Pacific Islands: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Objective: To better understand the epidemiology of preterm birth among Pacific Islanders in the United States and the US-Affiliated Pacific Islands.

Methods: Systematic searches of MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, PsycINFO, two nonindexed regional journals, and gray literature were conducted and finalized in September 2021. Observational studies published since January 2010 that documented preterm birth outcomes among Pacific Islanders in the United States and the US-Affiliated Pacific Islands were eligible for inclusion.

The Health and Economic Impact of Using a Sugar Sweetened Beverage Tax to Fund Fruit and Vegetable Subsidies in New York City: A Modeling Study.

Low fruit and vegetable (FV) intake and high sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption are independently associated with an increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD). Many people in New York City (NYC) have low FV intake and high SSB consumption, partly due to high cost of fresh FVs and low cost of and easy access to SSBs. A potential implementation of an SSB tax and an FV subsidy program could result in substantial public health and economic benefits.

The Mutually Reinforcing Cycle Of Poor Data Quality And Racialized Stereotypes That Shapes Asian American Health.

The Asian American health narrative reflects a long history of structural racism in the US and the complex interplay of racialized history, immigrant patterns, and policies regarding Asians in the US. Yet owing to systematic issues in data collection including missing or misclassified data for Asian Americans and practices that lead to indiscriminate grouping of unlike individuals (for example, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Bangladeshi) together in data systems and pervasive stereotypes of Asian Americans, the drivers and experiences of health disparities experienced by these diverse groups remain unclear. The perpetual exclusion and misrepresentation of Asian American experiences in health research is exacerbated by three racialized stereotypes-the model minority, healthy immigrant effect, and perpetual foreigner-that fuel scientific and societal perceptions that Asian Americans do not experience health disparities.

Pregnancy health and perinatal outcomes among Pacific Islander women in the United States and US Affiliated Pacific Islands: Protocol for a scoping review.

This scoping review examines the literature on pregnancy and perinatal outcomes among Pacific Islander women in the United States (U.S.) and U.

Diabetes Prevention and Care Programs in the US-Affiliated Pacific Islands: Challenges, Innovation, and Recommendations for Effective Scale-Up.

Purpose Of Review: This review describes some of the unique challenges faced by the US-Affiliated Pacific Islands (USAPIs) in addressing diabetes prevention and care and presents innovative population-level strategies that have been employed to address them.

Recent Findings: Challenges include an unhealthy food environment and a strained health care infrastructure, both compounded by geography. Innovations in addressing these challenges include attempts to modify the food environment, a focus on early life prevention, and task shifting among the health workforce.