Participation in the US Department of Agriculture's Summer Meal Programs: 2019-2021.

Background: The US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) summer meal programs are designed to provide meals at no cost while school is out of session. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, several regulatory waivers were enacted to facilitate meal distribution. The aim of this study was to assess the rates of meal distribution before and after these waivers were in effect.

USDA's Summer Meals During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Mixed-Methods Examination of Participants and Non-Participants in 2021.

Background: The US Department of Agriculture's school meal programs have wide reach during the school year, but food insufficiency among households with children increases during summer months. The US Department of Agriculture summer meal programs are designed to fill this gap, yet participation has historically been low.

Objective: To examine the facilitators and barriers to participation in a 2021 summer meal program while the COVID-19 pandemic regulation waivers were in place.

Assessing District Policy Alignment with the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child Model in Connecticut, 2019 to 2020.

Background: The Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model offers a comprehensive framework for creating safe, healthy, and supportive school environments. However, few studies to date have examined the degree to which school policies represent a comprehensive and integrated approach to this goal beyond nutrition and physical activity. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to provide a baseline evaluation of the alignment of district-level policies with the WSCC model within one state.

Assessing the Effects of a Statewide Training Initiative on Local School Wellness Policies.

Local district wellness policies are designed to ensure that schools support student health by providing a healthy nutrition environment and opportunities for physical activity. The Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE) developed a 5-year initiative to strengthen wellness policies across their state by offering regional wellness workshops and providing coaches to work with individual districts. KSDE also developed the Wellness Impact Tool (WIT), a self-report measure districts use to document their practices at each school level related to Nutrition, Nutrition Promotion, Physical Activity, and Integrated School-Based Wellness.

Estimating the potential impact of Australia's reformulation programme on households' sodium purchases.

Background: On average, Australian adults consume 3500 mg sodium per day, almost twice the recommended maximum level of intake. The Australian government through the Healthy Food Partnership initiative has developed a voluntary reformulation programme with sodium targets for 27 food categories. We estimated the potential impact of this programme on household sodium purchases (mg/day per capita) and examined potential differences by income level.

Correction to: Contribution of major food companies and their products to household dietary sodium purchases in Australia.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

Development of a Comprehensive Tool for School Health Policy Evaluation: The WellSAT WSCC.

Background: Stakeholders increasingly recognize the role of policy in implementing Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) frameworks in schools; however, few tools are currently available to assess alignment between district policies and WSCC concepts. The purpose of this study was to expand the Wellness School Assessment Tool (WellSAT) for evaluation of policies related to all 10 domains of the WSCC model.

Methods: Developing the WellSAT WSCC was an iterative process that involved (1) identifying items for each domain based on key concepts and best practice recommendations; (2) expert review of the draft measure; (3) cognitive pre-testing; (4) developing scoring criteria; and (5) pilot-testing the measure.

Contribution of major food companies and their products to household dietary sodium purchases in Australia.

Background: The Australian federal government will soon release voluntary sodium reduction targets for 30 packaged food categories through the Healthy Food Partnership. Previous assessments of voluntary targets show variable industry engagement, and little is known about the extent that major food companies and their products contribute to dietary sodium purchases among Australian households.

Methods: The aim of this cross-sectional study was to identify the relative contribution that food companies and their products made to Australian household sodium purchases in 2018, and to examine differences in sodium purchases by household income level.

Understanding the process of implementing nutrition and physical activity policies in a large national child care organization: a mixed-methods study.

Learning Care Group made a three-year commitment with the Partnership for a Healthier America to implement several evidence-based nutrition and physical activity policies in over 900 child care centers. New practices included serving more fruits and vegetables; eliminating sugary drinks and juice; family-style dining; healthier celebrations; limiting screen time; increasing outdoor play time; and supporting breastfeeding. A sequential convergent mixed-methods design was used to describe changes in center practices over time; organizational support for changes; and center director perceptions of the implementation process.

Timely linkage of individuals to substance use disorder treatment: development, implementation, and evaluation of FindHelpNowKY.org.

Background: Substance use disorders (SUD) have steadily increased over the last two decades. Seeking SUD treatment involves searching SUD treatment facility types (inpatient, outpatient and intensive outpatient, residential and family residential, and detoxification facilities) that offer specialized SUD treatment depending on individual needs and preferences. Referrals to SUD treatment require innovative strategies that rapidly link individuals to SUD treatment when they are at the critical stage of readiness.

Linking spatial gene expression patterns to sex-specific brain structural changes on a mouse model of 16p11.2 hemideletion.

Neurodevelopmental disorders, such as ASD and ADHD, affect males about three to four times more often than females. 16p11.2 hemideletion is a copy number variation that is highly associated with neurodevelopmental disorders.

Effect of supplementation with methyl-donor nutrients on neurodevelopment and cognition: considerations for future research.

Pregnancy represents a critical period in fetal development, such that the prenatal environment can, in part, establish a lifelong trajectory of health or disease for the offspring. Poor nutrition (macro- or micronutrient deficiencies) can adversely affect brain development and significantly increase offspring risk for metabolic and neurological disease development. The concentration of dietary methyl-donor nutrients is known to alter DNA methylation in the brain, and alterations in DNA methylation can have long-lasting effects on gene expression and neuronal function.

Perinatal high fat diet and early life methyl donor supplementation alter one carbon metabolism and DNA methylation in the brain.

One carbon metabolism is regulated by the availability of nutrients known as methyl donors, and disruption of this pathway can affect multiple physiological systems. DNA methylation, critical for the regulation of gene expression, is linked to one carbon metabolism, and can be altered by perinatal diet. In this study, dams (n = 12/group) were fed HF or standard control (SC) diet through pregnancy and lactation, and male and female offspring were then fed either SC or methyl donor-supplemented diet (MDS) between 3 and 6 weeks of age (n = 20-26/group).

Housing and testing in mixed-sex rooms increases motivation and accuracy during operant testing in both male and female mice.

Operant behavior tasks are widely used in neuroscience research, but little is known about how variables such as housing and testing conditions affect rodent operant performance. We have previously observed differences in operant performance in male and female mice depending on whether mice were housed and tested in rooms containing only one sex versus rooms containing both sexes. Here, male and female mice in either single-sex or mixed sex housing rooms were trained on fixed ratio 1 (FR1) and progressive ratio (PR) tasks.

Intrauterine inflammation induces sex-specific effects on neuroinflammation, white matter, and behavior.

Exposure to inflammation during pregnancy has been linked to adverse neurodevelopmental consequences for the offspring. One common route through which a developing fetus is exposed to inflammation is with intrauterine inflammation. To that end, we utilized an animal model of intrauterine inflammation (IUI; intrauterine lipopolysaccharide (LPS) administration, 50µg, E15) to assess placental and fetal brain inflammatory responses, white matter integrity, anxiety-related behaviors (elevated zero maze, light dark box, open field), microglial counts, and the CNS cytokine response to an acute injection of LPS in both males and females.

Methyl donor supplementation alters cognitive performance and motivation in female offspring from high-fat diet-fed dams.

During gestation, fetal nutrition is entirely dependent on maternal diet. Maternal consumption of excess fat during pregnancy has been linked to an increased risk of neurologic disorders in offspring, including attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism, and schizophrenia. In a mouse model, high-fat diet (HFD)-fed offspring have cognitive and executive function deficits as well as whole-genome DNA and promoter-specific hypomethylation in multiple brain regions.

Removal of high-fat diet after chronic exposure drives binge behavior and dopaminergic dysregulation in female mice.

A significant contributor to the obesity epidemic is the overconsumption of highly palatable, energy dense foods. Chronic intake of palatable foods is associated with neuroadaptations within the mesocorticolimbic dopamine system adaptations which may lead to behavioral changes, such as overconsumption or bingeing. We examined behavioral and molecular outcomes in mice that were given chronic exposure to a high-fat diet (HFD; 12weeks), with the onset of the diet either in adolescence or adulthood.

Multiple jobholder mortality patterns in Kentucky: an examination of occupational fatalities.

Background: The percentage of multiple jobholders was elevated in Kentucky compared to the US from 2002 to 2010.

Methods: Kentucky Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) multiple jobholder fatality data were analyzed to identify contributing injury factors from 2002 to 2010.

Results: Kentucky's total occupational fatality rates were higher than US rates for all years (2002-2010).

A zebrafish model to study and therapeutically manipulate hypoxia signaling in tumorigenesis.

Hypoxic signaling is a central modulator of cellular physiology in cancer. Core members of oxygen-sensing pathway including the von Hippel-Lindau tumor suppressor protein (pVHL) and the hypoxia inducible factor (HIF) transcription factors have been intensively studied, but improved organismal models might speed advances for both pathobiologic understanding and therapeutic modulation. To study HIF signaling during tumorigenesis and development in zebrafish, we developed a unique in vivo reporter for hypoxia, expressing EGFP driven by prolyl hydroxylase 3 (phd3) promoter/regulatory elements.

Transient expression of Nxf, a bHLH-PAS transactivator induced by neuronal preconditioning, confers neuroprotection in cultured cells.

Cortical spreading depression (CSD) induces waves of neuronal depolarization that confer neuroprotection to subsequent ischemic events in the rat brain. To gain insights into the molecular mechanisms elicited by CSD, we used representational difference analysis (RDA) to identify mRNAs induced by potassium depolarization in vivo. Using this approach, we have isolated a cDNA encoding the SIM2-related bHLH-PAS protein Nxf.

Regulation of expression of early growth response transcription factors in rat primary cortical neurons by extracellular ATP.

The zinc finger transcription factor early growth response-1 (Egr-1, NGFI-A, zif268, Krox 24, TIS8, ZENK) is upregulated immediately in the brain by cortical spreading depression (CSD) and other preconditioning stimuli and thus might participate in regulation of the overall genomic response to preconditioning. In the present study, the induction of expression of Egr-1 and other early growth response family members was characterized in rat primary cortical neuronal cultures. In neuronal cultures in vitro, depolarization or exposure to extracellular glutamate caused a 4-fold increase in egr-1 mRNA while exposure to extracellular ATP caused a 10-fold increase.