Objectives: Entertainment television is an influential source of health information, including about reproductive health. We investigated the association between exposure to television plotlines about medication abortion on audience awareness and beliefs about medication abortion.
Study Design: We administered a national cross-sectional online survey from December 2021 to January 2022 with a probability-based sample of people assigned female at birth.
Building on existing scholarship examining how audiences interpret reproductive experiences on film and television, we investigate how viewers make meaning of representations of motherhood, abortion, adoption, and surrogacy on the Hulu television miniseries . We recruited twenty-one participants to watch the series and conducted three virtual focus groups of seven women each. Based on the racial identities of the main characters in the series, we segmented these groups by race: one group each of white women, Black women, and Chinese American women.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Prehospital triage and transport protocols are critical components of the trauma systems. Still, there have been limited studies evaluating the performance of trauma protocols in New South Wales, such as the NSW ambulance major Trauma transport protocol (T1).
Objectives: Determine the performance of a major trauma transport protocol in a cohort of ambulance road transports METHODS: A data-linkage study using routine ambulance and hospital datasets across New South Wales Australia.
Perspect Sex Reprod Health
June 2022
Introduction: The social context of pregnancy decision-making has changed in recent decades in the United States (US), but little research has examined how these changes manifest in the context of infant adoption.
Methods: To create an updated profile of US birth mothers, this analysis uses demographic data collected and aggregated from six adoption agencies, with information on 8658 private adoptions that occurred between 2011 and 2020.
Results: Based on this sample, birth mothers today are older and more racially and ethnically diverse than counterparts in previous generations; a majority have other had children and a substantial proportion were parenting other children at the time of relinquishment.
Context: Entertainment television can impact viewers' knowledge, attitudes, and reproductive health behaviors, yet little research has examined the impact of scripted abortion plotlines on viewers' abortion knowledge or social supportiveness for those having abortions. We examined the impact of an abortion storyline from Grey's Anatomy on US-based viewers.
Method: We conducted an online survey of likely Grey's Anatomy viewers prior to the episode's airing, assessing abortion ideology, knowledge, and support.
Objectives: Estimating the rate of infant relinquishment for adoption in the United States (U.S.) can inform understandings of pregnancy decision-making and adoption practice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnderstanding the efficacy and durability of heterologous immunization schedules against SARS-CoV-2 is critical, as supply demands and vaccine choices become significant issues in the global vaccination strategy. Here we characterize the neutralizing antibodies produced in two subjects who received combination immunizations against SARS-CoV-2, first with Covishield (Oxford-AstraZeneca) vaccine, followed 33 days later with a second dose (booster) shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Serum samples were collected 25 days following the primary vaccination and 13 days after the secondary Pfizer vaccination.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFContraception
December 2020
Objective: To compare differences in televised abortion depictions from two time periods: 2005 to 2014, as examined in previous studies, and more recent depictions from 2015 to 2019.
Study Design: Using a database of television abortion plotlines, we analyzed recent portrayals for character demographics, barriers, genre, and safety, calculated proportions, and compared to prior findings.
Results: While recent portrayals shift towards reflecting some demographics of U.
Background: For decades, abortion providers have lamented the lack of patients' voices in the abortion rights movement. Given the millions of women who have received abortions, the absence of this large constituency, providers assert, has been politically costly. Underlying this disappointment is a parallel question that reflects a philosophical divide among abortion providers: are attempts to politically engage abortion patients a desired or appropriate element of care?
Methods: We interviewed providers from 14 abortion clinics, representing a range of approaches to care, patient volume, and geographic locations.
Womens Health Issues
July 2020
Background: Television portrayals of medical procedures may contribute to patient anxieties and cultural myths. We explored how television depicts abortion procedures, focusing on what these portrayals communicate about abortion access and safety.
Methods: Researchers identified all abortion procedure plotlines on American television from 2008 to 2018 through Internet searches.
The inhibitors carbobenzoxy (Z)-d-Phe-l-Phe-Gly (fusion inhibitor peptide [FIP]) and 4-nitro-2-phenylacetyl amino-benzamide (AS-48) have similar efficacies in blocking membrane fusion and syncytium formation mediated by measles virus (MeV). Other homologues, such as Z-d-Phe, are less effective but may act through the same mechanism. In an attempt to map the site of action of these inhibitors, we generated mutant viruses that were resistant to the inhibitory effects of Z-d-Phe-l-Phe-Gly.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Because news frames can influence public and policy agendas, proponents of abortion access should be concerned with how this issue is covered in the news. While previous research has examined the content of news on abortion, this analysis explores the process of newsmaking on abortion, examining how journalists understand their role in and experience of covering abortion.
Study Design: We recruited journalists with experience reporting on abortion through listservs for progressive and feminist reporters.
Objectives: To examine the portrayal of complications and long-term health consequences associated with abortion on television, recognizing the impact that fictional stories can have on public beliefs about abortion's safety.
Study Design: Using a systematic online search, we identified all instances of abortion on US television from 2005 to 2016. We qualitatively coded these plotlines to identify any occurrences of complications, interventions or long-term health consequences associated with abortion care, with 95% intercoder reliability.
Measles virus (MeV) is a member of the family that causes a highly contagious respiratory disease but has emerged as a promising oncolytic platform. Previous studies of MeV entry focused on the identification of cellular receptors. However, the endocytic and trafficking pathways utilized during MeV entry remain poorly described.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Little is known about how adoption factors into pregnancy decision making, particularly when abortion is unavailable.
Methods: We used data from the Turnaway Study, a longitudinal study of 956 women seeking abortion, including 231 women denied abortions owing to gestational limits. Through semiannual quantitative interviews, we assessed the frequency with which women denied abortion consider and choose adoption, and, among adoption participants, decision satisfaction.
Perspect Sex Reprod Health
December 2016
Context: Popular entertainment may reflect and produce-as well as potentially contest-stigma regarding abortion provision. Knowledge of how providers are portrayed on-screen is needed to improve understanding of how depictions may contribute to the stigmatization of real providers.
Methods: All abortion provision plotlines on American television from 2005 to 2014 were identified through Internet searches.
Onscreen pseudo-experiences have been shown to influence public perceptions of contested social issues. However, research has not considered whether such experiences have limits in their influence and/or vary in their impact. Using the case of third-trimester abortion, an issue subject to high amounts of misinformation, low public support and low occurrence in the general population, we investigate how the pseudo-experience of viewing After Tiller, a documentary film showing stories of third-trimester abortion, providers and patients, might serve as a counterpoint to misinformation and myth.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: We aim to describe how women who seek abortions are portrayed on television, recognizing that onscreen fictional stories can shape the public's beliefs.
Study Design: Drawing on a comprehensive online search, we identified all fictional representations of abortion decision making on U.S.
Background: Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) and autoimmune sclerosing cholangitis (AISC) are related, but distinct chronic liver diseases. PSC is associated with a high prevalence of ulcerative colitis while the intestinal inflammation associated with AISC is less well characterised.
Aims: To assess and contrast aspects of intestinal inflammation in patients with AISC and PSC and compare the clinical features with those of patients with ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease.
Womens Health Issues
February 2016
Purpose: As the least-chosen option when faced with an unplanned pregnancy, adoption remains largely unexamined as a reproductive choice. Although the anti-abortion movement promotes adoption as its preferred alternative to abortion, little is known of birth mothers' pregnancy decision making and whether adoption was chosen in lieu of abortion.
Methods: I conducted in-depth interviews with 40 women who had placed infants for adoption from 1962 to 2009.
Background: The importance of interactions between the host and gut microbiota in the pathogenesis of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is becoming increasingly apparent. Probiotics offer a potential new treatment for IBS, but current results are conflicting, largely as a result of poorly designed trials and nonstandardisation of outcome measures.
Aim: To assess the efficacy of a liquid, multi-strain probiotic (Symprove) in IBS.