School Violence Exposure as an Adverse Childhood Experience: Protocol for a Nationwide Study of Secondary Public Schools.

Background: Poor mental health and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) predict extensive adverse outcomes in youth, including increases in long-term risk for chronic disease and injury, impaired emotional development, and poor academic outcomes. Exposure to school violence, specifically intentional gun violence, is an increasingly prevalent ACE. The anticipation of school shootings has led to the implementation of school safety and security interventions that may increase anxiety, depression, and other indicators of poor mental well-being among students and staff alike.

Gun-free zones and active shootings in the United States: a matched case-control study.

Background: Most Americans believe that gun-free zones make locations more vulnerable to violent crimes, particularly active shootings. However, there is no empirical evidence regarding the impact of gun-free zones on protecting locations from violence. The objective of this study was to estimate the association between gun-free zones and active shootings.

Protocol for a nationwide case-control study of firearm violence prevention tactics and policies in K-12 schools.

Background: Most U.S. K-12 schools have adopted safety tactics and policies like arming teachers and installing metal detectors, to address intentional school gun violence.

Gun violence in K-12 schools in the United States: Moving towards a preventive (versus reactive) framework.

Intentional shootings in K-12 schools in the U.S. persist as a public health problem.

Clusters of Adversity Types Among U.S. Youth: Associations With Mental Health.

Introduction: Childhood adversities are risk factors for subsequent mental health problems. Research commonly focuses on adverse childhood experiences, despite evidence that other exposures, such as neighborhood violence or peer victimization, co-occur with adverse childhood experiences and are associated with similar mental health outcomes. This study explored the clustering of these exposures and examined the associations with mental health.

State firearm laws, gun ownership, and K-12 school shootings: Implications for school safety.

Limited research has been conducted on the state-level factors that may be associated with intentional school shootings. We obtained school shooting data from the that identified any act of intentional interpersonal gunfire in a K-12 school over the course of two decades. We also compiled new data on active school shootings during the same twenty-year time period, which identified any attempted mass shooting incident in a K-12 school.

Racial Disparities in Child Exposure to Firearm Violence Before and During COVID-19.

Introduction: Childhood exposure to neighborhood firearm violence adversely affects mental and physical health across the life course. Study objectives were to (1) quantify racial disparities in these exposures across the U.S.

Evaluation of an Experimental Web-based Educational Module on Opioid-related Occupational Safety Among Police Officers: Protocol for a Randomized Pragmatic Trial to Minimize Barriers to Overdose Response.

Background: As drug-related morbidity and mortality continue to surge, police officers are on the front lines of the North American overdose (OD) crisis. Drug law enforcement shapes health risks among people who use drugs (PWUD), while also impacting the occupational health and wellness of officers. Effective interventions to align law enforcement practices with public health and occupational safety goals remain underresearched.

The importance of content and choice in a technology-based intervention to increase HIV testing.

Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends routine HIV testing in emergency departments and other facilities, many patients are never offered testing, and those who are offered testing frequently decline. In response, our team developed and evaluated a series of differently configured technology-based interventions to explore how we can most effectively increase HIV testing among reluctant patients. The current study examines how different videos (onscreen physician vs.

Experiences of Online Bullying and Offline Violence-Related Behaviors Among a Nationally Representative Sample of US Adolescents, 2011 to 2019.

Background: Being bullied online is associated with being bullied in school. However, links between online bullying and violence-related experiences are minimally understood. We evaluated potential disparities in these associations to illuminate opportunities to reduce school-based violence.

Automated Substance Use/Sexual Risk Reporting and HIV Test Acceptance Among Emergency Department Patients Aged 13-24 Years.

Despite federal guidelines, many adolescents and emerging adults are not offered HIV testing by their healthcare providers. As such, many-including those who may be at high-risk for contracting HIV given their sexual and/or substance use risk-are not routinely tested. The current study examines sexual risk and substance use among emergency department patients aged 13-24 years (n = 147), who completed an automated screening as part of a tablet-based intervention designed to increase HIV testing.

Mobile Augmented Screening to Increase HIV Testing Among Emergency Department Patients as Young as 13 Years.

Because adolescents and emerging adults are frequently not offered HIV testing, and often decline tests when offered, we developed and tested a tablet-based intervention to increase HIV test rates among emergency department (ED) patients aged 13-24 years. Pediatric and adult ED patients in a high volume New York City hospital (N = 295) were randomized to receive a face-to-face HIV test offer, or to complete a tablet-based intervention that contained an HIV test offer delivered via computer. Test rates in both conditions were then compared to historic test rates in the same ED during the previous six months.

K-12 School Shootings: Implications for Policy, Prevention, and Child Well-Being.

Schools should be considered safe spaces for children; children need to feel secure in order to grow and learn. This article argues that when a school shooting occurs, the harm goes beyond those who are injured or killed, because the presumption of security is shattered, and the mental and emotional health of the students is threatened. There are many interventions for preventing these attacks at the school, state, and federal levels.

Drug Transaction Experiences in American High Schools 2001-2015.

Background: Among adolescents, the pathway from being offered drugs to engaging in drug use has been established. The prevalence of drug transactions specifically in schools is less understood. The purpose of this study was to identify the prevalence of adolescents who have reported drug transaction experiences (being offered, sold, or given an illegal drug) on school property and subsequently identify behavioral correlates associated with these experiences.

Youth exposure to violence involving a gun: evidence for adverse childhood experience classification.

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have historically included child maltreatment, household dysfunction, and other critical issues known to impact children negatively. Although youth experiences with violence are broadly captured in some ACE measures, youth exposure to violence involving a gun has not been included specifically in the operationalizing, and therefore scientific study, of ACEs. There are numerous implications of this omission, including limiting access to ACE interventions that are currently available and resources for individuals who have been exposed to gun violence.

The Implementation of Mental Health Policies and Practices in Schools: An Examination of School and State Factors.

Background: Poor mental health outcomes persist among adolescent youth. Secondary schools play a critical role in fostering positive mental health by implementing policies and practices grounded in evidence. The factors associated with implementation, however, are unclear.

Theoretically-Based Emotion Regulation Strategies Using a Mobile App and Wearable Sensor Among Homeless Adolescent Mothers: Acceptability and Feasibility Study.

Background: Many adolescent mothers are parenting young children under highly stressful conditions as they are managing first-time parenthood, poverty, lack of housing, school and work, and challenging peer and familial relationships. Mobile health (mHealth) technology has the potential to intervene at various points in the emotion regulation process of adolescent mothers to provide them support for more adaptive emotional and behavioral regulation in the course of their daily life.

Objective: The goal of this study was to examine the acceptability, feasibility, use patterns, and mechanisms by which a mobile technology used as an adjunct to in-person, provider-delivered sessions fostered adolescent mothers' adaptive emotion regulation strategies under real-life conditions.

Heroin Use and Drug Injection among Youth Also Misusing Prescription Drugs.

Objectives: We identified the prevalence of nonmedical prescription drug use and its relationship to heroin and injection drug use in 4 nationally representative samples of adolescents.

Methods: We used the most recent data (2009-2015) from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (Ntotal= 61,132). Prevalence rates and 95% confidence intervals for prescription drug misuse, heroin use, and injection drug use were calculated across time points, sex, and race/ethnicity subgroups.

Integrating Health Education in Core Curriculum Classrooms: Successes, Challenges, and Implications for Urban Middle Schools.

Background: School-based health education efforts can positively affect health behaviors and learning outcomes; however, there is limited available time during the school day for separate health education classes. The purpose of this study was to assess the feasibility and sustainability of implementing a classroom-based health education program that integrates skill development with health learning.

Methods: A wait-list control study design was conducted among 168 6th graders in 2 urban schools.

Stimulus-associated urinary urges in overactive bladder syndrome.

Aims: Although anecdotal reports of urinary urgency at one's front door are common in overactive bladder syndrome (OAB), little research has been done on how one's front door and other stimuli are related to urinary symptoms. We hypothesized that individuals with OAB would have higher scores on the Urinary Cues Questionnaire, developed for this study to assess stimulus-associated urinary urges, than those without OAB.

Methods: Online surveys were administered to 328 women age 18-40 years recruited from a respondent panel maintained by CINT such that one-third of the sample reported a diagnosis of OAB.

Implementation of online opioid overdose prevention, recognition and response trainings for professional first responders: Year 1 survey results.

Background: This article reports on the first web-based implementation of an opioid-overdose prevention, recognition and response training for professional first responders. The training was disseminated nationally over one listserv in November 2014. The same year, following Act 139, which mandated the provision of an online training for police officers in Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Department of Health approved the training.