Associations between atypical intracortical myelin content and neuropsychological functions in middle to older aged adults with ASD.

Introduction: In vivo myeloarchitectonic mapping based on Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) provides a unique view of gray matter myelin content and offers information complementary to other morphological indices commonly employed in studies of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The current study sought to determine if intracortical myelin content (MC) and its age-related trajectories differ between middle aged to older adults with ASD and age-matched typical comparison participants.

Methods: Data from 30 individuals with ASD and 36 age-matched typical comparison participants aged 40-70 years were analyzed.

Disproportionately High Rates of Burnout Among Disabled Caregivers During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Background: Burnout is exhaustion caused by exposure to chronic stress. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, people with disabilities experienced high levels of burnout due to discrimination, barriers to accessing resources, and lack of accommodations. Caregivers have also experienced high levels of burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Assessing the impact of institutional mistrust on parental endorsement for COVID-19 vaccination among school communities in San Diego County, California.

Background: Institutional mistrust has weakened COVID-19 mitigation efforts. Assessing to what extent institutional mistrust impacts parental decision making is important in formulating structural efforts for improving future pandemic response. We hypothesized that institutional mistrust is associated with lower parental endorsement for COVID-19 vaccination.

Overcrowded housing reduces COVID-19 mitigation measures and lowers emotional health among San Diego refugees from September to November of 2020.

Refugee communities are vulnerable to housing insecurity, which drives numerous health disparity outcomes in a historically marginalized population. The COVID-19 pandemic has only worsened the ongoing affordable housing crisis in the United States while continuing to highlight disparities in health outcomes across populations. We conducted interviewer-administered surveys with refugee and asylum seekers in San Diego County at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to understand the social effects and drivers of COVID-19 in one of the largest refugee communities in the United States.

Barriers and facilitators to COVID-19 testing among staff and parents from San Diego schools.

COVID-19 testing is an important risk mitigation strategy for COVID-19 prevention in school settings, where the virus continues to pose a public health challenge for in-person learning. Socially vulnerable school communities with the highest proportion of low-income, minority, and non-English speaking families have the least testing access despite shouldering a disproportionate burden of COVID-19 morbidity and mortality. Through the Safer at School Early Alert (SASEA) program, we investigated community perceptions of testing in San Diego County schools, with a focus on barriers and facilitators from the perspective of socially vulnerable parents and school staff.

Safer at school early alert: an observational study of wastewater and surface monitoring to detect COVID-19 in elementary schools.

Background: Schools are high-risk settings for SARS-CoV-2 transmission, but necessary for children's educational and social-emotional wellbeing. Previous research suggests that wastewater monitoring can detect SARS-CoV-2 infections in controlled residential settings with high levels of accuracy. However, its effective accuracy, cost, and feasibility in non-residential community settings is unknown.

"It's hard for everyone" systemic barriers to home confinement to prevent community spread of COVID-19.

Rapid identification and isolation/quarantine of COVID-19 cases or close contacts, respectively, is a vital tool to support safe, in-person learning. However, safe isolation or quarantine for a young child also necessitates home confinement for at least one adult caregiver, as well as rapid learning material development by the teacher to minimize learning loss. The purpose of this study is to better understand barriers and supports to student home confinement.

Implementation of Practical Surface SARS-CoV-2 Surveillance in School Settings.

Surface sampling for SARS-CoV-2 RNA detection has shown considerable promise to detect exposure of built environments to infected individuals shedding virus who would not otherwise be detected. Here, we compare two popular sampling media (VTM and SDS) and two popular workflows (Thermo and PerkinElmer) for implementation of a surface sampling program suitable for environmental monitoring in public schools. We find that the SDS/Thermo pipeline shows superior sensitivity and specificity, but that the VTM/PerkinElmer pipeline is still sufficient to support surface surveillance in any indoor setting with stable cohorts of occupants (e.

Wastewater and surface monitoring to detect COVID-19 in elementary school settings: The Safer at School Early Alert project.

Background: Schools are high-risk settings for SARS-CoV-2 transmission, but necessary for children's educational and social-emotional wellbeing. Previous research suggests that wastewater monitoring can detect SARS-CoV-2 infections in controlled residential settings with high levels of accuracy. However, its effective accuracy, cost, and feasibility in non-residential community settings is unknown.