Psychosocial and pharmacologic interventions to reduce harmful alcohol use in low- and middle-income countries.

Background: Harmful alcohol use is defined as unhealthy alcohol use that results in adverse physical, psychological, social, or societal consequences and is among the leading risk factors for disease, disability and premature mortality globally. The burden of harmful alcohol use is increasing in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and there remains a large unmet need for indicated prevention and treatment interventions to reduce harmful alcohol use in these settings. Evidence regarding which interventions are effective and feasible for addressing harmful and other patterns of unhealthy alcohol use in LMICs is limited, which contributes to this gap in services.

Perinatal Outcomes during versus Prior to the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Role of Maternal Depression and Perceived Stress: A Report from the ECHO Program.

Objective: We sought to evaluate the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on perinatal outcomes while accounting for maternal depression or perceived stress and to describe COVID-specific stressors, including changes in prenatal care, across specific time periods of the pandemic.

Study Design: Data of dyads from 41 cohorts from the National Institutes of Health Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes Program ( = 2,983) were used to compare birth outcomes before and during the pandemic ( = 2,355), and a partially overlapping sample ( = 1,490) responded to a COVID-19 questionnaire. Psychosocial stress was defined using prenatal screening for depression and perceived stress.

ADHD classification by dual subspace learning using resting-state functional connectivity.

As one of the most common neurobehavioral diseases in school-age children, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has been increasingly studied in recent years. But it is still a challenge problem to accurately identify ADHD patients from healthy persons. To address this issue, we propose a dual subspace classification algorithm by using individual resting-state Functional Connectivity (FC).

Organizational Context and Individual Adaptability in Promoting Perceived Importance and Use of Best Practices for Substance Use.

This study examines associations among organizational context, staff attributes, perceived importance, and use of best practices among staff in community-based, juvenile justice (JJ) agencies. As part of the National Institute on Drug Abuse's Juvenile Justice-Translational Research on Interventions for Adolescents in the Legal System (JJ-TRIALS) study, 492 staff from 36 JJ agencies were surveyed about the perceived importance and use of best practices within their organization in five substance use practice domains: screening, assessment, standard referral, active referral, and treatment support. Structural equation models indicated that supervisory encouragement and organizational innovation/flexibility were associated with greater individual adaptability.

Mental health of children who work on the streets in Brazil after enrollment in a psychosocial program.

Purpose: To evaluate the mental health status of children working on the streets in Sao Paulo City, Brazil, two years after their participation in a psychosocial program, and to identify factors associated with their mental health status.

Methods: From a total sample of 126 children working on the streets, 107 (85%) were re-evaluated two years after the initiation of a psychosocial program which aimed to cease their work on the streets. The focus was the presence of mental health problems, defined based on a screening instrument (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire).

Juvenile Justice-Translational Research on Interventions for Adolescents in the Legal System (JJ-TRIALS): a cluster randomized trial targeting system-wide improvement in substance use services.

Background: The purpose of this paper is to describe the Juvenile Justice-Translational Research on Interventions for Adolescents in the Legal System (JJ-TRIALS) study, a cooperative implementation science initiative involving the National Institute on Drug Abuse, six research centers, a coordinating center, and Juvenile Justice Partners representing seven US states. While the pooling of resources across centers enables a robust implementation study design involving 36 juvenile justice agencies and their behavioral health partner agencies, co-producing a study protocol that has potential to advance implementation science, meets the needs of all constituencies (funding agency, researchers, partners, study sites), and can be implemented with fidelity across the cooperative can be challenging. This paper describes (a) the study background and rationale, including the juvenile justice context and best practices for substance use disorders, (b) the selection and use of an implementation science framework to guide study design and inform selection of implementation components, and (c) the specific study design elements, including research questions, implementation interventions, measurement, and analytic plan.

An analysis of gene expression in PTSD implicates genes involved in the glucocorticoid receptor pathway and neural responses to stress.

We examined the association between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and gene expression using whole blood samples from a cohort of trauma-exposed white non-Hispanic male veterans (115 cases and 28 controls). 10,264 probes of genes and gene transcripts were analyzed. We found 41 that were differentially expressed in PTSD cases versus controls (multiple-testing corrected p<0.

Increased CNV-region deletions in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) subjects in the ADNI sample.

We investigated the genome-wide distribution of CNVs in the Alzheimer's disease (AD) Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) sample (146 with AD, 313 with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), and 181 controls). Comparison of single CNVs between cases (MCI and AD) and controls shows overrepresentation of large heterozygous deletions in cases (p-value<0.0001).

Maternal depression and child BMI: longitudinal findings from a US sample.

Objective: To examine the association between maternal depression and child body mass index (BMI) from Kindergarten (K) to fifth grade.

Methods: Analysis of four waves of data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study - Kindergarten spanning K to fifth grade. Maternal depressive symptoms (MDSs) were measured by a brief version of the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression scale.

Inhibition and exuberance in preschool classrooms: associations with peer social experiences and changes in cortisol across the preschool year.

Associations between behavioral inhibition and activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) system, a stress-sensitive neuroendocrine system indexed by salivary cortisol, have varied widely across studies. In the current study, we examined the role of peer social experiences in moderating patterns of association between inhibition/risk-aversion and cortisol reactivity. As expected based on previous research, preschool children (N = 165, 78 boys, 87 girls, 3.

Factor structure of the Youth Coping In Traumatic Times (YCITT) scale.

The objective of the present study is to determine if a brief measure of coping strategies administered to children and adolescents after a mass traumatic event - Youth Coping In Traumatic Times (YCITT) - has a factor structure similar to that of a lengthier, widely used scale, the How I Coped Under Pressure Scale (HICUPS). The YCITT was developed for the New York City - Board of Education WTC Study, conducted 6 months after 9/11. Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) and Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) were performed in two randomly selected sub-samples of youth in grades 6-12 (sub-sample 1, n=2249; sub-sample 2, n=2315).

Child mental health problems and obesity in early adulthood.

Objective: To examine whether mental health problems in childhood increase the likelihood of overweight or obesity during early adulthood among male subjects.

Study Design: In a national prospective population-based study conducted in Finland, child mental health, including depression, emotional problems, conduct problems, and hyperactivity (determined on the basis of child, parent, and teacher information), was assessed at age 8 years. Body mass index (BMI) was obtained from military examination records (n = 2209) conducted in early adulthood (age range, 18-23 years).

Children and terrorism-related news: training parents in Coping and Media Literacy.

This study examined associations between televised news regarding risk for future terrorism and youth outcomes and investigated the effects of training mothers in an empirically based approach to addressing such news with children. This approach--Coping and Media Literacy (CML)--emphasized modeling, media literacy, and contingent reinforcement and was compared via randomized design to Discussion as Usual (DAU). Ninety community youth (aged 7-13 years) and their mothers viewed a televised news clip about the risk of future terrorism, and threat perceptions and state anxiety were assessed preclip, postclip, and postdiscussion.

Depression and IL-6 blood plasma concentrations in advanced cancer patients.

The authors explored the relationship between depression and interleukin-6 (IL-6) blood plasma concentrations among advanced-stage cancer patients. Seventy-three patients with advanced cancer were rated on depression with the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression and gave blood to be assayed for blood plasma concentration of IL-6. Initial results found no correlation between depression and IL-6.

Exposure to the World Trade Center attack and the use of cigarettes and alcohol among New York City public high-school students.

We examined exposure to the World Trade Center attack and changes in cigarette smoking and drinking among 2731 New York City public high-school students evaluated 6 months after the attack. Increased drinking was associated with direct exposure to the World Trade Center attack (P < .05).

What is the evidence for evidence-based treatments? A hard look at our soft underbelly.

In the rising quest for evidence-based interventions, recent research often does not give adequate attention to "nonspecific therapeutic factors," including the effects of attention, positive regard, and therapeutic alliance, as well as the effects of treatment dose, intensity and actual processes mediating therapeutic change. To determine the extent to which recent clinical trial designs fully this problem, the authors conducted a systematic review of Psych-Lit/Medline of all controlled child psychotherapy treatment studies from 1995 to 2004. A total of 52 studies were identified that met review criteria: two or more therapy conditions and random assignment of participants to intervention groups.

Eating disorders: clinical features and pathophysiology.

Anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN) are disorders of eating and weight-related behavior that together afflict some 1-3% of women in the United States. One of the remarkable features about each of the eating disorders is how persistent the disordered eating behavior becomes once it has begun. Substantial psychological, social, and physiological disturbances are associated with eating disorders, and it has been very difficult to disentangle those factors that may result from the disturbed behavior from the factors that may have predisposed individuals to, or precipitated the development of, the disorder.

Comorbidity and child psychopathology: recommendations for the next decade.

This special section exemplifies and offers a number of important methodologic and conceptual advances that should provide investigators new tools for understanding comorbidity of child and adolescent psychopathology, including (a) the importance of making careful methodologic distinctions in how comorbidity is defined and operationalized, (b) specifying and justifying how data from different sources are combined, (c) teasing out the impact of potentially confounding risk factors that lead to symptom and syndrome overlaps, and (d) exploring the effects of time, timing, and order of disorder emergence on variable manifestations of comorbidity. These advances are much needed, but may still prove insufficient, given the daunting challenges in fully understanding comorbidity. Thus, future studies should be characterized by (a) more focused search for subgrouping factors and interactions related to the emergence of comorbidity, (b) careful exploration of setting- and/or informant-specific types of psychopathology, (c) development of studies that explore not just phenotypes and genotypes, but also environtypes and trajectory-types, (d) more discriminative use of information sources, including explicit efforts to reconcile (rather than combine) discrepant information, (e) clear descriptions and logical justification of when conjunctive, disjunctive, additive, and discriminative combinatorial approaches are used, (f) increased use of multidisciplinary research methods and teams, (g) increased application of multiple lines of evidence in comorbidity studies, (h) increased focus on understanding illness processes rather than just psychopathologic states, (i) development of creative new research designs, and (j) redrawing disorder boundaries when warranted.

ADHD comorbidity findings from the MTA study: comparing comorbid subgroups.

Objectives: Previous research has been inconclusive whether attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), when comorbid with disruptive disorders (oppositional defiant disorder [ODD] or conduct disorder [CD]), with the internalizing disorders (anxiety and/or depression), or with both, should constitute separate clinical entities. Determination of the clinical significance of potential ADHD + internalizing disorder or ADHD + ODD/CD syndromes could yield better diagnostic decision-making, treatment planning, and treatment outcomes.

Method: Drawing upon cross-sectional and longitudinal information from 579 children (aged 7-9.

Adverse life events and resilience.

Objective: Adverse life events are well-documented risk factors of psychopathology and psychological dysfunction in children and adolescents. Youth with good adjustment despite high levels of adverse life events are considered resilient. This study identifies factors that characterize resilience.