Engaging Human Rights Norms to Realize Universal Health Care in Massachusetts, USA.

Massachusetts is a national leader in health care, consistently ranking in the top five states in the United States. In 2006, however, only 86% of adults aged 19-64 had health insurance. That year, Governor Romney signed into law An Act Providing Access to Affordable, Quality, Accountable Health Care.

Challenging Neoliberalism: ILO, Human Rights, and Public Health Frameworks on Decent Work.

In the 2008 report , the Commission on the Social Determinants of Health (CSDH) described "fair employment and decent work" as components of daily living conditions that have "powerful effects on health." The CSDH therefore proposed far-reaching structural changes to bring about decent work and health for all. Crucially, however, it failed to acknowledge two relevant international legal frameworks, the Decent Work Agenda of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the right to decent work in international human rights law.

Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Demonstrates a Pre-fibrotic and Premalignant Molecular Signature.

Background: Metabolic syndrome contributing to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) can lead to hepatic dysfunction, steatohepatitis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma.

Aims: In this study, we tested whether diet-induced fatty liver in a mouse model physiologically mimicked human NAFLD, and whether transcriptional alterations in mouse fatty liver signified risk for the development of hepatitis, cirrhosis, and/or hepatocellular carcinoma.

Methods: SAMP6 strain mice were fed a low-fat diet or high-fat diet (HFD) for 6 months.

Fear, Sadness and Hope: Which Emotions Maximize Impact of Anti-Tobacco Mass Media Advertisements among Lower and Higher SES Groups?

Emotive anti-tobacco advertisements can increase quitting. Discrete emotion theories suggest evoking fear may be more effective than sadness; less research has focused on hope. A weekly cross-sectional survey of smokers and recent quitters (N = 7683) measured past-month quit attempts.

Neglected Population, Neglected Right: Children Living with HIV and the Right to Science.

The laws, language, and tools of human rights have been instrumental in expanding access to lifesaving treatment for people living with HIV. Children, however, remain a neglected population, as evidenced by inadequate child-specific and child-friendly HIV treatment options. In this article, we explore the right to science, a potentially powerful but underdeveloped right in international law, and its application to research and development for pediatric HIV treatment.

Mechanisms of Accountability for the Realization of the Right to Health in China.

China ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 2001. It thus bears obligations under Article 12 of the covenant to take appropriate measures at the domestic level to realize the right to health in China. Accountability is an important component of the right to health.

A Protocol for the Design of Protein and Peptide Nanostructure Self-Assemblies Exploiting Synthetic Amino Acids.

In recent years there has been increasing interest in nanostructure design based on the self-assembly properties of proteins and polymers. Nanodesign requires the ability to predictably manipulate the properties of the self-assembly of autonomous building blocks, which can fold or aggregate into preferred conformational states. The design includes functional synthetic materials and biological macromolecules.

Sexual Orientation Identity in Relation to Minority Stress and Mental Health in Sexual Minority Women.

Purpose: Research often erases the distinct experiences of bisexual and queer women through collapsing participants with lesbian or gay women. In addition, queer is often not included as a sexual orientation identity in research, therefore limiting the available information about how this group experiences minority stress. Given these limitations, we sought to compare groups, based on their sexual orientation identity, on experiences of minority stress and mental health to further understand between group differences that often go unaccounted for in research.

Cross-National Trends in Religious Service Attendance.

The nature of religious change and the future of religion have been central questions of social science since its inception. But empirical research on this question has been quite American-centric, encouraged by the conventional wisdom that the United States is an outlier of religiosity in the developed world, and, more pragmatically, by the availability of survey data. The dramatic growth in the number and reach of cross-national surveys over the past two decades has offered a corrective.

The Impact of Human Rights on Universalizing Health Care in Vermont, USA.

In 2010, Vermont adopted a new law embracing human rights principles as guidelines for health care reform, and in 2011, Vermont was the first state in the US to enact framework legislation to establish a universal health care system for all its residents. This article reports on the Vermont Workers' Center's human rights-based approach to universal health care and the extent to which this approach influenced decision makers. We found the following: (1) by learning about the human right to health care and sharing experiences, Vermonters were motivated to demand universal health care; (2) mobilizing Vermonters around a unified message on the right to health care made universal health care politically important; (3) using the human rights framework to assess new proposals enabled the Vermont Workers' Center to respond quickly to new policy proposals; (4) framing health care as a human right provided an alternative to the dominant economics-based discourse; and (5) while economics continues to dominate discussions among Vermont leaders, both legislative committees on health care use the human rights principles as guiding norms for health care reform.

Human Rights Impact Assessment: A Method for Healthy Policymaking.

Two decades ago, Lawrence Gostin and Jonathan Mann developed a methodology for human rights impact assessment (HRIA) of proposed public health policies. This article looks back over the last 20 years to examine the development of HRIA in the health field and consider the progress that has been made since Gostin and Mann published their pioneering article. Health-related HRIA has advanced substantially in three ways.

Family presence during resuscitation and invasive procedures in pediatric critical care: a systematic review.

Background: In pediatric critical care, family-centered care is a central theme that ensures holistic care of the patient and the patient's family. Parents expect and are encouraged to be involved in the care of their child throughout all phases of the child's illness. Family presence is generally accepted when the child's condition is stable; however, there is less consensus about family presence when the child becomes critically ill and requires resuscitation and/or invasive procedures.

The big five personality factors as predictors of driving status in older adults.

Objective: Although factors including cognitive and health status have been associated with driving cessation in older adults, the role of psychosocial variables is not well studied. Previous research on young adult drivers has suggested that personality may be related to driving behavior, but this study is among the first to explore the relationship between driving status and the Big Five Model of personality for older adults.

Method: Data are from the Health and Retirement Study (2008 wave, n = 4,028).

Complex cellular composition of solitary fibrous tumor of the prostate.

Solitary fibrous tumors (SFTs) of the prostate are a rare type of spindle cell neoplasm that can demonstrate either a benign or malignant phenotype. SFTs represent a clinical challenge along with other spindle cell lesions of the prostate in terms of both diagnosis and treatment. The present study shows, for the first time, that SFTs of the prostate and other organs can comprise a mixed population of fibroblast, myofibroblast, and smooth muscle cell types.

Research Brief: A Literature Review of Frontotemporal Dementia and Driving.

There is a growing body of research on Alzheimer's disease and driving, but much less is known about less common dementias, such as frontotemporal dementia (FTD). The purpose of this study was to review the empirical literature about FTD and driving. A study was included if it met the following criteria: published from 1992 to 2013 in English, research involving humans, and included both FTD and driving data.

Drug firms, the codification of diagnostic categories, and bias in clinical guidelines.

The possibility that industry is exerting an undue influence on the culture of medicine has profound implications for the profession's public health mission. Policy analysts, investigative journalists, researchers, and clinicians have questioned whether academic-industry relationships have had a corrupting effect on evidence-based medicine. Psychiatry has been at the heart of this epistemic and ethical crisis in medicine.

Biopsychosocial risk factors for driving cessation: findings from the Health and Retirement Study.

Objective: This study aims to identify social, psychological, and biomedical risk factors for current and future driving cessation in older adults.

Method: Data from six waves (1998-2008) of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) were pooled. Participants aged 65 and above were included in the study (N = 17,349).

Healthy, wealthy, wise? Psychosocial factors influencing the socioeconomic status-health gradient.

The present research investigated psychosocial factors: control beliefs; social relations moderating the SES-health gradient. Participants included 3775 respondents from a national probability sample, Midlife in United States (t(1): Age, M = 46.40, SD = 13.

Sensory over-responsivity, psychopathology, and family impairment in school-aged children.

Objective: To establish the diagnostic validity of sensory overresponsivity (SOR), there is a need to document rates of SOR and the co-occurrence of SOR with other psychiatric disorders. Although this was not a diagnostic study of SOR, this study was designed to investigate rates of elevated SOR symptoms and associations between elevated SOR symptoms, psychiatric disorder status, and family impairment.

Method: From a larger birth cohort followed from infancy to school age, 338 children aged 7 to 10 years (51% boys, 49% girls) and their parents participated in an intensive assessment.

The pattern of subjective anxiety during in-session exposures over the course of cognitive-behavioral therapy for clients with social anxiety disorder.

Exposure-based therapies are efficacious treatments for social anxiety disorder (i.e., Gould et al.

The self-pay personal assistance market: make it your business.

To be successful in reaching the self-pay market, providers must take a variety of steps, including expanding their service capability, developing an effective marketing strategy, and raising capital to finance service expansion costs.