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May 31, 2007Targeted Initiatives Can Encourage People to Walk MoreFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: People can be encouraged to walk for up to 30-60 minutes more per week if they are given the right kind of help, finds a study published on bmj.com today. This could make a valuable contribution to improving public health. Physical activity reduces the risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer of the colon, write David Ogilvie and colleagues for the Scottish Physical Activity Research Collaboration (SPARColl). Walking is a free and convenient way to be active, and most people can continue walking into old age. Promoting walking could therefore help tackle the health problems linked to today's inactive lifestyles. The authors reviewed 48 studies of different approaches to promoting walking. The most successful were tailored to people's needs and targeted at sedentary people or at those most motivated to change. These increased walking in the target groups by up to 30-60 minutes a week on average, at least in the short term. Given how little exercise most people take, this amounts to a substantial increase, say the authors. The authors found that walking could be encouraged in a variety of ways. Examples included giving face to face advice or telephone support, using pedometers, or promoting walking as an environmentally friendly mode of transport. Different people may respond to different approaches, say the authors. One size may not fit all, and a range of options should be offered, they conclude. Posted by Michael at 9:59 PM | TrackBack Nursing Home Placement Associated with Accelerated Cognitive Decline in Alzheimer's DiseaseFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: People with Alzheimer's disease experience an acceleration in the rate of cognitive decline after being placed in a nursing home according to a new study by Rush University Medical Center. The study, published in the June issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, finds that prior experience in adult day care may lessen this association. The observational study involved 432 older persons with Alzheimer's disease who were recruited from health care settings in the Chicago area. At baseline, they lived in the community and 196 participants were using day care services from 2 to 6 days a week for an overall mean of 1.7 days a week. As level of day care use at study onset increased, the association of nursing home placement with accelerated cognitive decline substantially decreased. Yet, day care use markedly reduced the association of education with accelerated cognitive decline in the nursing home; further evidence that there is a robust association between day care experience and cognition during the transition to a nursing home. Yet, the nursing-home-related increase in cognitive decline was observed even after simultaneous control for cognitive and noncognitive indicators of dementia severity at the time of nursing home entry. "The findings suggest that the transition from the community to a nursing home is particularly difficult for people with Alzheimer's disease and that those planning for their care should consider the possibility that experience in adult day care programs may help prepare affected persons for institutional living," said Wilson. The research was supported by grants from the National Institutes on Aging, which leads the federal effort supporting and conducting research on aging and the medical, social and behavioral issues of older people, including Alzheimer's disease and age-related cognitive decline. Posted by Michael at 9:57 PM | TrackBack 'Energy Up' Demonstrates Success as Obesity Intervention Program for Inner-City GirlsFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: The effectiveness of the "Energy Up" program developed by lifestyle and fitness leader Kathie Dolgin known to her students as High Voltage, has recently been evaluated in an article published in the May issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health (www.adolescenthealth.org/journal.htm). The health brief titled,"Energy Up" A Novel Approach to the Weight Management of Inner-City Teens," describes the positive results of this school-based, nutrition and fitness pilot program. The research gathered shows that the "Energy Up" program works and is successful in dealing with behavioral issues of adolescent girls. The program under review took place at an all girl, parochial high school in New York City during the school year of 2003-2004. Obese girls lost the most weight while normal weight girls gained what was expected for their age. The girls changed their lifestyle by eating better, exercising more and building self-esteem. Unlike other obesity prevention programs, "Energy Up" is not based on the health belief model which states that teens are unhealthy because they don't know certain behaviors are harmful. Instead, this novel program identifies why teens engage in unhealthy behaviors, specifically overeating, and acknowledges that many young people overeat when they know it is bad for them. The program frames overeating within the realm of food addiction, something that no other American school based program does. Studies show that binge eating triggers the same neurological pathways as drug addiction, so Voltage's theories are rooted in science. Dr. Lynn Gettleman Chehab states, "I can't emphasize enough that there really is nothing remotely like EU out there." Posted by Michael at 9:46 PM | TrackBack The Challenges of Change: Learning from the Child Care and Early Education Experiences of Immigrant FamiliesFrom Center for Law and Social Policy: One of every five children in the United States is the child of an immigrant. Although these children stand to benefit from high-quality child care and early education programs, available data show that they are less likely to participate in all types of nonparental care than children of U.S.-born citizens are. To explore the reasons for the lower participation of children of immigrants, CLASP conducted site visits across the country to learn first hand about the challenges that immigrant families face. CLASP sought out immigrant leaders and direct service providers, immigrant parents, child care and early education providers, and policymakers. This report identifies multiple barriers that impede immigrant families from accessing high-quality child care and early education. It also highlights promising strategies being used in local communities to break down those barriers and to improve child care and early education programs so that they are more responsive to the needs of diverse immigrant families. It concludes with a set of recommendations for federal, state, and local policymakers, advocates, private foundations, and researchers. This paper is part of CLASP's Breaking Down Barriers project, which is supported by the Foundation for Child Development and other funders. 196 pages. Posted by Michael at 9:45 PM | TrackBack Access to Alcohol Among Middle School ChildrenFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: New research suggests that if parents want to keep alcohol away from their middle school children, the best place to start is at home. The study, reported in the June issue of Preventive Medicine, shows that of 11-14 year olds who choose to drink, only a small fraction (2.4% in the 6th grade, rising to 5.6% at the end of the 8th grade) obtain alcohol from commercial venues. The study is unique as no other study has followed young, racially diverse, poor urban youth over a two and a half year period, observing patterns of social and commercial alcohol access in this manner. It is important to educate parents about the consequences of alcohol use at a young age and try to prevent them from being their child's primary source of alcohol." Mary O Hearst is at the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA. The article, "Who needs liquor stores when parents will do" The importance of social sources of alcohol among young urban teens" appears in Preventive Medicine, Volume 44, number 6, June 2007, published by Elsevier. Posted by Michael at 12:12 AM | TrackBack Drug Use Is Increasing Among Young American IndiansFrom Ascribe Newsfeed: Researchers at the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center have completed a study that compared the age of first-time drug users across the nation to the age of first-time drug users on and near two different American Indian reservations. Overall, American Indian adolescents were found to be at higher risk for trying marijuana than their peers across the country. Researchers at the American Indian and Alaska Native Programs located in UCDHSC's Nighthorse Campbell Native Health Building divided drug users into two groups - those born before 1960 and those born after 1960. For the population born before 1960, the potential risk for drug use peaked at age 18 with a greater risk in the overall national population group. After 1960, the risk for trying marijuana was highest at age 16 and is now higher among reservation-dwelling youth than the general population. "The overall age for drug use and experimentation has moved to a younger age group all across the nation," said Nancy Whitesell, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry in the American Indian and Alaska Native Programs at the UCDHSC School of Medicine. This research tells us that greater attention needs to be paid to prevention strategies targeted at younger children. The study, published in the July 2007 issue of the American Journal of Public Health, is being published May 30 online under 'First Look' at http://www.ajph.org/. Posted by Michael at 12:09 AM | TrackBack May 30, 2007Policy Changes Have Direct Effect on Nursing Home CareFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: States that set high staffing standards for elder care in nursing homes are the only ones that come close to having enough staff nurses to prevent serious safety violations, according to a new study by a professor in the UCSF School of Nursing. The majority of the nation's elderly and disabled in nursing homes remain in situations where staffing is well below national recommendations for safe care, the study found. While no states have ideal nursing levels, those states with higher Medicaid reimbursements or higher mandated nursing levels have come closer to meeting the recommendations, according to the analysis published in the June issue of the journal "Health Services Research." "For years, families have struggled with low staffing levels in the nursing homes that care for their elderly family members, but very few studies have assessed how to change that on a broad level," Harrington said. She examined the hours that nurses worked in nursing homes in 2002 and analyzed the data against two variables: Medicaid reimbursement rates and the range of acuity in patient care. Medicaid pays for 67 percent of all nursing home residents in the United States, but only covers 51 percent of the $103 billion in total nursing home costs. This study found that nursing homes located in states that had increased their minimum standards for registered nursing hours had higher registered-nurse staffing levels. For example, a 10 percent increase in state minimum staffing standards would result in an increase of 1.66 hours per resident-day (or 16.6 hours for every 100 residents) in actual staffing, if all other factors remain equal, Harrington said. Posted by Michael at 11:44 PM | TrackBack Predicting the Quality of Life for Older AdultsFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: As a growing number of baby boomers retire, our society will have more older adults than ever before, so it is crucial to determine what predicts quality of life in older age. A joint study from the University of Alberta and University of Victoria, recently published in Research in Nursing & Health, has uncovered that there are predictors of quality of life for older adults. A replication study of 432 older adults was undertaken to validate a model of quality of life generated in an earlier study on a random sample of older adults. The replicated study indicated that financial resources, health and meaning in life directly and positively influenced a person's quality of life and health, while emotional support and the physical environment indirectly affected quality of life through the older adult's sense of purpose in life. As previous research has stated, emotional support, companionship and intimacy have been found to have a moderate to strong positive effect upon quality of life and even enhance quality of life over time among cancer patients. Other significant factors include residing in a desirable living space and physical surroundings, and physical environments with few barriers to activity. "Replication studies are rarely undertaken to further validate models of quality of life, yet the results are so important," said Dr. Gail Low, University of Alberta researcher. "To fully understand what predicts a person's quality of life, further explorations of the influence of spirituality, emotionally close ties and opportunities for active engagement on quality of life in older age are warranted." Posted by Michael at 11:34 PM | TrackBack Help for Pediatricians in Treating Behavioral Health Problems Only Partially SuccessfulFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: Continuing medical education, newsletters and resource guides were only partially successful in changing the way that pediatricians handled behavioral health problems, according to a follow-up study at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. But external factors, especially "black box warnings" from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration "exerted a powerful effect on prescribing practices," said Jane Williams, Ph.D., and colleagues, writing in the June issue of Clinical Pediatrics. So did the changes in the public mental health system brought about by North Carolina's mental health reform. In 2004, the same group reported in Pediatrics that pediatricians were diagnosing and treating growing numbers of children with behavioral health problems -- about 15 percent of the children they see -- but did not always feel sufficiently trained to fill this new role. This year, Williams and her colleagues went back to 42 primary care pediatricians they had originally interviewed in 2002-03 to find out which of a series of what they called "structured interventions" worked. They included a quarterly newsletter, Pediatric Mental Health Connections, a Mental Health Resource Guide consisting of information about community mental health providers, quarterly collaborative behavioral health "rounds," and three continuing education workshops covering screening children for developmental and behavioral problems and diagnosing and treating depression. ADHD remained the behavioral problem most often diagnosed by the pediatricians, who continued to have a high degree of confidence in treating ADHD with stimulants. Most important, "Eighty-three percent indicated they consulted with a mental health colleague concerning pediatric patients with mental health problems," Williams said. Posted by Michael at 11:29 PM | TrackBack The General Public Lacks Basic Medical KnowledgeFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: The general public are worryingly ignorant about the symptoms and risk factors that contribute to serious medical conditions such as stroke and HIV/AIDS, according to a study published in the online open access journal BMC Medicine. Surprisingly, those with university degrees, a medical background or personal experience of an illness are only slightly better informed. Lucas M. Bachmann from the University of Zurich, Switzerland and colleagues devised a scale to measure people's minimal medical knowledge (MMK) of heart attack, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and HIV/AIDS. This included questions such as: "How can one protect oneself from HIV infection"" and "What are the symptoms of a heart attack"" It was tested on 185 adults. The average score was just 32%, and no one scored 100%. The fact that having a university degree, a medical background or personal experience of an illness only slightly improved individual scores is a particular cause for concern, the authors say, and may occur because people prefer to take health-related advice from trustworthy figures in positions of authority, rather than actively seek it themselves. It is essential that people know the symptoms and risk factors linked to serious clinical conditions since early detection can positively influence treatment outcome, say the authors. It can also cut related costs and reduce risk-taking behaviour. Posted by Michael at 11:26 PM | TrackBack Aerobic Exercise Helps Maintain Muscle in ElderlyFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: Why do older people tend to lose muscle mass and grow frail? One important factor identified by medical science is the reduced ability of the elderly to respond to the muscle-building stimulus of the hormone insulin. Insulin is best known for its link to diabetes --- a condition in which either a complete lack of insulin or systemic resistance to the hormone's activity (as in type 2 diabetes) causes blood sugar levels to soar out of control. Recent studies have shown, however, that insulin also provides crucial assistance in building muscle, and that its ability to do so drops off dramatically in the elderly. Now, a small but provocative study by medical researchers in Texas and California suggests that a simple, cost-free therapy appears to largely overcome that drop-off in insulin response: moderate aerobic exercise such as walking. Experiments at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB) and the University of Southern California, Los Angeles conducted on 13 healthy volunteers in their late 60s showed that 45 minutes of walking 20 hours before exposure to insulin restored the muscle-growth-stimulating effects of the hormone to levels comparable to those seen in normal young adults. Prior research had suggested that a large part of the problem older people experience lies in the tiny blood vessels that feed the muscles protein-building amino acids, glucose and insulin (which itself also works within muscle cells as a powerful protein growth factor). These revealed that the volunteers who exercised had both higher blood flow and net muscle protein growth. In addition, the researchers screened the muscle biopsy samples for signals associated with insulin's ability to stimulate the assembly of muscle protein from amino acids. Posted by Michael at 11:22 PM | TrackBack Inactive Kids Storing Up Illness for the FutureFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: A new University of Leicester study funded by the British Heart Foundation reveals that the level of physical inactivity among children today has reached epidemic levels. Researchers from Leicester -Professor Kamlesh Khunti, Professor Melanie Davies and Dr Margaret Stone- have just published one of the largest studies of physical activity levels of inner city school children. For example only half the children walked to school although south Asian children were less likely to walk to school compared to white children. Family history of diabetes or heart disease in parents is a risk factor for development of diabetes or heart disease in their children. However, the researchers found that children of parents with a family history of diabetes or heart disease were just as likely to have sedentary behaviours as those without a family history. A consistent finding in South Asian migrant populations, wherever they are located, is a higher incidence and prevalence of premature coronary heart disease compared with the local population. "Metabolic abnormalities precede the development of diabetes by some years and risk factors for cardiovascular disease in children often persist into adulthood. "Inactive behaviour, such as watching television, may predict subsequent adult overweight and obesity in children and adolescent. However, there is a lack of data on physical activity levels of South Asian children despite them having a higher cardiovascular risk profile. This study shows that overall the physical activity levels in inner city school children are very low and parents, schools and community health providers need to address the results of these findings to reduce their future risks of developing diabetes and heart disease in children. Posted by Michael at 11:13 PM | TrackBack Investing in Parents to Invest in ChildrenMDRC: Remarks by Gordon L. Berlin, President, MDRC, at the National Summit on America’s Children, May 22, 2007. At MDRC, we focus on finding solutions to the problems that confront the poor by designing and rigorously evaluating programs in education (from preschool to postsecondary), income and work supports, workforce development, and community development, among other policy realms --- all with a goal of improving the lives of low-income families and children. This morning we've heard compelling evidence about the effects of the environment on early brain development and about promising interventions for poor children, as well as concerns about the daunting challenges and frequent failures when taking high-quality programs to scale. But even the most successful programs for children are likely to be undermined if we don't address the poverty of the families in which these children are growing up. Today, I will summarize a remarkably strong body of research --- much of it based on large-scale, well implemented, experimental research designs --- showing that supplementing the earnings of parents helps raise families out of poverty and improves the school performance of young children. The EITC, which is conditioned on work, is the largest antipoverty program for working families by far; more than 20 million taxpayers take advantage of the EITC each year, at a cost approaching $40 billion. Posted by Michael at 12:52 PM | TrackBack May 29, 2007Congress Should Increase HUD’S Budget to Prevent Families from Losing Assistance and Address Growing NeedsFrom - Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: Under the President's 2008 budget, total funding for HUD programs would fall to a level that is $4.6 billion --- or 11 percent --- below the 2004 funding levels, adjusted for inflation. The President is proposing these cuts despite evidence that growing numbers of low-income families have serious housing affordability problems. Some 15 million low-income households have rent and utility costs that are unaffordable under federal standards (i.e., costs that exceed 30 percent of their modest incomes). In early 2007, Congress took the first steps toward reversing the recent weakening of federal housing assistance and renewing efforts to make housing more affordable. It provided the first real increase in funding for HUD programs since 2004, adding nearly $900 million (in inflation-adjusted terms) to HUD programs for fiscal year 2007 over the 2006 level, including significant increases in funding for HUD's main low-income programs. As this analysis shows, Congress must provide an estimated $2.8 billion more than the President's budget requested for the three largest HUD programs in 2008 (Section 8 vouchers, Section 8 project-based rental assistance, and public housing) just to prevent families from losing housing assistance and to avert the further deterioration of public housing. This report briefly outlines the major funding issues for each of those three programs for the coming year. Posted by Michael at 6:22 PM | TrackBack We Make Change: Community Organizers Talk About What They DoFrom - We Make Change: A timely new book by veteran organizer Joe Szakos and writer/editor Kristin Layng Szakos helps to demystify this little-known profession and offer a glimpse into the daily lives of the people who make changing the world their life's work. We Make Change: Community Organizers Talk About What They Do --- and Why is a lively, readable collection of stories and observations by organizers across the United States. They are there with the neighborhood group working to bring bank loans to low-income homeowners. They are there with immigrant women organizing to get medical insurance for their families, with small-town environmentalists keeping a toxic waste plant out of their community, with parents trying to get schools to respond to the needs of children with dyslexia, with gay and lesbian students striving to create a safe space in their schools, with groups working to reduce the ravages of racism in their towns and institutions. This book explores the world of community organizing through the voices of real people working in the field --- organizers in small towns and big city neighborhoods, women and men, some in their 20s, others in their 60s, of different races and economic backgrounds. In addition to 14 individual profiles, all 81 interviewees are given voice in chapters like "What is Community Organizing?" Posted by Michael at 2:22 PM | TrackBack May 28, 2007Interactive Education Data by School DistrictThe Editorial Projects in Education Research Center is proud to announce the Beta version of a powerful new online mapping tool to help the public, policymakers, and educational leaders combat the graduation crisis. For the first time, comparable, reliable data on graduation rates will be readily available for every school district in the country. Produced in collaboration with the Redlands, Calif.-based ESRI, this Web-based application will allow users to easily map out graduation rates by zooming in on any of the nationâ¬(TM)s individual school districts. Users may then download a special report for the district, with detailed information on graduation rates that includes an analysis of where students are lost from the high school pipeline. The reports also compare district results with state and national figures. The EPE Research Center calculated graduation rates for each district, as well as every state and the nation as a whole, using data from a single federal data set. The Cumulative Promotion Index, developed by Research Center director Christopher Swanson, estimates the probability that a student in the 9th grade will complete high school on time with a regular diploma. In June 2007, the EPE Research Center will launch the next generation of this online mapping technology, which will bring new and more extensive information on graduation rates to the public. Posted by Michael at 7:23 PM | TrackBack May 24, 2007Eligibility for Child Tax Credit by Age of ChildThe child tax credit (CTC) is a $1,000 partially refundable federal income tax credit for each qualifying child under age 17. In 2007, tax filers may claim a refundable credit (over and above any tax liability) equal to 15 percent of the excess of earnings over $11,750, up to the $1,000 maximum per child. The earnings threshold means that families with very low incomes get no benefit from the credit, and others will receive only a partial credit. In 2007, 30 percent of qualifying children under age 2 in working families had family incomes too low to benefit from the full credit, compared with 27 percent of children overall and 24 percent of children 10 and older. The Economic Growth and Tax Relief and Reconciliation Act of 2001 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief and Reconciliation Act of 2003 doubled the credit to $1,000 and made it partially refundable. In 2007, tax filers may claim a refundable credit equal to 15 percent of the excess of earnings over $11,750, up to the $1,000 maximum per child. Thus, a family with one qualifying child and earnings of $18,417 could benefit from the full $1,000 credit, even if it had no income tax liability. The expanded refundability has made the CTC more valuable to many lower-income families, though many with very low incomes were still left out. Posted by Michael at 11:15 PM | TrackBack Both alcohol and neighborhood characteristics can affect intimate partner violenceFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: Heavy drinking has consistently been linked to an increased risk of intimate partner violence (IPV). New findings indicate that drinking patterns as well as neighborhood characteristics can influence IPV. While specific effects differ by gender; women who are the heaviest drinkers are at elevated risk for mutual IPV despite the context of their neighborhood. While heavy drinking has consistently been linked to an increased risk of intimate partner violence (IPV), a new study has found that both drinking patterns and neighborhood characteristics can contribute in different ways to mutual IPV among married/cohabiting adults in the general population. Results are published in the June issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. The link between heavy drinking and increased risk of IPV is fairly well established, according to Carol B. Cunradi, senior research scientist at Prevention Research Center and sole author of the study. "IPV, like child abuse, typically is a 'private' event that occurs in the home; social disorganization theory suggests that it is essential to consider the neighborhood conditions in which the home is located." "Although many researchers and authors have speculated that neighborhood and community have an influence on behaviors such as IPV," added William Fals-Stewart, professor in the school of medicine at the University of Rochester, "this study is among the very first to examine IPV within the societal context of where it occurs. Researchers examined the responses of 19,035 married/cohabiting adults (non-Hispanic black, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic white) who participated in the 2000 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse. Posted by Michael at 8:56 PM | TrackBack Management Professor says McDonald's Commercial is on TrackFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: Having worked undercover at seven fast-food restaurants across the United States, including McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's, Newman, author of "My Secret Life on the McJob," says that McDonald's has the right idea in its newest television commercial. Newman believes that the best way to change the negative image of a "McJob" is by positively redefining the perception of the fast-food worker. "The skill sets that employees learn on the job will serve them well in the work force, whether they choose to move on to another industry or stay in fast food," says Newman. "A fast-food worker is able to handle a variety of demands and produce under pressure, a veritable Big Mac of reliability, integrity and workplace maturity," he adds. They learn that feedback is a positive force necessary for growth; consequently they learn to not be defensive, but instead are open to receiving as well as giving constructive criticism. Newman is chair of the Department of Organization and Human Resources in the UB School of Management and the author of nearly 100 articles on compensation and rewards, performance management and other human resource issues. Posted by Michael at 8:51 PM | TrackBack 'Teaching Gap' exists among US and Asian Math TeachersFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: Compared to math teachers in the high-achieving nations of Hong Kong and Japan, teachers in the United States offer less of certain supports that could help students learn more. The study analyzed how analogies -- a reasoning practice that involves connecting two concepts, often a better-known concept to a less familiar one -- are used in the United States, Hong Kong and Japan. They are known to be helpful for learning mathematical concepts, but only if teachers use enough imagery and gestures that students' attention to the analogous relations. "There is no guarantee that without these cues, the students are actually benefiting from the analogies and thinking about math in a comparative way," said Lindsey Richland, assistant professor of education and co-author of the study. Richland and research colleagues analyzed videotapes of math lessons from the large-scale video portion of the 1999 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. The "teaching gap" with respect to analogy could be attributed to different cultural orientations to relational reasoning. However, the authors conclude U.S. math teachers could improve the effectiveness of their analogies through slight adjustments in their instruction. News Radio: UCI maintains on campus an ISDN line for conducting interviews with its faculty and experts. Posted by Michael at 8:50 PM | TrackBack Choice is a Key Element in Success for Smokers Who Want to QuitFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: Smokers who have a say in how they quit are more likely to try kicking the habit and are more successful, according to new research at the University of Rochester. Rochester researcher Dr. Geoffrey Williams associate professor of medicine at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, will unveil new findings at a Toronto conference this month that demonstrate patient involvement in a quit plan leads to smokers who are more motivated to quit because they genuinely want to, not because they are being nagged or bullied. Williams will be one of more than 300 researchers from 25 countries to gather at the University of Toronto this weekend to discuss their work within Self-Determination Theory. This groundbreaking psychological theory of human motivation was developed by University of Rochester psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan. Williams' team of researchers found that smokers who were counseled in a manner that encouraged them to reflect on whether they wanted to smoke or not, and if not why they were trying to quit, were more likely to maintain their abstinence for two years than those who received usual care. Participants in the control group were simply given a list of quit resources in the community and were encouraged to visit their doctors for help, while participants in the special program received one-on-one counseling and more. Williams said patients in the cessation program were asked about their willingness to and confidence in quitting, their history with tobacco, general medical history, and even their life aspirations. The support and choice patients received in the program resulted in a greater motivation to quit, willingness to try medications, higher levels of commitment to quit plans, and ultimately, more successes. Posted by Michael at 8:49 PM | TrackBack Limiting Eligibility for Medical Studies Can Omit Women and African-AmericansFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: - A new analysis has found that many alcohol treatment studies are designed in ways that inadvertently omit women and African-Americans from participation. The Stanford University School of Medicine researcher who led the effort said the findings should remind all scientists that strict study eligibility criteria can have unintended, negative consequences. In reviewing data from a pool of 100,000 alcohol treatment patients, Keith Humphreys, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, determined that women and African-Americans were substantially more likely to be excluded from treatment studies than men or non-African-American patients, because of eligibility requirements involving psychiatric problems, employment and housing problems, and drug use. "Researchers' own study designs are thwarting their good-faith efforts to recruit representative patient samples," said Humphreys, whose paper will be published in the June issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. While some exclusions are often necessary - to protect patient safety, for example - Humphreys suspects researchers often use exclusions in their studies out of habit or tradition. "If treatments are tested on, and developed for, only part of the population, that means everyone excluded is at greater risk when they use health care," said Humphreys. For this reason, the National Institutes of Health has instructed researchers to design their studies to ensure adequate enrollment of all populations, including women and racial minorities. "The NIH, and we as a society, have decided that the burden and benefits of health research should be shared by everyone," said Humphreys, who is also on the staff of the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System. Posted by Michael at 8:29 PM | TrackBack Majority of Teachers Graduate in the Top of their ClassFrom Economic Policy Institute: It has been argued recently that student performance lags because of poor teacher quality, and specifically because teachers are drawn from the bottom half of the ability distribution. But the facts don't support this argument. For example, data for new female teachers show that well over half of them come from the upper 40% of high school graduates. Of all the new female teachers from the high school class of 1992, who had entered into teaching by 2000, almost a third (32%) came from the top fifth of high school test scores. An additional 26% came from the next fifth, implying that almost 60% of the new recruits had scores in the top 40%. With teacher salaries falling behind those in comparable occupations over the last decade and other professions including medicine and the legal profession luring away the best female college graduates, a competitive salary schedule for teachers should be a top priority. Posted by Michael at 8:21 PM | TrackBack Small infants have greater survival rate in high level intensive care facilitiesFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: Very low birth weight infants are significantly more likely to survive when delivered in hospitals with high-level neonatal intensive care units that care for more than 100 such newborns annually than are those delivered in comparable facilities that provide care to fewer than 100 such children every year. Read more from this post. Posted by Michael at 8:20 PM | TrackBack Psychological Bullying Hits Just as HardFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: School bullying doesn't have to leave physical bumps and bruises to contribute to a hostile and potentially dangerous school environment. Behavior that intentionally harms another individual, through the manipulation of social relationships (or 'relational aggression'), is just as significant a concern for adolescent psychosocial development and mental health, according to Dr. Sara Goldstein from Montclair State University and her colleagues from the University of Michigan. Their study, published this month in Springer's Journal of Youth and Adolescence, shows that adolescents exposed to high levels of relational aggression perceive their school to be less safe, and are less pleased with the general social atmosphere of the school. A total of 1,335 African American and European American adolescents, aged 11 -- 19 years, from a public school district in Detroit, Michigan, took part in an Internet survey which looked at how relational aggression at school is associated with adolescents' perceptions of, and participation in, a hostile school environment. This study looks at how other forms of aggression that target victims' relationships and peer standing can lead to school-related problems. Contrary to other work in this field, it also looks at the effect of witnessing relational aggression, rather than simply focusing on victims. There is already strong evidence to link relational aggression with social anxiety, loneliness and depression, peer difficulties and substance use. The authors conclude that the impact of school aggression is such that it calls for "creative means to (a) detect relational aggression, and (b) address it in a manner that respects adolescents' need for autonomy over their peer relationships but also discourages relationally aggressive behavior." Posted by Michael at 8:19 PM | TrackBack Stereotype-Induced Math Anxiety Undermines Girls' Ability to Perform in Other Academic AreasFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: A popular stereotype that boys are better at mathematics than girls undermines girls' math performance because it causes worrying that erodes the mental resources needed for problem solving, new research at the University of Chicago shows. Working memory is a short-term memory system involved in the control, regulation and active maintenance of limited information needed immediately to deal with problems at hand. They also showed for the first time that this threat to performance caused by stereotyping can also hinder success in other academic areas because mental abilities do not immediately rebound after being compromised by mathematics anxiety. "This may mean that if a girl takes a verbal portion of a standardized test after taking the mathematics portion, she may not do as well on the verbal portion as she might do if she had not been recently struggling with math-related worries and anxiety," said Sian Beilock, Assistant Professor in Psychology and lead investigator in the study. "Likewise, our work suggests that if a girl has a mathematics class first thing in the morning and experiences math-related worries in this class, these worries may carry implications for her performance in the class she attends next," she added. The results of the study appear in the paper "Stereotype Threat and Working Memory: Mechanisms, Alleviation, and Spill Over," published in the current issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Researchers have been aware that stereotypes can undermine achievement in schools in many ways, but little research has focused on the specific mental processes that prompt this response. Posted by Michael at 8:15 PM | TrackBack May 23, 2007Building a Culture of Evidence for Community College Student SuccessFrom MDRC: Achieving the Dream is a multiyear, national initiative, launched by Lumina Foundation for Education, to help community college students stay in school and succeed. The 82 participating colleges commit to collecting and analyzing data to improve student outcomes, particularly for low-income students and students of color. This baseline report describes the early progress that the first 27 colleges have made after just one year of implementation. Read more from this post. Posted by Michael at 12:12 AM | TrackBack May 22, 2007A Drink a Day May Delay DementiaFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: Mild cognitive impairment is a transitional stage between normal aging and dementia that is used to classify people with mild memory or cognitive problems and no significant disability. Researchers evaluated alcohol consumption and the incidence of mild cognitive impairment in 1,445 people. They then followed 121 people with mild cognitive impairment and their progression to dementia. The participants, age 65 to 84, were part of the Italian Longitudinal Study on Aging and were followed for three-and-a-half years. "While many studies have assessed alcohol consumption and cognitive function in the elderly, this is the first study to look at how alcohol consumption affects the rate of progression of mild cognitive impairment to dementia," said study authors Vincenzo Solfrizzi, MD, PhD, and Francesco Panza, MD, PhD, with the Department of Geriatrics at the University of Bari, in Bari, Italy. "The mechanism responsible for why low alcohol consumption appears to protect against the progression to dementia isn't known. However, it is possible that the arrangement of blood vessels in the brain may play a role in why alcohol consumption appears to protect against dementia. This would support other observations that drinking moderate amounts of alcohol may protect the brain from stroke and vascular dementia." The study did not find any association between higher levels of drinking, more than one drink per day, and the rate of progression to dementia in people with mild cognitive impairment compared to non-drinkers. The American Academy of Neurology, an association of more than 20,000 neurologists and neuroscience professionals, is dedicated to improving patient care through education and research. Posted by Michael at 10:58 PM | TrackBack Healthy Body Weight Throughout Adulthood may Help Delay DisabilityFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: Maintaining a healthy body weight throughout adulthood may help prevent or delay the onset of physical disability as we age, according to researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and colleagues. The study, reported on-line by the International Journal of Obesity, found that older adults with a history of excess weight in midlife or earlier had worse physical performance than those who were normal weight throughout adulthood or became overweight in late adulthood. Using data from the Health, Aging and Body Composition (Health ABC) study, researchers examined the association between weight history and physical performance in late adulthood. Participants were eligible only if they reported no difficulty walking one-fourth of a mile, climbing 10 steps, or performing basic activities of daily living. The researchers found that men and women who were obese at ages 25 years, 50 years and between 70 and 79 years had significantly lower scores of physical performance than those who were normal weight at these ages. Houston said there are several explanations for the findings. "Over the past couple of decades there has been a trend towards declining rates of disability in older adults. However, the dramatic increase in overweight and obesity in the U.S. may reverse these declines and may lead to an increase in disability among future generations of older adults as well as contribute to an increase in disability among middle-age and younger adults," she said. Posted by Michael at 10:53 PM | TrackBack Family favorite? Parents, Siblings See Imbalances in Parents' Attention DifferentlyFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: When parents treat their children differently, siblings and parents often have very different ideas about what's happening and why, says a University of Illinois study. "You'd think it would be clear when a child is receiving more positive or negative attention, and why that might be happening, but families don't seem to talk much about these differences unless someone complains," said Laurie Kramer, a U of I professor of applied family studies. Even when children reported that they and their siblings were treated differently, they often didn't agree about exactly how or why they were being treated differently, Kramer said. One thing, however, was clear: siblings got along better if they had a shared understanding of why parents treated them differently and believed the treatment was fair. "That means it's important for families to talk about these issues, and for mothers and fathers to really listen to what their kids are telling them about how their actions are affecting them," said Kramer. An earlier study by the researchers showed that siblings understand when differences in treatment occur if there's a good reason for it. "For example, if a child is having trouble in school, parents may spend extra time with that child helping with homework and encouraging him. "Say, for example, 'I bought Joe a car when he was 17 because he was working after school and needed transportation. Kramer said that differential treatment performed by mothers may have a greater impact on teens' sibling relationships than fathers' differential treatment. Posted by Michael at 10:45 PM | TrackBack Cigarette Use may Explain Asthma Epidemic in ChildrenFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: The rise in cigarette use by adults over the past century may explain the asthma epidemic in children according to a study by researchers at the Mailman School of Public Health. The study is published this month in Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI). "We have identified parallel increases in childhood asthma and cigarette use among adults during the past century in the United States. These parallel trends suggest that the increase in cigarette use may be a contributing factor to the rise in asthma among children during the same period through increased exposure to environmental tobacco smoke," said Dr. Goodwin. Children breathe more air than adults and have narrower airways, so ETS is a greater causal risk factor of asthma in children. The risk for the development of childhood asthma was 2.5 times greater in young children with mothers who smoke more than 10 cigarettes per day indoors compared with mothers who smoke fewer cigarettes or not at all. Cigarette use, currently considered one of the most pressing public health problems worldwide, has become increasingly concentrated among economically and socially disadvantaged segments of the population, as well as among younger persons. Posted by Michael at 10:45 PM | TrackBack May 21, 2007Homelessness System Change Efforts and Their Results, Los Angeles, 2005-2006Corporation for Supportive Housing In 2004, the Hilton Foundation awarded the Corporation for Supportive Housing a five-year grant of $8 million to promote changes in city, county, and state systems that would reduce homelessness in Los Angeles County, especially among people with serious mental illness. CSH uses these resources to bring people together, facilitate planning and implementation, provide expert advice, and help span the boundaries of different systems that have long stood separate and apart. We can bring these figures for homelessness supports in LA County into stark contrast by comparing them with similar data from New York City, the only other jurisdiction in the country of roughly the same size (8.1 million versus Los Angeles County's 9.9 million). It has a mayor now in his second term who has long been determined to reduce homelessness by two-thirds before he leaves office and has directed his cabinet officials to do what it takes. As a policy issue, homelessness has barely been on the radar screen for local elected officials and public agencies until the last few years. Receiving the support of the Hilton Foundation in 2004 was in some ways a statement that enough initial movement was visible one year later for the foundation to invest its resources in its home community to give a boost to the "end long-term homelessness" agenda.
Posted by Michael at 12:46 PM | TrackBack May 20, 2007Start School Later in the Morning, Say Sleepy TeensFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: A survey of sleep-deprived teens finds they think that a later start time for school and tests given later in the school day would result in better grades. The survey was presented at the American Thoracic Society 2007 International Conference, on Sunday, May 20. The survey of 280 high school students confirmed what most parents with a teenager know: they are not getting enough sleep. More sleep would translate into improved academic performance, according to the teens questioned. Richard Schwab, M.D., of the University of Pennsylvania, conducted the study with his daughter Amanda, one of the sleep-deprived teens who attended Harriton High School. "I watched her get up early for four years, and saw how difficult it was," Dr. Schwab says. "Teenagers need more sleep than adults and their circadian rhythms are phase shifted so that their ideal bedtime is midnight to 1:00 a.m.; yet they have to get up at 6:30 or earlier for high school. While adults usually need 7 to 8 hours of sleep, teens need 8 to 9 hours, he says. In addition, teens go to bed much later -- their biological clock often keeps them up until 1 a.m. to 2 a.m. Because they have to get up so early for school, many teens achieve only 6 ½ to 7 hours of sleep or, in some cases, much less. "Right now, high schools usually start earlier in the morning than elementary schools. But if school start times were based on sleep cycles, elementary schools should start at 7:30 and high schools at 8:30 or 8:45 -- right now it's the reverse. Posted by Michael at 9:20 PM | TrackBack Quality improvement effort pays off in diabetes careFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: Spending money to improve diabetes care at federally qualified community health centers is a sound investment, according to one of the first studies to examine the clinical and economic impact of quality improvement on diabetes care. In the June 2007 issue of Health Services Research, a University of Chicago-based research team reports that a relatively inexpensive national effort to improve the process of care at selected clinics was able to make enough difference in its first four years that, if sustained, it could reduce patients' lifetime risk of blindness, end-stage kidney disease and coronary artery disease---all common complications of diabetes. At a cost of less than $500 per patient each year, this modest quality improvement effort is projected to reduce the incidence of major complications, such as end-stage renal disease, which can cost $44,000 per patient each year. "In this setting, we found that the economic value of improving the delivery of existing diabetes care was roughly equal to the benefits of developing a new treatment, such as a novel diagnostic technology or a better drug," said study author Elbert Huang, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago. The program was designed to make certain that patients at these FQHCs, which provide primary care services in underserved urban and rural communities, received the current standard of care. This includes regular testing for glycosylated hemoglobin (a measure of blood sugar control), assessment of fats and cholesterol in the blood, eye exams and blood pressure checks, with appropriate follow-up. Posted by Michael at 8:55 PM | TrackBack Teaching Mediation Skills to Parents Helps Siblings Resolve ConflictsFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: Children whose parents were trained in mediation skills had better conflict-resolution skills than those whose parents did not receive training. That's the finding of a new study conducted by researchers at the University of Waterloo in Ontario and published in the May/June 2007 issue of the journal Child Development. The study examined the effects of parents' mediation of sibling conflicts on children's conflict understanding and resolution skills. Mediation is a conflict management technique in which a neutral third party (in this case, the parent) intervenes in a conflict to help the people in the dispute reach a mutually satisfactory solution. Half of the parents (the mediation group) were trained in the use of mediation and asked to use this training in their children's disputes; the other half (the control group) were asked to intervene as they normally would when disputes arose. The researchers found that children whose parents had mediated their disputes had more sophisticated conflict-resolution skills at the end of the study than did families in the untrained group. Conflicts that arose at home were resolved more positively in the mediation group, according to the parents' reports, in that children behaved more constructively, the conflicts were resolved more equitably, and the children were more involved in resolving the disputes. In terms of children's skills in taking others' perspectives, children in the mediation group were better able to identify one another's goals and emotions and to understand their siblings' perspectives in conflict negotiations than were children in the control group. Posted by Michael at 8:48 PM | TrackBack Recommendations to Support High-quality Early Education Programs Through Reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind ActFrom Center for Law and Social Policy: While states and local communities recognize the importance of investments in early education, limited funding has constrained policymakers' ability to create and expand programs that meet young children's needs from birth through school entry. Title I funds are quite flexible; they can be used to create a new early education program or to expand or improve the quality of an existing one. Less than 20 percent of all school districts that receive Title I funds choose to use these funds for early education; of those, most use less than 10 percent of their total Title I funds for this purpose. Districts do not report their Title I expenditures on early education to the U.S. Department of Education (ED); and the National Center for Education Statistics, which provides annual reports on children in early education, does not report data by funding stream. CLASP research found that many local school districts are cutting or reducing their investments in early childhood programs---or foresee doing so in the future---because they have fewer resources than in previous years. Posted by Michael at 8:48 PM | TrackBack Youth's Attitudes about Women's Roles Influenced by many Family FactorsFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: By the time they are adults, men and women have distinctive attitudes about the roles women should play in society, but little is known about how these views develop. A Penn State study tracked youth's attitudes for most of the school age and adolescent years and found varying patterns of change according to gender, birth order, parent's influences and other factors. "We charted the course of gender attitudes over time, and studied characteristics of families and family members that helped to shape the way youth's attitudes changed over time," says Dr. Ann Crouter, Penn State professor of human development and family studies and lead author of the study which is published in the current issue of the journal Child Development. Instead, change patterns were different for girls versus boys, for firstborns versus secondborns, for youth with a sister versus a brother, and for youth with parents who had more versus less traditional attitudes," added Crouter, also director, Social Science Research Institute and of the Children, Youth, and Families Consortium, both at Penn State. Two siblings and their mothers and fathers were interviewed at home every year for 9 years, until firstborns were about 19 and secondborns were about 16.5 years old. Similarly, girls and secondborn boys who had parents with more traditional attitudes and brothers did not become as nontraditional over time as other offspring, suggesting that having traditional parents and a brother is a potent combination that supports the development of traditionality in gender role attitudes. "Patterns for firstborns and secondborns were somewhat different, with secondborns tending to become less traditional in middle childhood but endorsing more traditional attitudes again beginning at about age 15," Crouter notes. Posted by Michael at 8:48 PM | TrackBack Children with Both Autism and ADHD Often Bully, Parents SayFrom EurekAlert! - Breaking News: Children with both autism and attention deficit or attention deficit hyperactivity disorders are four times more likely to bully than children in the general population, according to a study released today in the journal, Ambulatory Pediatrics. However, the researchers caution against labeling these children simply as bullies. "This is the first nationally representative study of bullying behaviors among children with autism. The majority of parents of children with autism and ADD or ADHD were concerned about their children's bullying behaviors, but there is much we do not yet understand. The study pulled data from the 2003 National Survey of Children's Health conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics. They hypothesized that that children with autism may bully more often because they are more often male (who are more likely to bully); they are more likely to be bullied (and victims are more likely to bully); and many children with autism require treatment for aggression (which potentially includes bullying). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
