The majority of the food insecurity-obesity research has indicated a positive association among women, especially minority women. Less research has been conducted on men, and the findings are inconsistent. The aim was to assess whether gender and race/ethnic disparities exists between the food insecurity and overweight/obesity relationship among adults ages 18–59. We used the cross-sectional 2011 and 2012 National Health Interview Survey data (N = 19,990). Three or more affirmative responses on the 10-item USDA Food Security Scale indicated food insecure experiences. Self-reported height and weight were used to calculate body mass index according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Multivariate logistic regression models were stratified by gender and race/ethnicity to estimate the association between food insecurity and overweight/obesity controlling for several demographic characteristics. Adults on average were 36 years of age (51% female; 56% white, 27% Hispanic, and 17% black), 27% were food insecure, and 65% were overweight/obese. Food insecurity was most prevalent among blacks and Hispanics, regardless of gender. A greater percentage of food insecure women were overweight/obese compared to food secure women among all race/ethnicity groups; while similar proportions of white, black, and Hispanic men were overweight/obese irrespective of their food security status. In covariate-adjusted models, food insecurity was associated with a 41% and 29% higher odds of being overweight/obese among white and Hispanic women, respectively. Food insecurity was not related to overweight/obesity among black women nor among white, black, and Hispanic men. The complex relationship between food insecurity and obesity suggests a need to investigate potential behavioral and physiological mechanisms, and moderators of this relationship.

To examine usual source of care (USC) trends across four categories (No USC, Person USC, Person, in Facility USC, and Facility USC), and (2) to determine whether USC types are associated with emergency department (ED) visits and hospital admissions.

Those with No USC and Facility USCs increased 10 and 18 percent, respectively, while those with Person USCs decreased by 43 percent. Compared to those in the lowest income bracket, those in the highest income bracket were less likely to have a Facility USC. Among those with low incomes, individuals with No USC, Person, in Facility, and Facility USCs were more likely to have ED visits than those with Person USCs.

A growing number are reporting facilities as their USCs or none at all. The impact of these trends is uncertain, although we found that some USC types are associated with ED visits and hospital admissions. Tracking USCs will be crucial to measuring progress toward enhanced care efficiency.

This research suggests that segregation plays an important role in the distribution of health care facilities, but that policy and public health interventions should focus on the intersection between racial residential segregation and socioeconomic considerations.

A motivational drinking framework is utilized to understand the relationship between minority stressors (e.g., race-related stress and acculturative stress) and alcohol use behaviors (risky alcohol use and coping-motivated drinking) among a large sample of Black American college students. Six hundred forty-nine Black college students from 8 colleges and universities in the United States were recruited as part of a large, multiwave, cross-sectional study investigating the stress and coping experiences of Black emerging adults. Results from the current investigation provide support for the independent contributions of acculturative stress and race-related stress to the risky alcohol use behavior of Black college students, while acculturative stress significantly predicted coping-motivated drinking behaviors in the sample. Findings underscore the need to better understand the unique relationships between minority stress and risky alcohol use behaviors of Black college students, namely, relationships not shared by their nonminority peers that increase their risk of problem drinking.

AIM:

Systemic lupus erythematosus is an autoimmune disease that requires chronic monitoring. In this study, we demonstrate a proof-of-concept study of a highly attractive noninvasive strategy for monitoring systemic lupus erythematosus through biomarker quantification.

RESULTS:

This sensor technology requires 50 μl of urine to detect and quantify vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 in 15 min. The sensor used nonfaradaic detection to demonstrate performance with and without detection antibody. Binding of immunoassay and target biomarkers were quantified with an impedance electrical immunoassay and correlated with an equivalent circuit.

CONCLUSION:

The novel sensor technology demonstrates detection in the range of 8 fg/ml to 800 pg/ml and comparative analysis with ELISA platforms was performed for 12 patient urine samples.

Clinical observations suggests that Type II Diabetes patients are more susceptible to skin changes which may be associated with reduced coefficient of friction at the fingertips. Reduced coefficient of friction may explain recent reports of fine motor dysfunction in diabetic patients. Coefficient of friction was evaluated using slip force evaluation in a cross-sectional cohort of diabetic patients and age- and sex-matched healthy controls. Covariates of tactile sensation, disease duration, glycated hemoglobin, and clinical diagnosis of peripheral neuropathy were also assessed. A significant decrease in fingertip coefficient of friction in the diabetic group was found as compared to controls. Health state covariates did not alter the strength of between-group differences in statistical analyses. This finding of between group differences for fingertip frictional properties suggests that causative factors of reported manual motor dysfunction lie in both the distal and proximal portions of the nervous system.

A growing body of literature demonstrates important negative health effects from racial microaggressions for racial/ethnic minorities. However, at present, the bulk of the literature is focused on the case of black Americans with relatively little attention as to how this may play out for other racial/ethnic groups. Here, we examine the association of health and racial microaggressions in the case of Latinos. Furthermore, we disaggregate Latinos by language preference in order to see how acculturation to the USA may moderate the effect of racial microaggressions on health outcomes for the group. In a statistical analysis of the 2004 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, we examine the association between stress from racial microaggressions and self-rated health for Latinos of different levels of linguistic acculturation. We find that more acculturated Latinos (measured in terms of language preference) are more likely to experience physical stress from perceived racial microaggressions after accounting for social and demographic factors. Further, this stress is linked to overall poorer self-rated health for the group. However, we find no such association for less acculturated, Spanish-preference Latinos.

Using a cross-sectional sample of 534 Latino students from middle and high schools in a large North Carolina school district, we examined the relation of general and ethnic-biased bullying to depression and the indirect pathways through depression to suicidal ideation and substance use outcomes. A structural equation model tested the direct and indirect paths. The final model fit was excellent, χ2(90) = 127.6, p = .0056, RMSEA = 0.028, CFI = 0.974, TLI = 0.961. Ethnic-biased and verbal or relational bullying had a direct effect on depression, but general and physical bullying did not. Indirect effects through depression were found for ethnic-biased and verbal or relational bullying in relation to suicidal ideation, alcohol, and illicit drug use. Child nativity was marginally associated with ethnic-biased bullying, indicating foreign-born students may experience greater ethnic-biased bullying. Implications for future research and bullying prevention are discussed.

Decline in smoking in the United States has slowed over the past 25 years. Mental health problems are common among smokers, and may be an impediment to quitting and remaining abstinent. The study investigated the relationship between serious (past-30-day) psychological distress (SPD) and smoking, estimated trends in the prevalence of SPD among current, former, and never smokers in the United States from 2008 to 2014, and investigated whether heterogeneity in these trends varied by sociodemographic characteristics. Data were drawn from the National Household Survey on Drug Use (NSDUH), an annual cross-sectional study of persons ages 12 and over (N = 270 227). SPD and smoking in the past 30 days were examined using logistic regression models among adults 18 and older. The prevalence of SPD was examined annually among current, former, and never smokers from 2008 to 2014. SPD increased among smokers in the United States from 2008 to 2014. An increase in SPD was more rapid among non-daily smokers than daily smokers. The prevalence of SPD was higher among younger smokers, those with less formal education and lower annual family income and higher among current smokers than former and never smokers. The relationships between SPD and smoking were stronger among smokers with higher education levels and annual family income.

Our findings suggest an increase in SPD among smokers over time and that as smoking has declined, those with SPD are comprising a greater proportion of the remaining smokers. Results suggest that mental health must be integrated into mainstream tobacco control efforts. The greater prevalence and increasing rate of Serious Psychological Distress among smokers, relative to former- and never-smokers, from 2008 to 2014 provides support that the greater mental health burden among smokers may be contributing to the slowed reduction in smoking prevalence in the United States. In addition, relationships between SPD and smoking were consistently stronger among smokers with higher levels of education and annual family income. Such results suggest the necessity of incorporating mental health treatments in tobacco use reduction efforts.

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to examine rare vocabulary produced in the spoken narratives of school-age African American children.

Method

Forty-three children from general and gifted classrooms produced 2 narratives: a personal story and a fictional story that was based on the wordless book Frog, Where Are You? (Mayer, 1969). The Wordlist for Expressive Rare Vocabulary Evaluation (Mahurin-Smith, DeThorne, & Petrill, 2015) was used to tally number and type of uncommon words produced in these narratives. The authors used t tests and logistic regressions to explore classroom- and narrative-type differences in rare vocabulary production. Correlational analysis determined the relationship between dialect variation and rare vocabulary production.

Results

Findings indicated that tallies of rare-word types were higher in fictional narratives, whereas rare-word density—a measure that controls for narrative length—was greater in personal narratives. Rare-word density distinguished children in general classrooms from those in gifted classrooms. There was no correlation between dialect variation and rare-word density.

Conclusion

Examining school-age African American children's facility with rare vocabulary production appears to be a dialect-neutral way to measure their narrative language and to distinguish gifted children from typically developing children.