Search Results (6)

Amidst a period of sustained inflation and rising living costs, food insecurity is a growing concern in Australia and is correlated with poor diet quality and increased rates of non-communicable diseases. Currently there is a gap in knowledge of the impact of increasing cost-of-living pressures on the affordability of a healthy diet. As affordability plays a key role in food security, this cross-sectional study aimed to examine the costs, affordability, and differential of habitual (unhealthy) and recommended (healthy) diets within the Illawarra region of Australia and compare results to 2022 findings. The Healthy Diets Australian Standardised Affordability and Pricing tool was applied in six locations in the Illawarra, with two randomly selected each from a low, moderate, and high socioeconomically disadvantaged area. Costs were determined for three reference households: a family of four, a single parent family, and a single male. Affordability was determined for the reference households at three levels of income: median gross, minimum-wage, and welfare dependent. Data was compared to data collected in 2022 using the same methods and locations. Recommended diets cost 10.3–36% less than habitual diets depending on household type, but remained unaffordable for welfare dependant households and family households from socioeconomically disadvantaged areas, where diets required 25.5–45.9% of household income. Due to income increases, affordability of both diets has marginally improved since 2022, requiring 0.5–4.8% less household income. This study provides updated evidence that supports the urgent need for policies, interventions, and monitoring to widely assess and improve healthy diet affordability and decrease food insecurity rates. Possible solutions include increasing welfare rates above the poverty line and utilising nudge theory in grocery stores. Full article

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, a comprehensive cancer center designated by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), defines its service population area as the State of Texas (29.1 M), the second most populous state in the country and the state with the greatest number of uninsured residents in the United States. Consistent with a novel and formal commitment to prevention as part of its core mission, alongside clear opportunities in Texas to drive vaccine uptake, MD Anderson assembled a transdisciplinary team to develop an institutional Framework to increase adolescent HPV vaccination and reduce HPV-related cancer burden. The Framework was developed and activated through a four-phase approach aligned with the NCI Cancer Center Support Grant Community Outreach and Engagement component. MD Anderson identified collaborators through data-driven outreach and constructed a portfolio of collaborative multi-sector initiatives through review processes designed to assess readiness, impact and sustainability. The result is an implementation community of 78 institutions collaboratively implementing 12 initiatives within a shared measurement framework impacting 18 counties. This paper describes a structured and rigorous process to set up the implementation of a multi-year investment in evidence-based strategies to increase HPV vaccination that solves challenges preventing implementation of recommended strategies and to encourage similar initiative replication. Full article

Diet quality and protein source are associated with type 2 diabetes, however relationships with GDM are less clear. This study aimed to determine whether prepregnancy diet quality and protein source are associated with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Participants were 1314 Black and White women without diabetes, who had at least one birth during 25 years of follow-up in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) cohort study. The CARDIA A Priori Diet Quality Score (APDQS) was assessed in the overall cohort at enrollment and again at Year 7. Protein source and branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) intake were assessed only at the Year 7 exam (n = 565). Logistic regression analysis was used to determine associations between prepregnancy dietary factors and GDM. Women who developed GDM (n = 161) were more likely to have prepregnancy obesity and a family history of diabetes (p < 0.05). GDM was not associated with prepregnancy diet quality at enrollment (Year 0) (odds ratio [OR]: 1.01; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.99, 1.02) or Year 7 (odds ratio [OR]: 0.97; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.94, 1.00) in an adjusted model. Conversely, BCAA intake (OR:1.59, 95% CI 1.03, 2.43) and animal protein intake (OR: 1.06, 95% CI 1.02, 1.10) as a proportion of total protein intake, were associated with increased odds of GDM, while proportion of plant protein was associated with decreased odds of GDM (OR: 0.95, 95% CI 0.91, 0.99). In conclusion, GDM is strongly associated with source of prepregnancy dietary protein intake but not APDQS in the CARDIA study. Full article

Introduction: Colon cancer among young patients has increased in incidence and mortality over the past decade. Our objective was to determine if age-related differences exist for total positive nodes (TPN), total lymph node harvest (TLH), and lymph node ratio (LNR). Material and Methods: A retrospective review of stage III surgically resected colorectal cancer patient data in the National Cancer Database (2004–2016) was performed, reviewing TPN, TLH, and LNR (TPN/TLH). Results: Unadjusted analyses suggested significantly higher levels of TLH and TPN (p < 0.0001) in younger patients, while LNR did not differ by age group. On adjusted analysis, TLH remained higher in younger patients (<35 years 1.56 (CI 95 1.54, 1.59)). The age-related effect was less pronounced for LNR (<35 years 1.16 (CI 95 1.13, 1.2)). Conclusion: Younger patients have increased TLH, even after adjusting for known confounders, while age does not have a strong independent impact on LNR. Full article

Students with dyscalculia are typically thought of by both researchers and educators as having deficits. The deficit language permeates studies of dyscalculia as well as assessments and documentation of students in schools. In this paper, we offer an alternative to the dominant narrative. We understand disabilities, and dyscalculia specifically, as resulting from cognitive differences—not deficits—which lead to issues of access. We provide a case study of Dylan (second author), an individual with dyscalculia who decided to major in statistics at University of California, Berkeley and become a statistician. Although she experienced significant issues of access—both in the standard tools used to do mathematics, and in navigating the structures at the university—she developed systems to enable her to compensate. She collaborated in this research enterprise in order to share with researchers, teachers, parents, and students her experiences with dyscalculia and how she was able to succeed in higher level mathematics. Informed by previous empirical work, we collected video recordings of Dylan’s deliberate efforts to share insights and strategies with another student with dyscalculia. In this work, Dylan challenges dominant and problematic myths about ability and mathematics. Full article

Cervical cancer affects millions of Americans, but the rate for cervical cancer in the Mexican American is approximately twice that for non-Mexican Americans. The etiologies of cervical cancer are still not fully understood. A number of somatic mutations, including several copy number alterations (CNAs), have been identified in the pathogenesis of cervical carcinomas in non-Mexican Americans. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate CNAs in association with cervical cancer in the Mexican American population. We conducted a pilot study of genome-wide CNA analysis using 2.5 million markers in four diagnostic groups: reference (n = 125), low grade dysplasia (cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN)-I, n = 4), high grade dysplasia (CIN-II and -III, n = 5) and invasive carcinoma (squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), n = 5) followed by data analyses using Partek. We observed a statistically-significant difference of CNA burden between case and reference groups of different sizes (>100 kb, 10–100 kb and 1–10 kb) of CNAs that included deletions and amplifications, e.g., a statistically-significant difference of >100 kb deletions was observed between the reference (6.6%) and pre-cancer and cancer (91.3%) groups. Recurrent aberrations of 98 CNA regions were also identified in cases only. However, none of the CNAs have an impact on cancer progression. A total of 32 CNA regions identified contained tumor suppressor genes and oncogenes. Moreover, the pathway analysis revealed endometrial cancer and estrogen signaling pathways associated with this cancer (p < 0.05) using Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG). This is the first report of CNAs identified for cervical cancer in the U.S. Latino population using high density markers. We are aware of the small sample size in the study. Thus, additional studies with a larger sample are needed to confirm the current findings. Full article