We investigated recent ETS exposures as important predictors of respiratory health outcomes in children 4 years and older. Environmental tobacco smoke exposure affects children of all ages, although the exact effects may vary between age groups.
An increasing barrier to the development and implementation of effective youth smoking prevention and cessation programs involves recruiting adolescents into research studies. Even for non-intervention studies, issues of consent, confidentiality, and motivation to participate are important considerations. In 1996, 11 Prevention Research Center sites across the country conducted qualitative research using focus groups to explore ethnic differences in smoking among adolescents. The diversity in strategies used to interest, motivate, and retain potential focus group subjects provided a rich data set for information about effective strategies and challenges to recruitment. This article presents an overview of recruitment methods used in a multi-site qualitative study on adolescent tobacco use, reports on successful and less successful strategies, and provides recommendations for future recruitment.
Objective: According to the Federal Trade Commission, in 2009, the top food category with teen-directed marketing expenditures was sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB). The present study reports on exposure to SSB advertisements using self-report data from adolescents. Design: Cross-sectional study design using descriptive statistics to assess selfreported frequency of exposure to SSB advertisements and multivariable logistic regression to examine associations between frequency of SSB advertising exposure and sociodemographic variables. Setting: Online survey conducted at home. Subjects: US adolescents aged 12-17 years (n 847). Results: Among the surveyed adolescents, 42 % to 54 % reported seeing/hearing SSB advertisements ≥ 1 time/d. Those aged 14-15 years were more likely to report seeing/hearing soda, sports drink and energy drink advertisements ≥ 1 time/d than 16-to 17-year-olds. Males were more likely to report seeing/hearing sports drink advertising ≥ 1 time/d than females. Non-Hispanic black adolescents were more likely to report seeing/hearing fruit drink and sports drink advertisements ≥ 1 time/d than non-Hispanic white adolescents. Adolescents whose parents had high-school education or less were more likely to report seeing/hearing soda, fruit drink and energy drink advertisements ≥ 1 time/d than adolescents whose parents were college graduates. Conclusions: Almost half of the adolescents sampled reported daily SSB advertising exposure, with higher exposure among African Americans and adolescents with less educated parents. These data can help inform potential actions that decision makers might take, such as education of adolescents and their caregivers on the potential impact of beverage advertising, especially among groups at higher risk for obesity.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) continues to be aware of the need for response to public concern as well as to state and local agency concern about cancer clusters. In 1990 the CDC published the “Guidelines for Investigating Clusters of Health Events,” in which a four-stage process was presented. This document has provided a framework that most state health departments have adopted, with modifications pertaining to their specific situations, available resources, and philosophy concerning disease clusters. The purpose of this present article is not to revise the CDC guidelines; they retain their original usefulness and validity. However, in the past 15 years, multiple cluster studies as well as scientific and technologic developments have affected cluster science and response (improvements in cancer registries, a federal initiative in environmental public health tracking, refinement of biomarker technology, cluster identification using geographic information systems software, and the emergence of the Internet). Thus, we offer an addendum for use with the original document. Currently, to address both the needs of state health departments as well as public concern, the CDC now a) provides a centralized, coordinated response system for cancer cluster inquiries, b) supports an electronic cancer cluster listserver, c) maintains an informative web page, and d) provides support to states, ranging from laboratory analysis to epidemiologic assistance and expertise. Response to cancer clusters is appropriate public health action, and the CDC will continue to provide assistance, facilitate communication among states, and foster the development of new approaches in cluster science.
There were disparities in sports drink consumption by sociodemographic characteristics and physical activity level; however, knowledge of sports drinks' sugar content was not associated with consumption. Understanding why some population groups are higher consumers may assist in the development of education, providing those groups with a better understanding of sports drinks' nutritional value and health consequences of excessive sugar consumption in any form.
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a major form of dementia . The pathological hallmark is a marked increase of neuritic plaques and neurofibrillary tangles (NFT) in certain regions of the AD brain. Despite considerable advances, the etiology and pathogenesis of AD remain unknown (reviewed in reference 1). Although autoimmunity and other immunological factors have been proposed to play certain roles, previous studies to demonstrate serum antibrain and other relevant antibodies have been complicated by the presence of high titers of other autoantibodies such as antinuclear antibodies (2) . Our approach to circumvent this difficulty is to derive multiple B cell lines by Epstein-Barr viral (EBV) transformation of a limited number of B cells from the blood of patients with clinically diagnosed AD and age-matched controls . The present studies describe our findings, by immunocytochemical techniques, that certain EBV-transformed cell lines secrete autoantibodies reactive with NFT and neuronal tissue.Volume 165 January 1987 245-250
Materials and Methods
BriefDefinitive ReportDerivation of EBV-transformed B Cell Lines. Non-T cells were isolated according to Fu et al. (3) from the peripheral blood of five patients with clinically diagnosed AD, ages 59, 61, 66, 68, and 75, respectively and six normal age-matched controls ages, 60, 61, 66, 66, 71, and 72, respectively . They were seeded at 1 .5-3.0 X 10s cells/well in RPMI 1640, 10% FCS, with 10 allogeneic mononuclear cells irradiated with 3,000 rad as feeder cells, in 96-well plates . EBV-containing B95-8 cell line supernatant was added and culture medium was replaced weekly. Cell lines were considered to be established when the cell cultures were expanded to 7 ml at 5 X 105 cells/ml. They were cryopreserved and the supernatants were analyzed for antibodies (Ab) of desired reactivity. Passive hemagglutination inhibition (3) showed that most of the supernatants secreted IgM at 0.5-5 pg/ml. The cell lines were either monoclonal or oligoclonal as indicated by the presence of a single class of light chains.Immunocytochemistry. SDS-treated isolated NFT were prepared by the long procedure of Igbal et al. (4) using frontal and temporal cortex from two autopsied brains with a neuropathological confirmation of AD . 2 Al of isolated NFT containing 50-100 NFT
Smoking rates among American Indians are higher than any other racial or ethnic group. Focus groups were conducted with 140 American Indian middle school students who were not living on reservations to explore the social context of smoking initiation. Most teens smoked their first cigarettes with friends, siblings or cousins, usually out of curiosity, or in response to peer encouragement. There was no indication of any link between smoking initiation and use of tobacco in traditional ceremonies. Overall, the social context for these teens was very similar to the social context of other teens in the United States.
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