Foster care is a protective intervention designed to provide out of home placement to children living in at-risk home environments. This study employs prospective longitudinal data~N ϭ 189! to investigate the effects of foster care on the development of child behavior and psychological functioning taking into account baseline adaptation prior to placement and socioeconomic status at the time of placement. Comparisons were made among three groups: children who experienced foster care, those who were maltreated but remained in the home, and children who had not experienced foster care or maltreatment despite their similarly at-risk demographic characteristics. In the current sample, children placed in out of home care exhibited significant behavior problems in comparison to children who received adequate care, and using the same pre-and postplacement measure of adaptation, foster care children showed elevated levels of behavior problems following release from care. Similarly, children placed into unfamiliar foster care showed higher levels of internalizing problems compared with children reared by maltreating caregivers, children in familiar care, and children who received adequate caregiving. Findings suggest that outcomes related to foster care may vary with type of care and beyond the effects associated with maltreatment history, baseline adaptation, and socioeconomic status.The foster care social service system is designed to ameliorate adverse family and environmental conditions that may interfere with typical child development. Currently, the system provides short-and long-term out of home placement to children whose parents are deemed unable to care adequately for them. The effectiveness of foster care as an intervention, however, is the subject of controversy. Throughout the current foster care literature, removing children from their families of origin and placing them in out of home care has been associated with negative developmental consequences that place children at risk for behavioral, psychological, developmental, and academic problems~Curtis, Dale, Kendall, & Rockefeller, 1999!, although rigorous empirical investigations of the sequelae of foster placement are limited.The current study addresses limitations in the existing literature by evaluating the direct effects of foster care on behavior problems within a prospective, longitudinal sample of high-risk children and their families. The study examines the impact of foster care on behavior problems and psychological functioning over and above risks associated with baseline developmental adaptation~prior to placement! and socioeconomic status~SES!. We begin by reviewing the history and general characteristics of the foster care system, the potential developmental risks posed for children entering the system, and results of empirical studies related to foster care experience.During 2001

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Enteral strictures are a frequent indication for surgery in Crohn's disease. Postoperative complications are increased in patients with poor preoperative nutritional status, which is common in this patient population. We present a 49-year-old female with longstanding Crohn's disease admitted to our Digestive Health Center with four weeks of increasing abdominal symptoms and radiographic evidence of small-bowel obstruction caused by ileal stricture. Given her poor nutritional status, our team elected to pursue metallic enteral stenting as a bridge to surgical resection. Two Wallstents were placed; luminal patency was subsequently confirmed by a fluoroscopic study. The patient tolerated regular diet and was discharged. When seen in follow-up, she remained asymptomatic and wished to defer surgical intervention indefinitely.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused massive societal upheaval around the world. In the US, with 20% of global COVID-19 cases, the pandemic has also triggered a substantial economic shock and laid bare societal inequities. The extreme and highly volatile nature of this time period affords a unique opportunity to elucidate the dynamics of psychosocial processes. In April of 2020, we launched the pre-registered COVID-Dynamic longitudinal study to capture 1000+ U.S. residents’ personal and collective experiences related to the pandemic and to characterize psychological, emotional, attitudinal, and behavioral change. Participants completed a longitudinal, hour-long battery of psychological measures, including assessments of racial, political, social, moral, COVID-19-related attitudes and behaviors, and experimental tasks. Here we describe the ongoing study and provide a detailed assessment of data quality for the first 8 Waves (April to June). The remaining data will be published when data collection, which extends into 2021, has ended.

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