No abstract

Background: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are presumed to influence internalizing and externalizing behaviors that can significantly debilitate long-term biopsychological development in individuals. Psychological resilience has been shown to effectively mediate the relationship between ACEs and negative health outcomes since individuals with low levels of resilience may have difficulty with bouncing back from toxic exposure to ACEs. Thus, the present systematic review and meta-analysis was aimed toward synthesizing current knowledge of the relationship between ACEs and psychological resilience in youths. Methods: A combination of key words relevant to the present study was searched on the PubMed, EMBASE, Scopus, Cochrane, and Google Scholar databases. The results were restricted to English publications and human studies, with subjects ranging between the age of 0 to 35 years. Effect-size measures inclusive of pooled correlation coefficients for correlation analyses and pooled odds ratios for regression analyses, respectively, were calculated using random-effect models to determine the relationship between ACEs and psychological resilience. Results: The searches identified 85 potentially relevant studies. Among them, 76 were excluded due to limited access, irrelevant data, and the fact that the variables of interest were not explicitly measured or disclosed, leaving a final total of nine studies considered valid for the meta-analysis. Findings from correlational meta-analysis (n = 6) revealed a significantly negative association between ACEs and resilience (β = −0.120 [−0.196, −0.043]). The meta-analysis of the studies (n = 3) reporting dichotomous outcomes (ACE ≥ 1 vs. no ACE) indicated that subjects who experienced an ACE were 63% less likely to display high resilience, in comparison to subjects without such experiences. Conclusion: Our results support a negative association between ACEs and psychological resilience and highlight the multiple dimensions that constitute resilience in an ACE-exposure context. These findings may be particularly useful to policy makers and healthcare institutions in terms of helping them devise effective medical interventions and community outreach programs intended to develop resilience in youths, thus reducing health-risk behaviors and negative health outcomes.

COVID-19 has imposed a rippling effect on educational institutions globally, substantially impacting nearly 1.6 billion learners in more than 190 countries. Recognizing Taiwan as an atypicality during this crisis for suffering from a relatively moderate mortality/morbidity compared with the rest of the world, the present paper qualitatively explores the pedagogical, technological and social impact of COVID-19 on higher education students in Taiwan. Employing the focus group discussion methodology, we recruited a cohort of 23 students, comprising of 15 local and 8 international students. Findings show diverse pedagogical experiences in students’ instructional modalities. Trending by either discipline of study, students from Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics disciplines expressed a greater preference for face-to-face instruction compared to their humanities counterparts. Distance learners reported a decrease in study efficacy and a lack of sense of belongingness to their university. All students demonstrated a high sense of perceived safety and reported minimal changes in their socializing norms during the pandemic. In terms of career planning, local students expressed minimal concerns about potential changes in their careers, versus international students who expressed high degrees of uncertainty, fear and pessimism in the same regard.

Developing countries such as Belize have been facing profound challenges in their quest to effectively track cases of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and contain the pandemic within their own territory. We assume that at the heights of a COVID-19 wave the number of daily reported cases are substantially lower (often under-reported) than the true number of cases that exist and are reported on a daily basis. Here, we attempt to quantitatively derive the number of daily undetected cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in Belize. We also used the Markov's Model to correlate the current mortality rate in Belize with the reported incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infections in Belize. We also proposed a differential mathematical model for estimating a dynamic mortality rate. Finally, we demonstrated the ability to estimate the wavelength and amplitude of a COVID-19 wave. Nations worldwide can anticipate two COVID-19 waves annually with an average of 3 months apart. How vaccines and emerging variants potentially skew the amplitude of a COVID-19 wave requires further inquiry. Our findings are therefore relevant to all countries in their quest to develop and implement swift and versatile national healthcare response measures. The present study, however, is particularly relevant to the countries with underdeveloped healthcare systems. These counties often experience economic and resource challenges around building an effective COVID-19 surveillance system to test and report daily COVID-19 cases.