Disturbances in family functioning have been identified in youth with chronic pain and are associated with worse child physical and psychological functioning. Assessment measures of family functioning used in research and clinical settings vary. This systematic review summarizes studies investigating relationships among family functioning, pain and pain-related disability in youth with chronic pain. Sixteen articles were reviewed. All studies were cross-sectional, seven utilized between-group comparisons (chronic pain versus healthy/control) and twelve examined within-group associations among family functioning, pain and/or pain-related disability. Studies represented youth with various pain conditions (e.g., headache, abdominal pain, fibromyalgia) aged 6 – 20 years. Findings revealed group differences in family functioning between children with chronic pain and healthy controls in five of seven studies. Significant associations emerged among family variables and pain-related disability in six of nine studies with worse family functioning associated with greater child disability; relationships between family functioning and children’s pain were less consistent. Different patterns of results emerged depending on family functioning measure used. Overall, findings showed that families of children with chronic pain generally have poorer family functioning than healthy populations, and that pain-related disability is more consistently related to family functioning than pain intensity.

The films coating urban impervious surfaces have been found to be comprised of about 7% inorganic nitrate and ∼10% organic compounds (by mass). A simple steady-state analysis of the lifetime of the nitrate in the film suggests the existence of a loss process(es) in addition to washout by rainfall. We show here that gas-phase nitric acid can be taken up in organic films and lower the film pH. Photolysis of nitrated films using actinic illumination causes loss both of protons and of nitrate anion. We argue that this is possibly due to a combination of direct and indirect (photosensitized) photochemistry involving nitrate ions, yielding gas-phase HONO and/or NO 2 .

Films composed in whole or in part of organic compounds represent an important atmospheric interface. Urban surfaces are now known to be coated with a film ("grime") whose chemical composition somewhat resembles that of urban atmospheric aerosols. Such films may act as media in which atmospheric trace gases may be sequestered (leading to their removal from the gas phase); they may also act as reactive media, either as a "solvent" or as a source of reagents. Organic coatings on aqueous surfaces are also important, not just on ocean and lake surfaces ("biofilms") but also on the surfaces of fogwaters and atmospheric aerosol particles. We have initiated experimental uptake studies of trace gases into simple proxies for urban organic films using two techniques: a Knudsen cell effusion reactor and a laser-induced fluorescence method. We will discuss our first results on non-reactive uptake of organic compounds by organic films we use as proxies for urban grime coatings. In general, the measured uptake coefficients appear to track the octanol-air partition coefficients, at least qualitiatively. We have also measured the kinetics of reactions between gas-phase ozone and small polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), when these are adsorbed at the air-aqueous interface or incorporated into an organic film. Reactions at the "clean" air-water interface and at a coated interface consisting of a monolayer of various amphiphilic organic compounds all follow a Langmuir-Hinshelwood mechanism, in which ozone first adsorbs to the air-aqueous interface, then reacts with already adsorbed PAH. By contrast, the reaction in the pure organic film occurs in the bulk phase. Under some circumstances, heterogeneous oxidation of PAHs by ozone may be as important in the atmosphere as their gas phase oxidation by OH.

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