GeoHealth Perspectives on Integrated, Coordinated, Open, Networked (ICON) Science.

GeoHealth research both characterizes and predicts problems at the nexus of earth and human systems like climate change, pollution, and natural hazards. While GeoHealth excels in the area of integrated science, there is a need to improve coordinated and networked efforts to produce open science to enable environmental justice. There is a need to resource and empower frontline populations that are disproportionately marginalized by environmental injustice (i.e., the unequal protection from environmental harms and lack of access and meaningful engagement in decision making for a healthy environment; EPA, 2022, https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice). GeoHealth practice has the opportunity to advance environmental justice or the "fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income" with respect to how research and collaboration of GeoHealth professionals supports the "development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies" that produce equal protection from environmental and health hazards and access to the decision making for a health environment (EPA, 2022, https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice). Here we highlight barriers and opportunities to apply an equity-centered ICON framework to the field of GeoHealth to advance environmental justice and health equity.

Biogeosciences Perspectives on Integrated, Coordinated, Open, Networked (ICON) Science.

This article is composed of three independent commentaries about the state of Integrated, Coordinated, Open, Networked (ICON) principles in the American Geophysical Union Biogeosciences section, and discussion on the opportunities and challenges of adopting them. Each commentary focuses on a different topic: (a) Global collaboration, technology transfer, and application (Section 2), (b) Community engagement, community science, education, and stakeholder involvement (Section 3), and (c) Field, experimental, remote sensing, and real-time data research and application (Section 4). We discuss needs and strategies for implementing ICON and outline short- and long-term goals. The inclusion of global data and international community engagement are key to tackling grand challenges in biogeosciences. Although recent technological advances and growing open-access information across the world have enabled global collaborations to some extent, several barriers, ranging from technical to organizational to cultural, have remained in advancing interoperability and tangible scientific progress in biogeosciences. Overcoming these hurdles is necessary to address pressing large-scale research questions and applications in the biogeosciences, where ICON principles are essential. Here, we list several opportunities for ICON, including coordinated experimentation and field observations across global sites, that are ripe for implementation in biogeosciences as a means to scientific advancements and social progress.

Primary critical ischemia time in the hairless mouse ear.

The primary critical ischemia time of the hairless mouse ear was determined using a probit analysis. An atraumatic clamp was used across the pedicle base of the ear to induce total ischemia at 0, 2, 4, 6, 7, 7.5, 8.0, 8.5, 9.0, 9.5, and 12 hours of normothermic ischemia. Seventy-seven ears were examined 7 days after the ischemic interval for evidence of necrosis. The median critical ischemia time was determined to be 8.2 hours with 95 percent fiducial limits of 7.74 hours and 8.69 hours.

Arterial fasciocutaneous vascular territories of the lower leg.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the fasciocutaneous arterial circulation of the lower extremity to provide a quantitative guide to design reliable fasciocutaneous flaps. Thirty-one fresh cadaver limbs were studied using the techniques of dissection of latex injected specimens, selective ink injections, and barium latex radiographs. Fasciocutaneous perforator locations were recorded according to fascial septum of origin and distance relative to bony landmarks between the knee and the ankle. Selective ink injections of the trifurcation vessels identified four anterior tibial, three peroneal, and three posterior tibial fasciocutaneous territories. Although perforator site locations were randomly distributed along the trifurcation vessel within any vascular territory, the separate cutaneous regions that make up the fasciocutaneous territories occur in predictable locations with a measurable standard deviation. The transverse section radiographs confirmed the transverse dimensions of the vascular territories. Additionally, the summation of any two vascular territories calculated from the anatomical data conforms to the clinically observed 2.5:1 to 3:1 length-to-width ratios for fasciocutaneous flap viability as reported by Ponten and by Barclay et al. This study provides a quantitative anatomical framework using primary fasciocutaneous vascular territories to design potentially reliable fasciocutaneous flaps in the lower extremity.

Risk behaviours among male clients of female prostitutes.

PIP: 143 clients of prostitutes were recruited and asked to complete a short questionnaire. 68 were recruited in 2 genitourinary clinics in Glasgow, 66 were interviewed by telephone after answering an advertisement and 9 were contacted in Glasgow's red light area. The last 2 methods yielded a non clinic group. The men reported having paid for sexual services a median of 7 times (range 1-2000) since 1980. Higher numbers of contacts were reported by the non-clinic group: 28 (37%) if these men reported having had 21-50 contacts, significantly more than the clinic group, 28 (41%) of whom reported having had 1-10 contacts. The medial time of the men's last contact with a prostitute was 60 days. 103 men reported having paid for vaginal intercourse during this contact; 89 paid for masturbation or other non-penetrative sex; 87 paid for oral sex; and 11 paid for anal intercourse. Clearly, some men, engaged in more than one sexual activity. 17 men did not use condoms during the last paid vaginal intercourse nor did 31 men when they last had oral sex, but all anal intercourse was reportedly protected. 14% (19/133) of those who had used a condom reported condom failure during the last purchased sexual service. 32% (10/31) of men who contacted prostitutes working on the streets had not used a condom during their last contact. 121 men reported having private, noncommercial sexual contacts; 79 reported having one sexual partner, and 42 reported having 2 or more concurrent sexual partners (range 2-20), 2 of whom reported sexual contacts with other men. 117 men reported having had vaginal intercourse while 85 had had oral sex, 82 had had other non-penetrative sex, and 16 had had anal intercourse. A minority of these men reported always using condoms with their partners: 24% (27/114) of those having vaginal intercourse, 5% (4/80) of those having oral sex, and 33% (5/15) of those having anal intercourse.^ieng

Needle sharing in context: patterns of sharing among men and women injectors and HIV risks.

This paper looks at the social contexts within which needle sharing took place among a sample of Glasgow injectors. The intention is to show that needle sharing is rarely random but instead highly patterned and influenced by circumstance and social relationships. Gender can also be seen to have an important influence on sharing patterns. Consideration of the reported instances of needle sharing provides some indication that women injectors may be at increased risk of HIV transmission relative to their male counterparts.

The inappropriateness of psycho-social models of risk behaviour for understanding HIV-related risk practices among Glasgow male prostitutes.

Much the most common models of HIV-related risk behaviour are those psychosocial models derived from studies of health behaviour and tested on large interview samples of American gay men. These models were not appropriate for understanding risk behaviour among 32 Glasgow male prostitutes. Whereas psycho-social models conceive of risk behaviour as volitional and individualistic, ethnographic data indicate that the male prostitutes' risk practices were constrained and emergent from the immediate circumstances of the sexual encounter. Unsafe sex was associated with client control. Safer sex was associated with countervailing prostitute strategies of influence. These data confirm the utility of self-empowerment approaches to health education.