Pandemic response across Ohio's public universities: Novel approaches, emergent challenges and future opportunities.

Objective: We describe and analyze case investigation and contact tracing (CICT) efforts across Ohio's public universities in response to COVID-19 to distill challenges and lessons learned and suggest future opportunities for universities to mobilize in the face of emergent public health crises. Participants: Faculty, staff, and graduate students from Ohio's fourteen public universities. Methods: In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with representatives from nine of the 14 universities; representatives from the remaining five universities completed a brief questionnaire. Interviews were transcribed in their entirety and thematically analyzed. Results: Emergent themes include the significance of local relationships for implementing locally tailored solutions; the presence of discrete challenges in doing CICT work with university and local communities, and the importance of university students in pandemic response. Conclusions: There are unique challenges associated with disease control across university populations and surrounding communities, but students from diverse academic background are a potential source of assistance.

Establishment of a low birth weight registry and initial outcomes.

The study was conducted to evaluate a regional, prospective database of information on mothers of low birth weight (LBW) infants. The database informs on unidentified or under-reported modifiable risk factors from which evidence-based, targeted community intervention strategies could be designed to lower the rate of low birth weight in the region. The LBW Registry is based on informed consent, a semi-structured face-to-face (FTF) interview with the mother of the newborn LBW infant, medical record review, and birth certificate worksheet data collection. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize data from the registry. High rates of modifiable risk factors among mothers of low birth weight infants (October 2007-October 2008) include smoking (44%), alcohol consumption (16%), and drug abuse (14%). Preconception vitamin use was low (34%). The reported use of fertility drugs in FTF interviews was notably higher than information reported on the birth certificate worksheets by the same set of interviewed mothers (5.4 vs. 1.5%), as was alcohol use during pregnancy (16 vs. 1.3%). More than half (52%) of the mothers of low birth weight infants reported a vaginal or urinary tract infection during pregnancy. Additionally there were higher than average rates of unmarried mothers (62%), unintended pregnancies (67%), and Medicaid beneficiaries (57%). Mothers repeatedly expressed excessive demands in their lives, straining their coping abilities and resources. The LBW Registry provides expanded local data on potentially modifiable risk factors to aid in designing targeted prevention and intervention strategies.

Cholinesterase inhibitors and stress: effects on brain muscarinic receptor density in mice.

Exposure to the reversible cholinesterase inhibitor, pyridostigmine bromide (PB), in conjunction with stress, has been suggested as a possible cause of Gulf War Syndrome. This work explores the hypothesis that PB exposure coupled with stress will alter cholinergic receptor density based on the rationale that prolonged exposure to PB and stress will lead to increased stimulation of cholinergic receptors due to the reduced capacity to degrade acetylcholine, leading to changes in receptor levels. Male C57Bl6 mice were exposed to PB (3 or 10 mg/kg/day) or physostigmine (2.88 mg/kg/day) for 7 days via ALZET mini-osmotic pumps implanted subcutaneously. The mice were stressed by shaking at random intervals (avg of 2 min/30 min) for 1 week, which was sufficient to increase blood cortisol levels. Brain tissue for autoradiographic analysis was collected on day 7 of treatment. While we examined many brain regions, analysis revealed that most of the significant changes (p<0.05) were seen in cholinergic nuclei. Stress typically increased muscarinic receptor density, while PB and PHY generally decreased muscarinic receptor density.

Socio demographic Characteristics of Pregnant Abortion-minded Clients versus Pregnant Non-abortion-minded Clients at a Pregnancy Crisis Center

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to compare the socio-demographic characteristics of pregnant abortion-minded women to those of pregnant non-abortion-minded women who had consulted a pregnancy crisis center in Montgomery County, Ohio. The findings will be used to help develop public health prevention programs for unintended pregnancies to decrease the number of abortions. Methods: A database sample of 581 records collected by a pregnancy crisis center in Montgomery County was used for this study. Criteria for inclusion were women who tested positive for pregnancy and whose pregnancy intentions were assessed as being either abortion-minded or non-abortion-minded. Socio-demographic characteristics such as age, marital status, household income, education, religious preference, race, number of previous pregnancies, number of previous live births, number of previous abortions, number of sexual partners, and age at their first sexual experience were compared to pregnancy intentions. Results: In this study, women who were more abortion-minded were single (p value = < 0.0001), Black (p value = < 0.020), women with an income level under $10,000 (p value = < 0.0001), younger women (mean age 22.6 years, p value = 0.0008), women who had their first sexual encounter at a younger age (mean age 15.6 years, p value= 0.0009), and women who had a higher number of previous abortions (mean number of abortions =0.3, p value...

Diurnal behavioral and endocrine effects of chronic shaker stress in mice.

Experiments were performed in C57BL/6J male mice to determine 1) light/dark effects of acute and chronic shaker stress on open field behavioral patterns and 2) light/dark effects of chronic stress on plasma corticosterone and oxytocin. Shaker stress was applied acutely (15 min) or chronically (3 or 7 days). Mice were tested in the open field in the light or dark phase of the circadian cycle. For the endocrine study, mice were exposed to 3 days of intermittent shaker stress and sacrificed after the last stress event (09:00 or 19:00 h). Acute or chronic shaker stress had no significant effects on intensity of motor activity and rearing of mice tested under either light condition. Mice tested in the dark phase had higher motor activity and exhibited lower anxiety-like behavior as expressed by central zone activities and had higher emotionality as expressed by increased defecation. Chronic stress increased corticosterone with a greater absolute increase in the dark period. However, the percentage stress-induced increase was not different between the day and night periods. The oxytocin response to stress was observed only during the light phase with no change seen at dark phase. These results show that there is a marked difference in the light/dark pituitary stress response with no alteration in stress induced behavioral changes. They also suggest that there are circadian interactions in the endocrine stress axis that are without consequences for open field behavior.

Behavioral changes after acetylcholinesterase inhibition with physostigmine in mice.

The effect of the central and peripheral acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitor, physostigmine (PHY), was examined on spatial memory using a water maze, motor activity as well as acoustic startle response (ASR) and prepulse inhibition (PPI) in C57BL/6J mice. PHY was administered intraperitoneally (IP) at doses of 0.0, 0.01, 0.03, 0.1 and 0.3 mg/kg and the mice were tested 30 min after injection. Administration of PHY reduced motor activity in the open field in a dose-dependent fashion, with notable decreases in activity observed at 0.1 and 0.3 mg/kg. The results also showed that animals receiving 0.1 mg/kg spent more total time in the peripheral zone than in the central zone. The water maze data showed impairment of acquisition and performance of the task, accompanied by a reduced swimming time and enhanced thigmotaxis at a dose of 0.1 mg/kg. We also found that the ASR was significantly decreased after 0.03 and 0.1 mg/kg with no change in PPI. These results indicate that central plus peripheral cholinesterase inhibition (ChEI) decreased ASR, which is contrary to our previous experiments with the peripheral ChEI pyridostigmine bromide (PB), suggesting different involvement of cholinergic systems in modulating ASR in mice.