Project ESTEEM protocol: a randomized controlled trial of an LGBTQ-affirmative treatment for young adult sexual minority men's mental and sexual health.

BACKGROUND: Young gay and bisexual men disproportionately experience depression, anxiety, and substance use problems and are among the highest risk group for HIV infection in the U.S. Diverse methods locate the source of these health disparities in young gay and bisexual men's exposure to minority stress. In fact, minority stress, psychiatric morbidity, substance use, and HIV risk fuel each other, forming a synergistic threat to young gay and bisexual men's health. Yet no known intervention addresses minority stress to improve mental health, substance use problems, or their joint impact on HIV risk in this population. This paper describes the design of a study to test the efficacy of such an intervention, called ESTEEM (Effective Skills to Empower Effective Men), a 10-session skills-building intervention designed to reduce young gay and bisexual men's co-occurring health risks by addressing the underlying cognitive, affective, and behavioral pathways through which minority stress impairs health. METHODS: This study, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, is a three-arm randomized controlled trial to examine (1) the efficacy of ESTEEM compared to community mental health treatment and HIV counseling and testing and (2) whether ESTEEM works through its hypothesized cognitive, affective, and behavioral minority stress processes. Our primary outcome, measured 8 months after baseline, is condomless anal sex in the absence of PrEP or known undetectable viral load of HIV+ primary partners. Secondary outcomes include depression, anxiety, substance use, sexual compulsivity, and PrEP uptake, also measured 8 months after baseline. DISCUSSION: Delivering specific stand-alone treatments for specific mental, behavioral, and sexual health problems represents the current state of evidence-based practice. However, dissemination and implementation of this one treatment-one problem approach has not been ideal. A single intervention that reduces young gay and bisexual men's depression, anxiety, substance use, and HIV risk by reducing the common minority stress pathways across these problems would represent an efficient, cost-effective alternative to currently isolated approaches, and holds great promise for reducing sexual orientation health disparities among young men. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Registered October 10, 2016 to ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02929069 .

Advancing School and Community Engagement Now for Disease Prevention (ASCEND).

PURPOSE: To compare two intensity levels (standard vs. enhanced) of a nutrition and physical activity intervention vs. a control (usual programs) on nutrition knowledge, body mass index, fitness, academic performance, behavior, and medication use among elementary school students. DESIGN: Quasi-experimental with three arms. SETTING: Elementary schools, students' homes, and a supermarket. SUBJECTS: A total of 1487 third-grade students. INTERVENTION: The standard intervention (SI) provided daily physical activity in classrooms and a program on making healthful foods, using food labels. The enhanced intervention (EI) provided these plus additional components for students and their families. MEASURES: Body mass index (zBMI), food label literacy, physical fitness, academic performance, behavior, and medication use for asthma or attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). ANALYSIS: Multivariable generalized linear model and logistic regression to assess change in outcome measures. RESULTS: Both the SI and EI groups gained less weight than the control (p < .001), but zBMI did not differ between groups (p = 1.00). There were no apparent effects on physical fitness or academic performance. Both intervention groups improved significantly but similarly in food label literacy (p = .36). Asthma medication use was reduced significantly in the SI group, and nonsignificantly (p = .10) in the EI group. Use of ADHD medication remained unchanged (p = .34). CONCLUSION: The standard intervention may improve food label literacy and reduce asthma medication use in elementary school children, but an enhanced version provides no further benefit.

Association of inpatient and outpatient glucose management with inpatient mortality among patients with and without diabetes at a major academic medical center.

BACKGROUND: Hospitalized patients with diabetes have experienced a disproportionate reduction in mortality over the past decade. OBJECTIVE: To examine whether this differential decrease affected all patients with diabetes, and to identify explanatory factors. DESIGN: Serial, cross-sectional observational study. SETTING: Academic medical center. PATIENTS: All adult, nonobstetric patients with an inpatient discharge between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2010. MEASUREMENT: We assessed in-hospital mortality; inpatient glycemic control (percentage of hospital days with glucose below 70, above 299, and between 70 and 179 mg/dL, and standard deviation of glucose measurements), and outpatient glycemic control (hemoglobin A1c). RESULTS: We analyzed 322,938 admissions, including 76,758 (23.8%) with diabetes. Among 54,645 intensive care unit (ICU) admissions, there was a 7.8% relative reduction in the odds of mortality in each successive year for patients with diabetes, adjusted for age, race, payer, length of stay, discharge diagnosis, comorbidities, and service (odds ratio [OR]: 0.923, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.906-0.940). This was significantly greater than the 2.6% yearly reduction for those without diabetes (OR: 0.974, 95% CI: 0.963-0.985; P < 0.001 for interaction). In contrast, the greater decrease in mortality among non-ICU patients with diabetes did not reach significance. Results were similar among medical and surgical patients. Among ICU patients with diabetes, the significant decline in mortality persisted after adjustment for inpatient and outpatient glucose control (OR: 0.953, 95% CI: 0.914-0.994). CONCLUSIONS: Patients with diabetes in the ICU have experienced a disproportionate reduction in mortality that is not explained by glucose control. Potential explanations include improved cardiovascular risk management or advances in therapies for diseases commonly affecting patients with diabetes.

The validation of a food label literacy questionnaire for elementary school children.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the reliability and validity of a 10-item questionnaire, the Food Label Literacy for Applied Nutrition Knowledge questionnaire. METHODS: Participants were elementary school children exposed to a 90-minute school-based nutrition program. Reliability was assessed via Cronbach α and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Validity was assessed comparing the questionnaire's food choices using an objective metric of nutrition quality, the Overall Nutritional Quality Index (ONQI), via t test. Statistical significance was set at .05. RESULTS: Four hundred ninety-nine children participated, 51% were female, and the average age was 8.6 (± 0.9) years. Cronbach α = .77 and ICC = 0.68 (between administrations) were observed. ONQI scores of correct responses were significantly higher when compared to the ONQI scores of incorrect responses (27.4 ± 9.4 vs 16.2 ± 9.4; P = .01). CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: The Food Label Literacy for Applied Nutrition Knowledge questionnaire was found to be both reliable and a valid measure of food label literacy in children taught the Nutrition Detectives program.

Patterns in Office Referral Data by Grade, Race/Ethnicity and Gender.

Research supports that office referral data is useful in informing programmatic decisions and in planning interventions such as Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS). Knowledge of the different patterns of office referrals may facilitate the development of interventions that are targeted to specific groups of students. This study examines patterns in office referrals within an urban district by gender, race/ethnicity and grade. Findings reveal that there are clear differences by grade that appear to be related to developmental level, with greater numbers of referrals for aggression in younger students (grades K-8), greater numbers of referrals for disrespectful behavior in middle school students (grades 7-8), and greater numbers of referrals for attendance problems in high school students. There were also gender differences in the rate and type of referrals, with significantly more referrals for boys' delinquent and aggressive behavior than girls, which may relate to how schools define unacceptable behavior and the method used to collect this data. Finally, there were differences by race/ethnicity, in that there were significantly more referrals for African American/black students than Hispanic students, which suggest that schools need to consider students' racial/ethnic background in the development of behavioral expectations.