"I Use Sunglasses . . . the Sun Can Ruin the Eyes": Latino Day Laborers' Lay Strategies to Reduce Dangers at Work.

Latino day laborers (LDLs) are at a high risk for injury and accidents at work and have limited socioeconomic resources to deal with their consequences. While little is known about LDLs' perceptions of their own vulnerability at the workplace, less is known about the strategies they adopt to confront these risks. The purpose of this qualitative study was to assess LDLs' perceptions of their workplace dangers and to document the strategies they adopt and endorse to confront them. Guided by a participatory research approach, four focus groups stratified by age were conducted with 34 LDLs in Houston, Texas. Main focus group themes were identified using a combination of qualitative analysis methods involving a thematic analysis conducted by the interview team, LDL advisors, and bilingual Latino researchers. All participants were Latino males (mean age = 40), the majority reported having completed sixth grade or less (64.2%) and having lived in the United States for an average of 12.7 years. We described three categories of strategies to reduce risk for workplace injury generated by local LDLs (practical knowledge and job experience, interpersonal, and personal). These strategies should be explored and encouraged to assist in planning risk-reduction programs, presented in the voice and language of Latino "inside experts" with firsthand experience. The findings of the focus group suggest that LDLs already possess a broad repertoire of strategies to cope with risks at work that can be incorporated in safety programs for LDLs and other immigrant Latino workers.

Foot-based audit of streets adjacent to new light rail stations in Houston, Texas: measurement of health-related characteristics of the built environment for physical activity research.

BACKGROUND: Active travel to and from a transit station may provide significant amounts of physical activity and improve health. The ease with which people can traverse the distance to the transit station may impede or support active travel. Therefore, transit stations that have features that are supportive of utilitarian physical activity would be desirable. This study aimed to characterize the built environment surrounding new light rail transit (LRT) stations in the City of Houston, Texas. METHODS: In 2014, we used a series of systematic protocols and a standardized environmental audit instrument, the Analytic Audit Tool, to collect data on segments (streets) that surround 22 LRT stations that were being newly built. Using Geographic Information System (GIS), we assembled all the segments that intersect a 0.25-mile circular buffer around each station for the audit exercise. Several 3- to 4-member teams of trained auditors completed the audit exercise on a subset of these identified segments. Our analysis were descriptive in nature. We provided the frequency distributions of audited features across the study area. We also followed an original algorithm to produce several composite index scores for our study area. The composite index score is indicative of the prevalence of physical activity friendly/unfriendly features in the study area. RESULTS: In all, we audited a total of 590 segments covering a total of 218 US Census blocks, and eight City of Houston super neighborhoods. Findings suggest the environment around the new LRT stations may not be supportive of physical activity. In general, the audited segments lacked land use integration; had abandoned buildings, had uneven sidewalks; were not bike-friendly, had minimal presence of public-recreational facilities that would support physical activity; and had significant physical disorder. Notably, certain attractive and comfort features were frequently to usually available. CONCLUSIONS: Current findings, which will be compared to follow-up audit data, can be useful for future researchers and practitioners interested in the built environment around LRT stations.

Characterization of amyloid-ß granules in the hippocampus of SAMP8 mice.

The senescence accelerated mouse-prone 8 (SAMP8) strain of mice is an experimental model of accelerated senescence that has also been proposed as a model of Alzheimer's disease as it shares several features with this dementia. We have recently reported amyloid-ß (Aß) granules in the hippocampus of SAMP8 mice, which contain Aß42 and Aß40 peptides and other amyloid-ß protein precursor fragments. These granules appear clustered mainly in the stratum radiatum of the CA1 region and increase in number and size with age. Here we performed several studies to examine whether the Aß granules in the hippocampus of SAMP8 mice contain other proteins characteristic of neuropathological aggregates, such as tau, MAP2, and α-synuclein. Moreover, we examined whether the Aß granules in the hippocampus correspond to heparan sulphate proteoglycan (HSPG) positive granules previously described in this animal model. The results showed that Aß granules correspond to the HSPG granular structures, being syndecan-2, a protein involved in the remodeling of dendritic spines, the type of HSPG found. Tau and MAP2, but not α-synuclein depositions, were also found in Aß aggregates. Granules do not appear to have an astrocytic origin, since although some Aß clusters are associated with astrocyte processes, most clusters are not. On the other hand, the presence of tau, MAP2, and NeuN in Aß granules suggests a neuronal origin. As the components identified in Aß granules are characteristic of the aggregates present in some neurodegenerative diseases, the SAMP8 model seems to be appropriate for the study of the processes involved in these pathologies.