Improving Health while Alleviating Hunger: Best Practices of a Successful Hunger Relief Organization.

BACKGROUND: Food insecurity affects millions each year in the United States. Hunger relief organizations work to reduce hunger and food insecurity; however, the foods they provide are often unhealthy. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this article is to document the policy, systems, and environmental changes that Samaritan Community Center made to their programs in order to better serve Washington County and Benton County, Arkansas. METHODS: With the use of a case-study approach, researchers held 17 meetings with key members of the organization and conducted >30 h of observations to document policy, systems, and environmental changes and best practices for implementing those changes. RESULTS: Researchers identified emergent themes and grouped best practices in the following categories: 1) removing stigma and empowering clients, 2) incremental steps to increase access to healthy foods, 3) embracing multiculturalism, 4) donation policies and procurement, 5) collaboration is key, 6) organizational culture, and 7) challenges and resolutions. CONCLUSIONS: Samaritan Community Center has successfully implemented and adopted new programs and practices in order to improve the health of their clients. To our knowledge, this is the first case study to document best practices for making policy, systems, and environmental changes by a hunger relief organization to improve the nutritional quality of foods provided to their clients.

Biodiversity offsets and the challenge of achieving no net loss.

Businesses, governments, and financial institutions are increasingly adopting a policy of no net loss of biodiversity for development activities. The goal of no net loss is intended to help relieve tension between conservation and development by enabling economic gains to be achieved without concomitant biodiversity losses. biodiversity offsets represent a necessary component of a much broader mitigation strategy for achieving no net loss following prior application of avoidance, minimization, and remediation measures. However, doubts have been raised about the appropriate use of biodiversity offsets. We examined what no net loss means as a desirable conservation outcome and reviewed the conditions that determine whether, and under what circumstances, biodiversity offsets can help achieve such a goal. We propose a conceptual framework to substitute the often ad hoc approaches evident in many biodiversity offset initiatives. The relevance of biodiversity offsets to no net loss rests on 2 fundamental premises. First, offsets are rarely adequate for achieving no net loss of biodiversity alone. Second, some development effects may be too difficult or risky, or even impossible, to offset. To help to deliver no net loss through biodiversity offsets, biodiversity gains must be comparable to losses, be in addition to conservation gains that may have occurred in absence of the offset, and be lasting and protected from risk of failure. Adherence to these conditions requires consideration of the wider landscape context of development and offset activities, timing of offset delivery, measurement of biodiversity, accounting procedures and rule sets used to calculate biodiversity losses and gains and guide offset design, and approaches to managing risk. Adoption of this framework will strengthen the potential for offsets to provide an ecologically defensible mechanism that can help reconcile conservation and development. Balances de Biodiversidad y el Reto de No Obtener Pérdida Neta.

College on problems of drug dependence meeting, Puerto Rico (June 1996) marijuana use and dependence.

Discoveries concerning an endogenous cannabinoid system and observations of dramatic increases in marijuana use among youth in the United States have fueled a recent increase in basic and clinical research to better understand and treat marijuana dependence. At the annual meeting of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence (Puerto Rico, 1996) a symposium 'Marijuana Use: Basic Mechanisms, Epidemiology, and Clinical Issues' reviewed a number of important areas of ongoing research that address marijuana dependence. Overviews and original research were presented regarding the development of dependence (preclinical and clinical research), motivational effects (laboratory models), the epidemiology of dependence and its development, clinical management of marijuana use among patients seeking treatment for other drugs of abuse, and treatment for adult marijuana dependence. This paper summarizes the symposium presentations and provides discussion of recent scientific developments concerning marijuana use and dependence.

Erythropoiesis in the yolk sac of the bat Tadarida brasiliensis cynocephala.

The process of erythropoiesis and vasculogenesis in the yolk sac of the bat (Tadarida brasiliensis cynocephala) has been studied through the use of both light and electron microscopy. Stem cells arise from the leading edge of the migrating splanchnic mesoderm and transform into primitive erythroblasts. Differentiation involves either contact or association with the endodermal cells, since all erythropoietic activity occurs on the endodermal side of the expanding vascular bed, and many of the cells are in close apposition to the lateral or basal plasma membranes of the endodermal cells. Endodermal cells also phagocytize developing primitive erythroblasts during the later stage of the process when erythropoiesis is subsiding in the yolk sac. Cells destined to become the endothelium of the expanding vascular bed also arise from the leading edge of the migrating splanchnic mesoderm. Their process of differentiation involves the development of cytoplasmic extensions that may surround a group of differentiating erythroblasts, enclosing them in the newly formed lumen of the blood vessel. The cytoplasmic extensions make contact and develop junctional complexes with similar processes from other cells to complete the lumen of the lengthening vascular bed. Cells of the granulocyte series or megakaryocytes are not observed in the yolk sac of the bat as has been described in certain other species.

Prevalence of recurrent herpes labialis and aphthous ulcers among young adults on six continents.

The prevalence of recurrent herpes labialis (RHL) and recurrent aphthous ulcers (RAU) in young adults - - 635 armed-forces recruits and 9897 health-profession students - - in 48 institutions in 21 countries was determined by a questionnaire survey. Two or more occurrences (lifetime prevalence) of RHL were reported by 33.2% of men and 28.0% of women; the corresponding figures for RAU were 38.7% and 49.7%. North American respondents, mainly from Canada, had a significantly higher prevalence of both lesions. There were some differences in relation to profession. Approximately 15% of all the people surveyed had had herpes labialis and 25% had had aphthous ulcers at least once during the previous year. Persons with a history of recurrence of one lesion were more likely to have a history of recurrence of the other.