A Community-Academic Partnership for School-Based Nonviolence Education: The Healthy Power Program.

BACKGROUND: Youth violence is a significant problem affecting community health. Community-academic partnerships can advance youth nonviolence education by synergizing the strengths of collaborators while working toward a common goal. We describe a collaboration between an urban public middle school, community nonprofit, and university-based graduate school of nursing in implementing and evaluating the Healthy Power program, a school-based youth nonviolence program for middle-school boys. METHODS: A participatory program evaluation approach was used to plan and implement evaluation of the Healthy Power program with a cohort of 8 students. Collaborative planning allowed for the selection of measures that reflected program objectives and were of value to community partners while also scientifically sound. A mixed-methods approach included a focus group and a pretest-posttest with quantitative items and open-ended questions. RESULTS: While the quantitative pre-posttest did not show any significant change, the open-ended questions and focus group suggested that students had advanced their understanding and application of conflict resolution skills. CONCLUSIONS: The findings support the usefulness of community-academic partnerships for peace/conflict resolution education and program evaluation. Such programs may benefit from mixed methods of evaluation.

New food safety law: effectiveness on the ground.

The demand for safety in the US food supply from production to consumption necessitates a scientific, risk-based strategy for the management of microbiological, chemical, and physical hazards in food. The key to successful management is an increase in systematic collaboration and communication and in enforceable procedures with all domestic and international stakeholders. The enactment of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) aims to prevent or reduce large-scale food-borne illness outbreaks through stricter facility registration and records standards, mandatory prevention-based controls, increased facility inspections in the United States and internationally, mandatory recall authority, import controls, and increased consumer communication. The bill provisions are expected to cost $1.4 billion over the next four years. Effective implementation of the FSMA's 50 rules, reports, studies, and guidance documents in addition to an increased inspection burden requires further funding appropriations. Additional full-time inspectors and unprecedented foreign compliance is necessary for the full and effective implementation of the FSMA.

How experts are chosen to inform public policy: can the process be improved?

The ever-increasing complexity of the food supply has magnified the importance of ongoing research into nutrition and food safety issues that have significant impact on public health. At the same time, ethical questions have been raised regarding conflict of interest, making it more challenging to form the expert panels that advise government agencies and public health officials in formulating nutrition and food safety policy. Primarily due to the growing complexity of the interactions among government, industry, and academic research institutions, increasingly stringent conflict-of-interest policies may have the effect of barring the most experienced and knowledgeable nutrition and food scientists from contributing their expertise on the panels informing public policy. This paper explores the issue in some depth, proposing a set of principles for determining considerations for service on expert advisory committees. Although the issues around scientific policy counsel and the selection of advisory panels clearly have global applicability, the context for their development had a US and Canadian focus in this work. The authors also call for a broader discussion in all sectors of the research community as to whether and how the process of empaneling food science and nutrition experts might be improved.

Alternative method to determine the hematocrit of red blood cell units: a potential use in the apheresis unit.

BACKGROUND: In automated erythrocytapheresis procedures, achieving the desired-end hematocrit (Hct) requires that the COBE Spectra (CaridianBCT) machine be programmed with the mean Hct of the replacement red blood cell (RBC) units. To determine unit Hct, data derived from quality control (QC) Hct data were utilized. However, if a unit volume is outside the quality control (QC) volume parameters, the unit is accessed to measure its Hct. In this study, 21 percent of all RBC units need to be accessed to determine the Hct, which affects 47.5 percent of patient's erythrocytapheresis procedures. Spiking the unit compromises its integrity and hastens the expiration time of the unit. Nurses must wait until the patient arrives to check units outside QC parameters, thereby delaying the start time of procedures. Even if sampled units are kept refrigerated, they cannot be returned to the blood bank inventory once spiked. The goal of this study was to determine if accurate Hct levels from RBC units could be obtained from a unique segment. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: To determine the centrifuged Hct, samples were prepared from the RBC units and compared to that of the unique segment. RESULTS: The Hct of the unique segment exceeded that of the RBC unit by a small (1.2% in AS-1 units, 0.92% in AS-3 units), but statistically significant amount. CONCLUSION: The Hct from unique RBC segments closely approximates that of the original RBC unit. Unique segments can be made that will maintain the integrity and shelf life of RBC units.