Promoting sustainability in nursing and midwifery clinical laboratories: Strategies for resource reduction, reuse, and recycling.

BACKGROUND: The impacts of climate change on planetary health are multifaceted and threaten public health gains made since World War II. Healthcare is the fifth largest global emitter of greenhouse gas emissions, demanding significant efforts to transition to an environmentally sustainable future. Addressing these issues will require collective societal action. In this regard, universities have a dual responsibility - (1) to tackle complex social, economic, and environmental challenges by championing sustainability initiatives designed to positively impact planetary health; and (2) to ensure that graduates are equipped with the knowledge, attitudes and skills needed to steward planetary health towards a more sustainable future. The future nursing and midwifery workforce must be educated to mitigate the health sector's impact on the environment, advocate for action on climate change, prepare for ongoing health impacts of unpredictable climate and environmental changes, and help communities and healthcare systems become more climate resilient. WHAT THIS PAPER CONTRIBUTES: To help increase nursing and midwifery educators' and students' capacity to support planetary-health related interventions, the overarching purpose of this paper is to provide a series of exemplars that illustrate sustainability initiatives used in four university-based clinical skills laboratories. These initiatives each demonstrate a commitment to the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals and can be used to help embed the importance of planetary health in student learning.

A resource of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines including clinical, genomic, and cellular data from genetically isolated families with mood and psychotic disorders.

Genome-wide (GWAS) and copy number variant (CNV) association studies have reproducibly identified numerous risk alleles associated with bipolar disorder (BD), major depressive disorder (MDD), and schizophrenia (SCZ), but biological characterization of these alleles lags gene discovery, owing to the inaccessibility of live human brain cells and inadequate animal models for human psychiatric conditions. Human-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) provide a renewable cellular reagent that can be differentiated into living, disease-relevant cells and 3D brain organoids carrying the full complement of genetic variants present in the donor germline. Experimental studies of iPSC-derived cells allow functional characterization of risk alleles, establishment of causal relationships between genes and neurobiology, and screening for novel therapeutics. Here we report the creation and availability of an iPSC resource comprising clinical, genomic, and cellular data obtained from genetically isolated families with BD and related conditions. Results from the first 324 study participants, 61 of whom have validated pluripotent clones, show enrichment of rare single nucleotide variants and CNVs overlapping many known risk genes and pathogenic CNVs. This growing iPSC resource is available to scientists pursuing functional genomic studies of BD and related conditions.

Validity of the Mood Disorder Questionnaire (MDQ) as a screening tool for bipolar spectrum disorders in anabaptist populations.

The Mood Disorder Questionnaire (MDQ) is an established screening tool for bipolar spectrum disorders (BSD), but has not been validated in diverse populations and the best scoring method remains uncertain. This study assessed diagnostic validity of the MDQ among Anabaptists, an underserved population frequently involved in genetic research. 161 participants completed the MDQ and were diagnosed by a best-estimate final diagnosis (BEFD). Diagnostic agreements between alternate MDQ scoring methods and the BEFD were quantified using Cohen's Kappa (κ), sensitivity (α), and specificity (ß). Scoring criteria evaluated included >7 simultaneous symptoms and at least moderate impairment, >7 simultaneous symptoms, with at least mild impairment, >7 symptoms only, with no further requirement, and three novel scoring methods that require >5 symptoms or fewer. Diagnostic agreement varied. The original method proved most specific but had the lowest κ and sensitivity. κ increased with more liberal scoring criteria, reaching a maximum under the lower-threshold symptom methods, with little loss of specificity in the 5-symptom method. Decreasing the symptom threshold below 5 conferred little or no benefit. These results support the diagnostic validity of the MDQ among this Anabaptist sample and suggest that a 5-symptom scoring method may increase diagnostic sensitivity in populations at high risk for bipolar disorder.

Normative Symbol Digit Modalities Test performance in a community-based sample.

The Symbol Digit Modalities Test is a substitution task that is the inverse of the Digit Symbol Test. The familiar task of filling numbers in boxes, and the availability of an oral administration, make this a popular screening instrument for brain impairment. Normative data were previously reported for a variety of clinical groups, but complete information on non-clinical samples across age, education, gender, and socioeconomic status is limited. The present study examines the performance of a community-dwelling control sample across age, education, gender, and income groupings. In a multivariate model, these four variables did not impact test performance. These results support the utilization of the SDMT as a robust screening test for adult neuropsychological impairment.