Children's and adults' memory for the order of events in a museum: A preliminary study about temporal memory and its development using photo-taking and event-related potentials.

Remembering personal past events and their order is important. These capacities are essential to episodic and autobiographical memory theories, are needed in the creation of life stories and vital in forensic settings. As important as memory for events and their order are, relatively little is known about their development and the underlying neural processes that support them. Further, there is a paucity of studies that have examined memory and its development for autobiographical, yet controlled, events. The objective of this study was to examine memory for the temporal order of naturalistic "real world" events by directly comparing 7-11-year-olds and adults using both behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) measures. Participants photographed events at a local museum and after a delay, we used their photographs to test their memory for the temporal order of pairs of the events. We experimentally manipulated the temporal distance between the event pairs (whether the two events photographed in the pair had a short or long temporal distance between them). A memory asymmetry manipulation was also included such that at retrieval, photographs were either presented in forward direction (photograph on the top configuration was taken before photograph shown on the bottom) or vice versa. Children and adults showed sensitivity to temporal distance between events based on behavior (in some instances accuracy was higher for long compared to short temporal distance) and ERP (differential neural processing for short and long temporal distance conditions). Only adults showed sensitivity to the memory asymmetry manipulation, and only when the events occurred within a short temporal distance. A larger study is needed to confirm the present "proof of concept" study results. There is strong potential of this photo paradigm approach, combining naturalistic events with ERP, in future developmental studies, and would further our understanding of how memory behavior and the neural processes underlying memory operate in the "real world."

The intersection of health and housing: Analysis of the research portfolios of the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

BACKGROUND: Housing is a major social determinant of health that affects health status and outcomes across the lifespan. OBJECTIVES: An interagency portfolio analysis assessed the level of funding invested in "health and housing research" from fiscal years (FY) 2016-2020 across the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to characterize the existing health and housing portfolio and identify potential areas for additional research and collaboration. METHODS/RESULTS: We identified NIH, HUD, and CDC research projects that were relevant to both health and housing and characterized them by housing theme, health topic, population, and study design. We organized the assessment of the individual housing themes by four overarching housing-to-health pathways. From FY 2016-2020, NIH, HUD, and CDC funded 565 health and housing projects combined. The Neighborhood pathway was most common, followed by studies of the Safety and Quality pathway. Studies of the Affordability and Stability pathways were least common. Health topics such as substance use, mental health, and cardiovascular disease were most often studied. Most studies were observational (66%); only a little over one fourth (27%) were intervention studies. DISCUSSION: This review of the research grant portfolios of three major federal funders of health and housing research in the United States describes the diversity and substantial investment in research at the intersection between housing and health. Analysis of the combined portfolio points to gaps in studies on causal pathways linking housing to health outcomes. The findings highlight the need for research to better understand the causal pathways from housing to health and prevention intervention research, including rigorous evaluation of housing interventions and policies to improve health and well-being.

Opioids and Chronic Pain: Impact of the NIH Pathways to Prevention Evidence-Based Workshop Program.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Disease Prevention (ODP) sponsors Pathways to Prevention (P2P), an evidence-based scientific workshop program that helps advance prevention research. Each P2P workshop is presided over by an independent expert panel and informed by a systematic evidence review, scientific presentations, and public input. Post-workshop activities include collaborating with federal agency partners to develop an action plan for addressing key research gaps. Primary outcomes of P2P workshops include developing a research agenda and creating or enhancing initiatives to implement the agenda. In 2014, ODP partnered with the NIH Pain Consortium and two NIH institutes to convene "The Role of Opioids in the Treatment of Chronic Pain." This workshop assessed the state-of-the-science on the long-term effectiveness, safety, and harms of opioid use for managing chronic pain. In 2021, ODP initiated an assessment of the outcomes and impact of the Opioids P2P workshop. We applied an evaluation framework and a mixed methods approach encompassing web analytics, bibliometric assessment, grant portfolio analysis, policy assessment, and key informant interviews. Our data showed that the workshop attracted a broad audience, and its published reports had high impact. The workshop also helped inform over 100 new research projects through grants funded by three federal agencies, as well as national legislation and practice guidelines from influential organizations. In sum, the Opioids P2P workshop and follow-up activities have identified gaps in scientific knowledge, informed clinical practice, and catalyzed change on a national level for addressing the prescription opioid crisis.

Volunteer-contributed observations of flowering often correlate with airborne pollen concentrations.

Characterizing airborne pollen concentrations is crucial for supporting allergy and asthma management; however, pollen monitoring is labor intensive and, in the USA, geographically limited. The USA National Phenology Network (USA-NPN) engages thousands of volunteer observers in regularly documenting the developmental and reproductive status of plants. The reports of flower and pollen cone status contributed to the USA-NPN's platform, Nature's Notebook, have the potential to help address gaps in pollen monitoring by providing real-time, spatially explicit information from across the country. In this study, we assessed whether observations of flower and pollen cone status contributed to Nature's Notebook can serve as effective proxies for airborne pollen concentrations. We compared daily pollen concentrations from 36 National Allergy Bureau (NAB) stations in the USA with flowering and pollen cone status observations collected within 200 km of each NAB station in each year, 2009-2021, for 15 common tree taxa using Spearman's correlations. Of 350 comparisons, 58% of correlations were significant (p < 0.05). Comparisons could be made at the largest numbers of sites for Acer and Quercus. Quercus demonstrated a comparatively high proportion of tests with significant agreement (median ρ = 0.49). Juglans demonstrated the strongest overall coherence between the two datasets (median ρ = 0.79), though comparisons were made at only a small number of sites. For particular taxa, volunteer-contributed flowering status observations demonstrate promise to indicate seasonal patterns in airborne pollen concentrations. The quantity of observations, and therefore, their utility for supporting pollen alerts, could be substantially increased through a formal observation campaign.

Characteristics of Scientific Evidence Informing Changed U.S. Preventive Services Task Force Insufficient Evidence Statements.

INTRODUCTION: The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) issues "Insufficient Evidence" (I) statements when scientific evidence is inadequate for making recommendations about clinical preventive services. Insufficient Evidence statements may be changed to definitive recommendations if new research closes evidence gaps. This study examines the characteristics of evidence that informed changes from I statements to definitive recommendations, including NIH's role as a funder. METHODS: A total of 11 USPSTF Insufficient Evidence statements that were changed between 2010 and 2019 were assessed. Study designs, bibliometric influence, and funding sources for scientific articles cited in USPSTF evidence reviews were characterized for each I statement. Data were analyzed in 2019-2020. RESULTS: Most I statements (82%) changed to a B grade; an average of 8.4 years elapsed between issuing the I statement and releasing the definitive recommendation. An average of 63 (range=19-253) articles were included in each USPSTF evidence review. NIH support was cited in 28.8% of articles, on average. The proportion of NIH-funded articles reporting RCT designs was similar to that of non-NIH-funded articles (64.5% vs 59.5%). A higher proportion of NIH-funded articles were rated good quality for study design (39.0%) than the proportion of non-NIH-funded articles (24.4%). Bibliometric influence measured by relative citation ratios was higher for NIH-funded (mean=14.78) than for non-NIH-funded (mean=5.07) articles. CONCLUSIONS: Study designs and funding supports varied widely across topics, but overall, NIH was the largest single funder of evidence informing 11 changed USPSTF I statements. Enhanced efforts by NIH and other stakeholders to address I statement evidence gaps are needed.