Thursday, May 06, 2021

More youth report concussions since 2016, U-M study shows

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Educating athletes, parents and coaches about concussion treatment and prevention has been a priority during the last decade, but are the intended audiences hearing the message?

New research from the University of Michigan found that 1 in 4 adolescents self-reported at least one concussion in 2020, up from about 20% in 2016. During that same time period, youth who reported one concussion rose from roughly 14% to 18%, and those who reported at least two concussions increased from about 6% to 7%.

"Self-reported concussions could be increasing given that both children and parents have greater knowledge with respect to these injuries," said co-author Philip Veliz, assistant research professor at the U-M School of Nursing. "We have seen a greater effort in the U.S. to educate the population regarding the risks associated with head injuries and may have greater knowledge with respect to symptoms associated with these types of injuries."

Increases in any self-reported concussion were found across gender and race/ethnicity categories, among those whose parents had a high school degree or less, and among respondents who participated in competitive sport during the past year.

The study, scheduled to appear online May 4 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, is believed to be the first known national study to track whether self-reported concussion rates have declined or increased in the last decade.

Veliz and colleagues estimated trends in the self-reported concussion among nearly 53,000 students who participated in the 2016-2020 Monitoring the Future annual school-based survey of 8th, 10th and 12th graders. About half were girls, 45% were white, 12% African American, 21% Hispanic and 23% other (Asian American, Native American or Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander.)

Students were asked if they had ever had a head injury that was diagnosed as a concussion; response options included no; yes, once; and yes, more than once. Results varied across groups.

"For instance, self-reported concussion did not increase among adolescents who did not participate in sports," Veliz said. "One reason that adolescents who participate in sports saw an increase in self-reported concussion could be due to greater awareness of these types of injuries within sporting contexts. This type of information among nonparticipants may be limited given that they are not participating in activities that are susceptible to these types of injuries."

Veliz was surprised by the increases found among Hispanic, non-Hispanic other, and non-Hispanic Black youth, given that these groups have been found to have lower prevalence of self-reporting concussions compared to non-Hispanic white adolescents.

The increase in self-reporting of concussions for students who participate in competitive sports contrasted with emergency department data that showed a decrease in sports and recreation-related traumatic brain injuries among youth between 2012 and 2018.

Veliz said more adolescents may be seeking care from health professionals outside the emergency department, who have appropriate diagnosis and management skills.

This study adds knowledge to the understanding of trends with respect to head injuries among adolescents in the U.S., Veliz said. The self-report data can help supplement emergency room data and help provide information with respect to certain groups who are more susceptible to these types of injuries.

###

Co-authors include Sean Esteban McCabe, professor at the School of Nursing and Institute for Research on Women & Gender; James Eckner, associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Michigan Medicine; and John Schulenberg, professor of psychology and research professor at the U-M Institute for Social Research.

Study: Trends in the prevalence of concussion reported by U.S. adolescents, 2016-2020

New emergency department program enables patients to recover at home safely

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

Research News

A new service piloted at Penn Medicine allowed a proportion of patients to avoid hospitalization by providing them with greater support after visiting the emergency department. The vast majority of the patients enrolled in the service - nearly 9 out of 10 - did not need to return to the hospital for care in the month that followed their initial visit. The study was published in Healthcare.

"The culture is shifting where we realize that hospitalization is not always the best option for patients - particularly patients with chronic illness," said one of the study's lead authors, Austin Kilaru, MD, an emergency physician at Penn Medicine. "We need to find better ways of helping patients not just get healthy in a hospital, but stay healthy at home - whenever they are ready to be there."

Increasingly, emergency departments care for greater shares of patients with acute symptoms and illnesses. Increased visits can lead to strain on hospitals, so Kilaru, co-author David Resnick, a senior innovation manager at Penn Medicine's Center for Health Care Innovation, and their team devised a method to open capacity in emergency departments and hospitals - by sending patients home with the right resources and support to help them recover safely.

The project, which began in 2018 within the Center for Health Care Innovation's annual Innovation Accelerator, was named Practical Alternative to Hospitalization (PATH). It contained two important elements.

First, the PATH team deployed an advanced practice provider (APP) to screen hospital bed requests to determine which patients met criteria for discharge to home. They considered the reasons for the patient's visit, their vital signs, medical history, and social support systems. If the patient's emergency physician agreed with enrolling in PATH, the APP developed a comprehensive plan in partnership with that physician and the patient's care team.

Patients enrolled in the program received personalized support at home. This included phone calls or text messages to assess their status, coordination of outpatient appointments, and additional diagnostic testing. This tailored plan might also include home nursing visits, physical or occupational therapy, or transportation assistance.

"We were concerned that emergency physicians would be reluctant to discharge patients who they would have normally hospitalized, but it turns out that they liked having the option of choosing our services," Kilaru said. "It's a new alternative to staying in the hospital or going home completely on their own. We were seen as an added support, acting in the best interests of patients and medical providers alike."

In this study's 14-day trial period set in a single hospital during December 2019, 52 patients met PATH's eligibility requirements (of 199 possible patients). More than half of them, 30, enrolled in the program, with most of the remainder still requiring hospitalization at the discretion of the treating emergency physician.

Many of the patients enrolled in the program for common conditions, such as chest pain, high blood sugar, and congestive heart failure. The study authors estimate that patients would have spent more than two days, on average, in the hospital and eight additional hours waiting in the emergency department. Only four patients needed to return to the hospital within 30 days of their initial visit, when the PATH team recognized that patients again required hospital-level care.

"Another concern in this pilot was that patients might have worsening illness at home and need to return to the emergency department," Kilaru said. "Fortunately, our patients did well and had good outcomes - even 30 days later. We created careful safeguards to select the right patients, so while a few patients did need to return, it was not unexpected, and we could help communicate key medical and social issues to the emergency department and hospital teams."

The study took place just a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic swept the East Coast. While the service was paused as a result, the pandemic created a surge of interest in shifting care from hospitals to home, like Penn Medicine's Cancer Care at Home. In addition, lessons from this study have been applied to efforts to manage COVID at Penn Medicine, including an "accelerated care pathway," where patients who only needed short hospital stays were identified in the emergency department, efficiently treated in the hospital, and followed closely at home.

"This could be promising for payers, health systems, and patients alike," Resnick said. "Payers benefit by having their members avoid costly inpatient stays. Patients benefit by having more safe days at home. And hospitals with busy emergency departments and full beds benefit by freeing up resources that can be utilized by the most sick and complex patients."

###

Other authors on this study include Danielle Flynn, Avanti Rangnekar, Madeline Snyder, Kehinde Oyekanmi, Denise Fitzpatrick, Zachary Meisel, David Asch, and Krisda Chaiyachati.

New study identifies quality measures for end-of-life care for children with cancer

WILEY

Research News

There is currently no consensus on what quality end-of-life care for children with cancer looks like, or how to measure and deliver it; however, investigators recently assembled an expert panel to help fill this void. In a study published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the panel endorsed 16 measures that cover different aspects of care that are important for children with cancer and their families.

"Measuring the quality of the care delivered is an essential part of ensuring high quality end-of-life care for all patients. Although there are numerous quality measures for end-of-life care for adults with cancer, there are zero for children with cancer," said lead author Emily Johnston, MD, MS, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

To address this, Dr. Johnston and her colleagues selected a panel of individuals with expertise in pediatric and adult oncology, pediatric palliative care, social work, nursing, and hospice care. The investigators provided the panel with information on 20 proposed measures derived from adult measures and from interviews with bereaved parents whose child died of cancer.

After the panel members scored each measure and participated in discussions, they endorsed a set of 16 measures that covered four distinct aspects of care: avoiding medically intensive care at end-of-life; helping families achieve the location of death preferred for their child; advancing hospital policies and procedures for end-of-life care; and expanding supportive services for the child, as well as for parents and siblings.

"This is the first study to identify quality measures for end-of-life care for children with cancer. Some of the measures are similar to those used in adults, like avoiding intubation at the end-of-life, but others are novel, such as assessing sibling needs at end-of-life," said Dr. Johnston. "Therefore, it is essential that we have quality measures specific for children with cancer."

The team noted that the measures need to be refined and validated with bereaved families before they can be applied as a tool to help standardize care. Once validated, these measures may be useful for determining the quality of end-of-life care that different programs provide and for identifying disparities. "For example, they will allow us to determine if Hispanic and Black children with cancer are receiving as high quality end-of-life care as non-Hispanic white children," Dr. Johnston explained. "Once we have identified groups that are at risk of receiving poor quality end-of-life care, we can develop targeted interventions to improve it."

An accompanying editorial notes that the study's results may have implications for improving end-of-life care for adults as well. "This is an exciting time when more research will emerge to move end-of-life care forward in a way that can serve all patients and families better," the authors of the editorial wrote.

###

Additional Information

NOTE: The information contained in this release is protected by copyright. Please include journal attribution in all coverage. A free abstract of this article will be available via the Cancer News Room upon online publication. For more information or to obtain a PDF of any study, please contact:

Dawn Peters +1 781-388-8408 (US)
newsroom@wiley.com

Full Citations:

"Quality measures for end-of-life care for children with cancer: A modified Delphi approach." Emily E. Johnston, Isaac Martinez, Joanne Wolfe, and Steven M. Asch. CANCER; Published Online: March 30, 2021 (DOI: 10.1002/cncr.33546).

URL Upon Publication: http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/cncr.33546

"Adults are just big children: What we can learn about quality end-of-life care from pediatrics." Jori F. Bogetz and Abby R. Rosenberg. CANCER; Published Online: March 30, 2021 (DOI: 10.1002/cncr.33548).

URL Upon Publication: http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/cncr.33548

Author Contact: Bob Shepard, UAB Public Relations Manager, at bshep@uab.edu or +1 205-410-0915.

About the Journal

CANCER is a peer-reviewed publication of the American Cancer Society integrating scientific information from worldwide sources for all oncologic specialties. The objective of CANCER is to provide an interdisciplinary forum for the exchange of information among oncologic disciplines concerned with the etiology, course, and treatment of human cancer. CANCER is published on behalf of the American Cancer Society by Wiley and can be accessed online.

About Wiley

Wiley drives the world forward with research and education. Through publishing, platforms and services, we help students, researchers, universities, and corporations to achieve their goals in an ever-changing world. For more than 200 years, we have delivered consistent performance to all of our stakeholders. The Company's website can be accessed at http://www.wiley.com.

Cardiovascular risk factors appear early in Black women

Researchers call for preventive care and lifestyle changes among Black women under age 40

AMERICAN COLLEGE OF CARDIOLOGY

Research News

Young Black women show a high prevalence of obesity, elevated blood pressure and other lifestyle-related factors that may put them on a trajectory to develop heart disease at a young age, according to a study presented at the American College of Cardiology's 70th Annual Scientific Session.

While previous research has drawn attention to the burden of heart disease among Black women, the new study is unique in its focus on examining the age at which heart disease risk factors emerge in this population in a community setting. The researchers found high rates of lifestyle-linked risk factors among Black women as early as their 20s and 30s.

"Young people should be the healthiest members of our population with normal body weight and normal blood pressure," said Nishant Vatsa, MD, an internal medicine resident at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta and the study's lead author. "We're finding obesity and elevated blood pressure are present in women even at younger ages, which is worrisome. Thus, interventions like educating young women about healthy dietary choices and the benefits of exercise, improving access to health care and enhancing the ability for people to adopt healthy practices--such as increasing access to healthy foods and safe areas for physical activity--needs to start early."

Vatsa and colleagues analyzed data collected in 2015-2018 from 945 Black women enrolled in a community health screening project in Atlanta. They assessed health markers such as body mass index (BMI), blood pressure and cholesterol levels; socioeconomic factors such as education, income and health insurance; and lifestyle factors such as smoking, diet and exercise.

The average BMI for women of all age groups was 30 or above, a level considered clinically obese. Systolic blood pressure levels, a measure of the force at which blood pushes against the artery walls during a heartbeat, increased with age. From ages 20-39 years, Black women had an average systolic blood pressure of 122 mmHg--higher than the 120 mmHg considered normal by the 2017 ACC/American Heart Association Guideline for the Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Management of High Blood Pressure in Adults. Systolic blood pressures worsened in older age groups, where middle-aged and older women had an average systolic blood pressure of nearly 133 and 142, respectively.

Obesity and high blood pressure are key risk factors for heart disease. Both are known to be influenced by lifestyle factors such as diet and exercise. Nearly 1 out of 3 women aged 20-39 reported eating fast food at least three times per week and 2 out of 5 consumed more than the recommended amount of salt daily. These proportions were also high in middle-aged women but lower among those older than 60.

Based on the findings, Vatsa said there should be a call for increased attention among clinicians and the public health community to help young Black women maintain their weight and blood pressure within a healthier range through lifestyle changes and medications when warranted.

"Diet and exercise play a major role in blood pressure and weight," Vatsa said. "Primary care providers, prevention-based clinics and community organizations can facilitate interventions proven to mitigate these risk factors. Providers that treat young Black women need to be mindful of cardiovascular preventive care and be armed with resources and education."

He added that the coronavirus pandemic, which has disproportionately affected Black and other minority communities, has revealed and exacerbated the barriers Black women face in accessing preventive health care. Increased attention to reducing barriers in health care and to the adoption of a heart-healthy lifestyle can improve health in the near term and reduce the burden of heart disease for decades to come, he suggested.

The study analysis did not include participants younger than 20, and Vatsa said that some factors, such as obesity, may emerge even earlier. The study stems from the Emory Women's Heart Center 10,000 Women Hypertension project, which offers free cardiovascular risk screenings with a focus on African-American women. While the researchers believe the observed trends are likely reflective of the broader population of Black women, they plan to compare their findings with studies from other regions of the U.S. and other racial and ethnic groups for additional insights.

###

For resources on women and heart disease visit CardioSmart.org/topics/women-and-heart-disease.

Vatsa will present the study, "Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Younger Black Women: Results from the 10,000 Women Community Screening Project," on Sunday, May 16, at 9:30 a.m. ET / 13:30 UTC.

ACC.21 will take place May 15-17 virtually, bringing together cardiologists and cardiovascular specialists from around the world to share the newest discoveries in treatment and prevention. Follow @ACCinTouch, @ACCMediaCenter and #ACC21 for the latest news from the meeting.

The American College of Cardiology envisions a world where innovation and knowledge optimize cardiovascular care and outcomes. As the professional home for the entire cardiovascular care team, the mission of the College and its 54,000 members is to transform cardiovascular care and to improve heart health. The ACC bestows credentials upon cardiovascular professionals who meet stringent qualifications and leads in the formation of health policy, standards and guidelines. The College also provides professional medical education, disseminates cardiovascular research through its world-renowned JACC Journals, operates national registries to measure and improve care, and offers cardiovascular accreditation to hospitals and institutions. For more, visit ACC.org.

The intersection of child poverty with race, immigrant status and environmental threats

PEDIATRIC ACADEMIC SOCIETIES

Research News

A state of the art plenary session during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2021 Virtual Meeting will bring together national experts on child poverty, racism and racial inequities, immigrant health, Native American culture, and environmental threats to discuss the intersectionality of child poverty.

Poor children do not just suffer from double jeopardy, but frequently multiple jeopardy from many overlapping threats to their health and development. The COVID-19 pandemic has further unearthed and intensified these threats to children including loss of financial resources, loss of nutritional supports, loss of family members, and loss of educational opportunity.

"Children are the poorest age group in our society," said Benard P. Dreyer, MD, FAAP. "On the hopeful side, we seem to be finally recognizing that the nation needs to address this issue, and with the passage of the reformed Child Tax Credit in March, there is hope that the level of poverty for children will be reduced by 40% this year. We have invited a powerhouse group of researchers and advocates to discuss the issue of child poverty and its intersection with racism, the issues of Native American children and families, as well as experts on environmental justice and primary care designed to address the needs of poor children."

Speakers will elucidate and contextualize the living Venn diagram of these intersections for children and families. They will also address the specific impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on these families who are vulnerable because of being under-resourced and often marginalized, and will leave the attendees with what is a call for action to all of us.

Presentations include:

The intersection of race and poverty: addressing health care inequities in children; presenter: Tumaini R. Coker, MD, MBA - University of Washington/Seattle Children's
Structural racism in medicine, poverty, and child population health; presenter: Nia J. Heard-Garris, MD, MSc - Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago/Northwestern University Feinberg College of Medicine
Native American communities, poverty, and child health; presenter: Shaquita Bell, MD - University of Washington School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics
Environmental threats to poor children and the triple threat of environmental toxins, poverty, and racism; presenter: Mona Hanna-Attisha, MD, MPH - Michigan State University

Dr. Dreyer and Adam Schickedanz, MD, PhD, will chair the plenary, "The Intersection of Child Poverty With Race, Immigrant Status, and Environmental Threats in the Age of COVID-19," on Tuesday, May 4 at 5:30 p.m. EDT. Reporters interested in an interview with the presenters should contact PAS2021@piercom.com.

The PAS Meeting connects thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers worldwide. For more information about the PAS Meeting, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org.

###

About the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting

The Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) Meeting connects thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers worldwide. This international gathering offers opportunities for a global audience of physician-scientists, clinicians, and educators to share research, explore new ideas, build career opportunities, and collaborate on future projects. The PAS Meeting is produced through a partnership of four pediatric organizations that are leaders in the advancement of pediatric research and child advocacy: American Pediatric Society, Society for Pediatric Research, Academic Pediatric Association and American Academy of Pediatrics. For more information, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. Follow us on Twitter @PASMeeting, Instagram PASMeeting and #PAS2021, and like us on Facebook PASMeeting.

Soybean cyst nematode is the most damaging soybean pathogen--and it's rapidly spreading

AMERICAN PHYTOPATHOLOGICAL SOCIETY

Research News

IMAGE: CHRISTOPHER MARETT (LEFT) AND GREGORY TYLKA (RIGHT) view more
CREDIT: CHRISTOPHER MARETT AND GREGORY TYLKA

The soybean cyst nematode (SCN) is the most damaging pathogen of soybean in the United States and Canada and it is spreading rapidly, according to information compiled by Gregory Tylka and Christopher Marett, nematologists at Iowa State University. SCN was first found in the United States in 1954 and most recent estimates show that SCN results in $1.5 billion in annual yield losses.

"The continuing spread of SCN is alarming, but not surprising," said Tylka. "Anything that moves soil can move the nematode, including wind, water, and farm machinery." In an article published in Plant Health Progress, Tylka and Marett report that SCN was found in 55 new counties in the United States and 24 new counties and rural municipalities in Canada between 2017 and 2020. Most dramatically, New York State, which saw SCN in only one county pre-2017, reported SCN in 29 new counties, and Manitoba reported SCN for the first time in 2017.

The nematode is easily overlooked as it often does not cause obvious aboveground symptoms for several years even as it begins to immediately reduce yields. "Farmers often assume that they do not have SCN because the soybeans don't look sick," said Tylka. "This is an unfortunate mistake because SCN numbers are low when the nematode is first introduced into a field, but those numbers increase steadily if left unmanaged.

Tylka urges all soybean farmers to test their fields by soil sampling before every second or third soybean crop for the presence of SCN even if the pathogen has never been found in their fields before. He also underscores the need for continued investment in basic and applied research on the biology and management of SCN by private industry, government research funding agencies, and soybean checkoff organizations.

To learn more about the alarming spread of SCN, read "Known Distribution of the Soybean Cyst Nematode, Heterodera glycines, in the United States and Canada in 2020" published in the March issue of Plant Health Progress. His research group also strives to reach soybean farmers and those who advise them through the SCN Coalition. Learn more at http://www.TheSCNCoalition.com.

Breakthrough study shows no-take marine reserves benefit overfished reefs

Findings support global "30 by 30" goal of protecting 30 percent of the ocean by 2030

WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIETY

Research News

IMAGE: NO-TAKE MARINE PROTECTED AREAS (MPAS) INCREASED THE GROWTH OF FISH POPULATIONS BY 42 PERCENT WHEN FISHING WAS UNSUSTAINABLE IN SURROUNDING AREAS. view more
CREDIT: © ERIKA PIÑEROS, FOR WCS

New York, NY (May 4, 2021) - A powerful, long-term study from WCS adds scientific backing for global calls for conserving 30 percent of the world's ocean. The studied no-take marine protected areas (MPAs) increased the growth of fish populations by 42 percent when fishing was unsustainable in surrounding areas, achieving the benefits of stable and high production of fish populations for fishers, while protecting threatened ecosystems.

The study recorded fish catches for 24-years across a dozen fish landing sites within two counties in Kenya, which allowed scientists to evaluate the long-term impacts of two different fisheries management methods. While one county utilized a no-take MPA covering 30 percent of the fishery, the other focused on gear restrictions and prohibited the use of small-mesh nets.

The differences in outcomes for the fishers and the ecosystems were stark. Per-person daily catches rose 25 times faster near the no-take MPA than in fished areas with gear restrictions, showing that no-take MPAs were far more effective at sustaining stocks of fish than restricting destructive gear.

The study's lead author Dr. Tim McClanahan, Senior Coral Reef Scientist for WCS said "The no-take area in Mombasa occupied 30 percent of the studied fishing grounds. Fortuitously, this is the target for protection being proposed for the oceans, which is rarely tested and based on the results of simulation models. The empirical support for the models and the conservation proposal is reassuring along with the unexpected results of increased production of fish populations that compensated for the lost fishing area. This adds to the evidence that no-take protected areas of sufficient coverage may compensate for the lost fishing grounds, particularly when fisheries are not sustainably fished."

This new study from WCS represents the longest-ever continuous detailed fish catch record for coral reefs, and reveals patterns that took nearly 20 years to unfold due to the small annual increments of change. The time and resources it takes to complete these empirical studies has long been an impediment to testing the effectiveness of no-take MPAs on fisheries, and is also why simulation models were commonly used. Until this publication, most existing empirical studies were short-term and focused on the catch per fisher rather than the catch per area, which is a critical metric of sustainable yield estimates. Consequently, there is a compelling need to expand long-term studies to better calibrate and test fisheries production models.

This study shows that MPAs where no-take rules are followed can compensate for lost fishing grounds and stocks and therefore help people highly dependent on fish for income and nutritional security that is lost when catches are unsustainable. While gear restrictions did have positive benefits for short periods of time, they did not maximize fisheries production over the long-term. Some combination of closure and gear restrictions are therefore likely needed to achieve the full benefits to both fishers and ecosystems.

###

The study was led by WCS Senior Conservation Scientist Tim McClanahan and will appear in Volume 128 of the journal Marine Policy. The work was supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies, The Tiffany & Co. Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society)

MISSION: WCS saves wildlife and wild places worldwide through science, conservation action, education, and inspiring people to value nature. To achieve our mission, WCS, based at the Bronx Zoo, harnesses the power of its Global Conservation Program in nearly 60 nations and in all the world's oceans and its five wildlife parks in New York City, visited by 4 million people annually. WCS combines its expertise in the field, zoos, and aquarium to achieve its conservation mission.

This year at CBD CoP15, the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will adopt a post-2020 global biodiversity framework, and set shared goals and action-oriented targets to provide the momentum for conservation action at multiple scales. This is a critical policy moment to improve global goals and targets related to coral reefs, including their clarity and the indicators to be used to measure progress, to drive conservation action that effectively conserves coral reef biodiversity and ensures socio-economic benefits at relevant scales. WCS supports the global efforts to ensure that CBD Parties commit to protecting or conserving least 30% of land and sea areas by 2030 through area-based conservation measures, read more about our recommendations here.

For more than 70 years WCS has been on and underwater studying coral reefs. Today there is a global crisis for coral reefs facing pressures from climate change, pollution, unsustainable tourism, and destructive fishing. From Kenya to Belize, Mozambique to Cuba, WCS is conserving reef biodiversity hotspots and supporting communities that depend on reefs to survive. We currently work across 16 countries to protect coral reefs and ensure that they continue to provide for the people and species that rely on them.

Visit: newsroom.wcs.org Follow: @WCSNewsroom.

Being around children makes adults more generous

UNIVERSITY OF BATH

Research News

Adults are more compassionate and are up to twice as likely to donate to charity when children are present, according to a new study from psychologists.

The research, conducted by social psychologists at the University of Bath and Cardiff University and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), examined how the presence of children influences adults' compassionate motivations and behaviours.

Across eight experiments and more than 2,000 participants, the researchers asked adults to describe what typical children are like. After focusing on children in this way, participants subsequently indicated higher motivations towards compassionate values, such as helpfulness and social justice, and they reported greater empathy with the plight of other adults.

In a field study, which built on these findings, the researchers found that adult passers-by on a shopping street in Bath were more likely to donate to charity when more children were around relative to adults.

When no children were present and all passers-by were adults, a student research team from the University of Bath observed roughly one donation every ten minutes. But when children and adults were equally present on the shopping street, adult passers-by made two donations every ten minutes.

These effects could not be accounted for by higher footfall during busy times or whether donors were accompanied by a child or not. Instead, they suggest that the presence of children can nudge adults to behave more generously and donate more often. The on-street donations were made to 'Bath Marrow', a charity which supports people with blood cancer.

Interestingly, these findings point to a widely applicable effect. The researchers observed that the 'child salience effect' was evident among both parents and non-parents, men and women, younger and older participants, and even among those who had relatively negative attitudes towards children. The researchers involved suggest these effects could also have widespread implications.

Lead researcher Dr Lukas Wolf from the Department of Psychology at Bath explains: "While previous evidence has shown that we are typically more helpful and empathetic towards children, no research has been done to date to examine whether the presence of children alone encourages us to be more pro-social towards others in general. Our research addresses this gap by showing that the presence of children elicits broad pro-social motivation and donation behaviour towards causes not directly related to children."

Dr Wolf says that this potential for widespread effect is important because it indicates society needs to consider new ways to involve children more directly in various aspects of life.

"Our findings showing the importance of children for compassionate behaviour in society provides a glimpse of a much bigger impact," he says.

"Children are indirectly dependent on how adults behave towards each other and towards the planet. Yet, children are also separated from many adult environments, such as workplaces and from political bodies where important decisions affect their futures."

He adds: "The finding that the presence of children motivates adults to be more compassionate towards others calls for more integration of children in contexts where adults make important long-term decisions, such as on climate change."

Various initiatives over recent years have been established to increase the prominence of young voices, for example Children's Parliaments. Future work from the researchers involved in this study will look in more detail at the nature of the child salience effect and its ramifications for society and the planet.

###

Their results are published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Researchers create leather-like material from silk proteins

Alternative leather manufacturing moves towards sustainable sources and environmentally friendly chemical processes

TUFTS UNIVERSITY

Research News

VIDEO: THE PROCESS OF MAKING THE SILK LEATHER BEGINS WITH DISSOLVING THE FIBERS AND REFORMULATING THE PROTEIN FOR EXTRUSION AND PRINTING INTO SWATCHES WITH CUSTOMIZED PATTERNS view more

CREDIT: LAIA SOLDEVILLA, FIO OMENETTO, TUFTS UNIVERSITY SILKLAB

Leather is an ever growing multi-billion dollar industry requiring more than 3.8 billion bovine animals - equal to one for every two people on earth - to sustain production each year. And while the products - clothing, shoes, furniture and more - can be quite elegant and durable, the environmental impact of leather production has been severe, leading to deforestation, water and land overuse, environmental pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions.

Researchers at Tufts University School of Engineering set out to find an alternative to leather, with similar texture, flexibility and stiffness, yet focused on materials that are sustainable, non-toxic, and friendly to the environment. It turns out, we have been wearing that material all along - it's silk, but instead of weaving the silk into fabric, the Tufts engineers were able to break down the fibers from silkworm cocoons into their protein components, and re-purpose the proteins to form the leather-like material. The process for making silk-based leather is described in a study published in the journal Materials & Design.

The silk-based leather can be printed into different patterns and textures, has similar physical properties to real leather, and can withstand the folding, piercing, and stretching typically used to create leather goods, including the ability to stitch together pieces of material and attach hardware such as rivets, grommets, handles and clasps.

"Our work is centered on the use of naturally-derived materials that minimize the use of toxic chemicals while maintaining material performance so as to provide alternatives for products that are commonly and widely used today," said Fiorenzo Omenetto, Frank C. Doble Professor of Engineering at Tufts School of Engineering, director of the Tufts Silklab where the material was created, and corresponding author of the study. "By using silk, as well as cellulose from textile and agricultural waste and chitosan from shell-fish waste, and all the relatively gentle chemistries used to combine them, we are making progress towards this goal."

There is of course already an existing portfolio of alternative leathers developed by industry and the research community, with a focus on using agricultural byproducts or regenerated materials that have a reduced impact on the environment and animal raising. These include leather-like materials made from petroleum (polyurethane leather or "pleather"), tree bark, pineapple husks, plant oils, rubber, fungi, and even from cellulose and collagen produced by bacterial cultures.

The silk-based leather made at Tufts offers some unique advantages to all of these approaches. In addition to being derived from dissolving silk fibers, manufacturing is water based, using only mild chemicals, conducted at room temperature, and producing mostly non-toxic waste. The silk leather material can be fabricated using computerized 3D layering with the ability to create regular micropatterns that can tune the material's strength and flexibility, print macropatterns for aesthetics (e.g. a basket weave) as well as non-regular geometrical patterning to mimic the surface texture of real leather. The resulting materials, like leather, are strong, soft, pliable, and durable, and like natural leather, they are biodegradable once they enter the waste stream.

In fact, the silk-leather products could be re-dissolved and regenerated into its gel-like stock matter to be re-printed into new products

The process of making the silk leather starts with silk fibers that are commonly used in the textile industry. These fibers are made up of silk fibroin protein polymers, and they can be broken down to its individual protein components in a water-based slurry. A base layer of chitosan containing a non-toxic plasticizer glycerol and dye is printed by extrusion through a tiny bore nozzle onto a surface to provide flexibility and strength to the material. Chitosan is itself derived from natural sources such as the shells of crabs lobsters and shrimp. A layer of silk fibroin combined with plasticizer and a thickener (from vegetable gum) is printed on top of the base layer.

Extruding the fibroin slurry through the printer nozzle creates shear forces that may contribute to arranging the proteins in a way that that strengthens the material, making it ductile rather than brittle, and mimics the natural extrusion that occurs in the silk gland of a worm or spider. Changing the printed pattern of the silk layer can provide a range of appearance, tunable strengths and other physical qualities.

The printing method, also referred to as "additive manufacturing" is known to be very conservative in the use of materials and waste produced compared to other methods like injection molding or subtractive manufacturing (like carving or shaving from a block).

The Silklab at Tufts has developed a wide range of other products from silk, from implantable medical devices to architectural materials that can sense and respond to the environment by changing color. In fact, much of the technology that has been developed in the lab to derivatize the silk proteins can be applied to the silk-based leather, including attaching and embedding molecules that can sense and respond to the surrounding environment.

"That's the advantage of using silk protein over other methods - it has a well-established, versatile chemistry which we can use to tune the qualities of the material and embed smart elements like sensing molecules," said Laia Mogas-Soldevila, former research fellow in the Silklab, currently assistant professor of Architecture at University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design and first author of the study. "So while there may be many options for leather-like materials, silk-based leather has the potential to be most amenable to innovative designs."

CAPTION

A small purse made of silk leather with attached hardware demonstrates its utility in manufacturing products

CREDIT

Laia Mogas Soldevilla

Like a Trojan horse, graphene oxide can act as a carrier of organic pollutants to fish

The UPV/EHU-University of the Basque country is exploring the effects of graphene oxide alone and in combination with certain organic compounds on zebra fish

UNIVERSITY OF THE BASQUE COUNTRY

Research News

IMAGE: ZEBRA FISH IN THE LABORATORY view more
CREDIT: EGOI MARKAIDA. UPV/EHU

Graphene is a two-dimensional nanomaterial composed of carbon and formed by a single layer of densely packed carbon atoms. The high mechanical strength and significant electrical and thermal properties of graphene mean that it is highly suited to many new applications in the fields of electronics, biological, chemical and magnetic sensors, photodetectors and energy storage and generation. Due to its potential applications, graphene production is expected to increase significantly in the coming years, but given its low market uptake and the limitations in analysing its effects, little information on the concentrations of graphene nanomaterials in ecosystems is currently available.

As a result of the surface characteristics of graphene, once in the aquatic environment, graphene could act as a carrier of organic pollutants, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, to aquatic organisms. Accordingly, the CBET (Cell Biology in Environmental Toxicology) research group has evaluated not only the capacity of graphene oxide to sorb polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, but also the toxicity of graphene oxide alone and in combination with certain polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in embryo and adult zebrafish. The research was conducted in collaboration with the University of Bordeaux.

Embryonic malformations and neurotoxicity

"The results reveal that graphene oxide can carry polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons into the zebrafish (via a kind of Trojan horse effect) and exert sublethal effects. Under the conditions we adopted, the toxic effects have not been huge, no fish or embryos have died, but in some biomarkers we have detected effects that have put us on the alert," said Amaia Orbea, a PhD-holder in the CBET group at the UPV/EHU.

Firstly, they detected that at high concentrations malformations may occur in embryos, "which means that in longer exposures and at higher concentrations non-viable animals may be born", explained Orbea. Secondly, this research has confirmed that "in the long term, during a three-week exposure period, the enzyme acetylcholinesterase, which slows down nervous stimuli, was inhibited in all the fish treated, so despite not using very high concentrations, we saw that as the exposure time increases, neurotoxic effects begin to appear", said the researcher.

"We used specific concentrations and time periods, but we don't know how these concentrations will evolve from now on in nature or what their possible influence may be in relation to other pollutants. The results have shown us that the concentrations that may exist in the environment at the moment are not very dangerous, but we have to be careful: we don't know what effects these low concentrations may have during longer exposures. The results obtained are related to the conditions applied in our experiments. We don't normally come across graphene alone in the environment; along with graphene there are many other pollutants that also affect animals... We need to consider them all at the same time," she concluded.

###

Additional information

This study is part of the international co-supervised thesis by PhD student Ignacio Martínez-Álvarez. The research was funded by the UPV/EHU; Amaia Orbea is the thesis supervisor at the UPV/EHU, and Hélène Budzinski is the thesis supervisor at the University of Bordeaux. The research was carried out in the Department of Zoology and Animal Cell Biology and at the Experimental Marine Biology and Biotechnology Research Centre (Plentzia Marine Station), in collaboration with Polymat.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

Thursday, May 06, 2021

The intersection of child poverty with race, immigrant status and environmental threats

Researchers create leather-like material from silk proteins

CAPTION

CREDIT

About Me