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A crucial reckoning was initiated when the COVID-19 pandemic began to expose and intensify long-standing racial/ethnic health inequities, all while various sectors of society pursued racial justice reform. As a result, there has been a contextual shift towards broader recognition of systemic racism, and not race, as the shared foundational driver of both societal maladies. This confluence of issues is of particular relevance to Black populations disproportionately affected by the pandemic and racial injustice. In response, institutions have initiated diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts as a way forward. This article considers how the dual pandemic climate of COVID-19-related health inequities and the racial justice movement could exacerbate the “time and effort tax” on Black faculty to engage in DEI efforts in academia and biomedicine. We discuss the impact of this “tax” on career advancement and well-being, and introduce an operational framework for considering the interconnected influence of systemic racism, the dual pandemics, and DEI work on the experience of Black faculty. If not meaningfully addressed, the “time and effort tax” could contribute to Black and other underrepresented minority faculty leaving academia and biomedicine – consequently, the very diversity, equity, and inclusion work meant to increase representation could decrease it.
Despite the adversity presented by COVID-19 pandemic, it also pushed for experimenting with innovative strategies for community engagement. The Community Research Advisory Council (C-RAC) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU), is an initiative to promote community engagement in research. COVID-19 rendered it impossible for C-RAC to conduct its meetings all of which have historically been in person. We describe the experience of advancing the work of the C-RAC during COVID-19 using digital and virtual strategies. Since March 2020, C-RAC transitioned from in person to virtual meetings. The needs assessment was conducted among C-RAC members, and individualized solutions provided for a successful virtual engagement. The usual working schedule was altered to respond to COVID-19 and promote community engaged research. Attendance to C-RAC meetings before and after the transition to virtual operation increased from 69% to 76% among C-RAC members from the community. In addition, the C-RAC launched new initiatives and in eighteen months since January 2020, it conducted 50 highly rated research reviews for 20 research teams. The experience of the C-RAC demonstrates that when community needs are assessed and addressed, and technical support is provided, digital strategies can lead to greater community collaborations.
Response to lithium in patients with bipolar disorder is associated with clinical and transdiagnostic genetic factors. The predictive combination of these variables might help clinicians better predict which patients will respond to lithium treatment.
Aims
To use a combination of transdiagnostic genetic and clinical factors to predict lithium response in patients with bipolar disorder.
Method
This study utilised genetic and clinical data (n = 1034) collected as part of the International Consortium on Lithium Genetics (ConLi+Gen) project. Polygenic risk scores (PRS) were computed for schizophrenia and major depressive disorder, and then combined with clinical variables using a cross-validated machine-learning regression approach. Unimodal, multimodal and genetically stratified models were trained and validated using ridge, elastic net and random forest regression on 692 patients with bipolar disorder from ten study sites using leave-site-out cross-validation. All models were then tested on an independent test set of 342 patients. The best performing models were then tested in a classification framework.
Results
The best performing linear model explained 5.1% (P = 0.0001) of variance in lithium response and was composed of clinical variables, PRS variables and interaction terms between them. The best performing non-linear model used only clinical variables and explained 8.1% (P = 0.0001) of variance in lithium response. A priori genomic stratification improved non-linear model performance to 13.7% (P = 0.0001) and improved the binary classification of lithium response. This model stratified patients based on their meta-polygenic loadings for major depressive disorder and schizophrenia and was then trained using clinical data.
Conclusions
Using PRS to first stratify patients genetically and then train machine-learning models with clinical predictors led to large improvements in lithium response prediction. When used with other PRS and biological markers in the future this approach may help inform which patients are most likely to respond to lithium treatment.
Major physiological changes occur in the maternal cardiovascular system during pregnancy. In women with pre-existing or previously undiagnosed cardiac disease, these changes may precipitate cardiac decompensation. The number of women with heart disease embarking on a pregnancy is increasing. Heart disease is the commonest cause of maternal death in the UK where all maternal deaths are critically reviewed. In approximately half of the women who died from cardiac disease in the UK, suboptimal care was identified. In the Netherlands, the maternal mortality rate from cardiac disease (2004–2006) was 3 per 100 000 maternities. Multidisciplinary teams working and co-location of clinical services are critically important to ensure the best care possible for pregnant women with cardiac conditions (Figure 28.1).
This chapter draws on qualitative research using participatory methods to explore the experience of people with dementia who live alone. Drawing on data gathered in Sweden and the UK, the chapter highlights the distinct challenges of living alone with dementia and explores the different ways that people remain connected to neighbourhood places. We argue that the invisibility of such experiences to dementia policy and strategies (which typically assume the presence of a cohabiting carer or household member to provide support) needs to be addressed if dementia-friendly initiatives are to be truly inclusive.
Demographic projections show that the number of people living in single households will continue to increase steadily in many western and northern European countries and that older women are the fastest-growing section of the single householder population (Sundström et al, 2016; United Nations, 2017). The ageing population living alone in Europe also includes an increasing proportion of people with dementia (Prescop et al, 1999; Gaymu and Springer, 2010; Prince et al, 2015). In Canada, France, Germany, the UK and Sweden, between one third and one half of the population of people with dementia residing in a neighbourhood context live in single households (Ebly et al, 1999; Nourhashemi et al, 2005; Alzheimer's Society, 2013; Eichler et al, 2016; Odzakovic et al, 2019). Despite this increase in single householders with dementia, there is currently limited awareness of the particular challenges associated with living alone with dementia, even within emerging discourses and practices associated with dementia-friendly communities (Alzheimer's Society, 2013; Age UK, 2018; Odzakovic et al, 2018). As such, there is a danger that the creation of ‘dementia-friendly’ communities, and especially those based on communities of place, may rest upon a series of normative assumptions about dementia and about the relational context of people living with the condition.
Evidence from service-oriented research shows that people with dementia who live alone are more prone to (unplanned) hospitalisation (Ennis et al, 2014); are at greater risk of malnutrition (Nourhashemi et al, 2005); are likely to be admitted to long-term care at an earlier point in their journey with dementia (Yaffe et al, 2002); are often less well connected to formal services (Webber et al, 1994); and lack the advocacy of a co-resident carer (Eichler et al, 2016).
Neighbourhoods have been integral to the rapid changes occurring within dementia care in recent years, although have not always been acknowledged as such. Dementia, like aged and mental health care before it has been absorbed into a project of deinstitutionalisation occurring within healthcare systems across much of the affluent west (Anttonen and Karsio, 2016). In the UK, deinstitutionalising dementia has involved large-scale reductions to hospital beds available to people with dementia and reduced duration of stay (Alzheimer's Society, 2009). In basic terms, it has meant the relocation of care and support from one type of material and social setting to another, and as such marks a changing geography of care. In many parts of Europe, this ‘re-placing’ of dementia care has not stalled at the shift to community-based support. The ongoing retrenchment of public services driven by a policy of fiscal consolidation (that is austerity) has led to widespread closures of traditional council-led day care services (Needham, 2014) alongside tightening of eligibility criteria for admission to care homes and for Continuing Health Care (RCN, 2012), resulting in significant reductions in collective forms of community-based provision. People with dementia are increasingly less likely to be clustered in designated care settings while segregated from the wider community. Instead, policy intentions have shifted to supporting people to age in place through a focus on Personalisation (DoH, 2019; Malbon et al, 2019; Manthorpe and Samsi, 2016). However, as with aged care before it, concerns have been raised over the extent of an existing neighbourhood infrastructure to adequately respond to such changes in dementia care (for example, Miranda-Castillo et al, 2010). The potential danger is that people living with the condition may become, in Rowles’ (1978) terms, ‘prisoners of space’; facing the prospect of social isolation and domestic confinement as their lifeworld constricts (Alzheimer's Society, 2013; Moyle at el, 2011).
The advent of the ‘dementia-friendly community’ (DFC), following in the wake of the age-friendly cities movement (WHO, 2007), might be read as a vehicle for policy to address these concerns. Interestingly in the UK, the approach differs between countries. In Scotland, dementia is a devolved matter, with the Holyrood government setting policy which acknowledges the importance of DFCs through the National Dementia Strategy (Scottish Government, 2017).
This chapter explores what neighbourhoods mean for people living with dementia. While the built environment, and the economic and political apparatus they comprise of such as shops, services and localised campaigning, are certainly important, our attention focuses on how people living with dementia understand neighbourhoods as sites of relationally constituted ordinary or everyday social connection, engagement and interaction. The chapter outlines the nature of associations individuals have with the wider social sphere of their immediate locale and considers how these ostensibly geographical proximate (or local) social connections might support people to live as well as they might with dementia. In doing so, it considers why it matters to understand the socio-spatial dimensions of neighbourhoods as relational and interconnected phenomena and considers the importance of thinking about neighbourhoods as more than environments in need of intervention or modification in order to support people living with dementia.
How are neighbourhoods understood in the dementia literature?
In a review published in 2012, Keady and colleagues noted that a surprisingly small amount of literature has focused specifically on the importance of neighbourhoods for people living with dementia. The review identified three domains of activity: outdoor spaces, the built environment, and everyday technologies. The first examines how the outdoor environment can be better designed and/or modified to support people living with dementia. This includes work on the design of streetscapes and road layouts to better support mobility, as well as ongoing work to enable easier access to a range of different environments such as green and recreational spaces. A second attends to navigation and mobility of environments, such as shopping centres, hospitals, museums and grocery stores. The third investigates the use of technologies, including virtual realities, to support access to, or better develop, environments beyond the home (Keady et al, 2012). Since then, a considerable body of work has continued to investigate these areas (Sturge et al, 2021) and continues to provide evidence of the need to better understand why and how people living with dementia interact with their immediate environments outside of the home.
Studying phenotypic and genetic characteristics of age at onset (AAO) and polarity at onset (PAO) in bipolar disorder can provide new insights into disease pathology and facilitate the development of screening tools.
Aims
To examine the genetic architecture of AAO and PAO and their association with bipolar disorder disease characteristics.
Method
Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) and polygenic score (PGS) analyses of AAO (n = 12 977) and PAO (n = 6773) were conducted in patients with bipolar disorder from 34 cohorts and a replication sample (n = 2237). The association of onset with disease characteristics was investigated in two of these cohorts.
Results
Earlier AAO was associated with a higher probability of psychotic symptoms, suicidality, lower educational attainment, not living together and fewer episodes. Depressive onset correlated with suicidality and manic onset correlated with delusions and manic episodes. Systematic differences in AAO between cohorts and continents of origin were observed. This was also reflected in single-nucleotide variant-based heritability estimates, with higher heritabilities for stricter onset definitions. Increased PGS for autism spectrum disorder (β = −0.34 years, s.e. = 0.08), major depression (β = −0.34 years, s.e. = 0.08), schizophrenia (β = −0.39 years, s.e. = 0.08), and educational attainment (β = −0.31 years, s.e. = 0.08) were associated with an earlier AAO. The AAO GWAS identified one significant locus, but this finding did not replicate. Neither GWAS nor PGS analyses yielded significant associations with PAO.
Conclusions
AAO and PAO are associated with indicators of bipolar disorder severity. Individuals with an earlier onset show an increased polygenic liability for a broad spectrum of psychiatric traits. Systematic differences in AAO across cohorts, continents and phenotype definitions introduce significant heterogeneity, affecting analyses.
Background: Over the past decade, the CLSI has updated susceptibility break points for several antimicrobial agents. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of these changes against gram-negative bacteria at our academic medical center. Methods: In this retrospective, IRB-approved study, we collected consecutive, nonduplicate clinical isolates of Enterobacter cloacae, Escherichia coli, Klebsiella aerogenes, K. oxytoca, K. pneumoniae, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa for the past decade (2010–2019) at our academic medical center and 3 adult ICUs. Susceptibility testing was performed using the BD Phoenix automated system. For these isolates, susceptibilities for 7 β-lactams (aztreonam, ceftriaxone, ceftazidime, cefepime, piperacillin/tazobactam, ertapenem, and meropenem) and 2 fluoroquinolones (levofloxacin, ciprofloxacin) were calculated based upon CLSI break points in 2010 and current CLSI break points in 2020. Any change >5% in susceptibility was deemed significant for this analysis. Results: In 17.5% of Enterobacteriales isolates tested, at least 1 antimicrobial demonstrated significant decline. Ertapenem was the most commonly affected antimicrobial (45% of the isolates) followed by ceftriaxone (35%) and cefepime (25%). Susceptibilities of aztreonam, ceftazidime, and meropenem were not affected for any of the Enterobacteriales. The most common organism demonstrating a significant impact on change in susceptibility among the Enterobacteriales was E. cloacae (41.7% of the time) followed by E. aerogenes (20.8%), K. oxytoca (12.5%), K. pneumoniae (8.3%) and E. coli (4.2%). Most of the impact was observed hospital-wide (33.3%), followed closely by the MICU (28.6%), the NSICU (23.8%) and the CVICU (14.3%). For P. aeruginosa, the impact of the antimicrobial break-point changes on susceptibility was more pronounced than the Enterobacteriales. Overall, 93.8% of the time there was a significant decline in antimicrobial susceptibility. Each antimicrobial (ciprofloxacin, levofloxacin, meropenem, and piperacillin/tazobactam) demonstrated a significant decline in susceptibility hospital-wide and in each ICU except for the susceptibility of meropenem in the NSICU. Conclusions: Changes in break points had a significant impact on the susceptibility of all antimicrobials for P. aeruginosa at our institution, both hospital-wide and in the adult ICUs. Although the impact was less for the Enterobacteriales, ertapenem, ceftriaxone, and cefepime demonstrated significant susceptibility changes, especially with E. cloacae. Understanding and evaluating the impact of the break-point changes may lead to changes in empiric therapy in other institutions.
Community research advisory councils (C-RAC) bring together community members with interest in research to support design, evaluation, and dissemination of research in the communities they represent. There are few ways for early career researchers, such as TL1 trainees, to develop skills in community-engaged research, and there are limited opportunities for C-RAC members to influence early career researchers. In our novel training collaboration, TL1 trainees presented their research projects to C-RAC members who provided feedback. We present on initial evidence of student learning and summarize lessons learned that TL1 programs and C-RACs can incorporate into future collaborations.
This essay surveys the small but compelling body of poetry written by women in Ireland, in English and Irish, in the seventeenth century. The Irish bardic tradition generally excluded women, but exceptions do occur, as when a bardic poem addressed to the teenaged Brighid Nic Gearailt elicits a response from its subject. The bardic poems of Caitlín Dubh are another exception again, memorialising an Irish-speaking Protestant loyalist, the Earl of Thomond. Women did, however, occupy a central role in the caoine/caoineadh traditions (the rituals of verse and oral lament). In the Anglophone tradition, poets such as Mary Sidney Herbert, Anne Southwell, and Katherine Philips explore their marginality from their positions as colonial Protestant writers, while still engaging sympathetically with Ireland as setting and subject matter. The network of connections between writers and readers is often complex, but the picture that emerges comprehensively deepens our understanding of Irish poetry from this period.
Evidence shows that research-active trusts have better clinical patient outcomes. Psychiatric trainees are required to develop knowledge and skills in research techniques and critical appraisal to enable them to practice evidence-based medicine and be research-active clinicians. This project aimed to evaluate and improve the support for developing research competencies available to general adult psychiatry higher trainees (HT) in the North-West of England.
Method
General Adult HT in the North–West of England completed a baseline survey in November 2019 to ascertain trainee's experience of research training provision. The following interventions were implemented to address this feedback:
A trainee research handbook was produced, containing exemplar activies for developing research competencies and available training opportunities, supervisors and active research studies.
The trainee research representative circulated research and training opportunities between November 2019 – August 2020.
Research representatives held a trainee Question and Answer session in September 2020.
All General Adult HT were asked to complete an electronic survey in November 2020 to evaluate the effect of these interventions.
Result
18 General Adult HT completed the baseline survey in November 2019. 29.4% of trainees thought they received enough information on research competencies and 88.9% wanted more written guidance. 38.9% of trainees knew who to contact about research within their NHS Trust and 33.3% were aware of current research studies. Identified challenges for meeting research competencies included lack of time, difficulty identifying a mentor and topic and accessibility of projects.
20 General Adult HT completed the repeat survey in November 2020. 50% of trainees wanted to be actively involved in research and 35% wanted to develop evidence-based medicine skills. A minority of trainees aimed to complete only the minimum ARCP requirements. All trainees thought the handbook was a useful resource for meeting research competencies and would recommend it to other trainees. In trainees who received the handbook, 94.7% thought they had received adequate support on meeting research competencies and 94.7% knew who to contact about research in their trust. 68.4% of trainees would like further written guidance on meeting research competencies. Trainees highlighted ongoing practical difficulties with engaging with research and concern about lacking required skills for research.
Conclusion
Trainees are motivated to engage with research on various different levels, not purely for ARCP purposes. Simple interventions can help trainees feel adequately supported with meeting research competencies. Further work to support trainee involvement in research and improve trainee confidence in engaging with research is required.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE), underscoring the urgent need for simple, efficient, and inexpensive methods to decontaminate masks and respirators exposed to severe acute respiratory coronavirus virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). We hypothesized that methylene blue (MB) photochemical treatment, which has various clinical applications, could decontaminate PPE contaminated with coronavirus.
Design:
The 2 arms of the study included (1) PPE inoculation with coronaviruses followed by MB with light (MBL) decontamination treatment and (2) PPE treatment with MBL for 5 cycles of decontamination to determine maintenance of PPE performance.
Methods:
MBL treatment was used to inactivate coronaviruses on 3 N95 filtering facepiece respirator (FFR) and 2 medical mask models. We inoculated FFR and medical mask materials with 3 coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2, and we treated them with 10 µM MB and exposed them to 50,000 lux of white light or 12,500 lux of red light for 30 minutes. In parallel, integrity was assessed after 5 cycles of decontamination using multiple US and international test methods, and the process was compared with the FDA-authorized vaporized hydrogen peroxide plus ozone (VHP+O3) decontamination method.
Results:
Overall, MBL robustly and consistently inactivated all 3 coronaviruses with 99.8% to >99.9% virus inactivation across all FFRs and medical masks tested. FFR and medical mask integrity was maintained after 5 cycles of MBL treatment, whereas 1 FFR model failed after 5 cycles of VHP+O3.
Conclusions:
MBL treatment decontaminated respirators and masks by inactivating 3 tested coronaviruses without compromising integrity through 5 cycles of decontamination. MBL decontamination is effective, is low cost, and does not require specialized equipment, making it applicable in low- to high-resource settings.
‘Dementia-friendly communities’ herald a shift toward the neighbourhood as a locus for the care and support of people with dementia, sparking growing interest in the geographies of dementia care and raising questions over the shifting spatial and social experience of the condition. Existing research claims that many people with dementia experience a ‘shrinking world’ whereby the boundaries to their social and physical worlds gradually constrict over time, leading to a loss of control and independence. This paper reports a five-year, international study that investigated the neighbourhood experience of people with dementia and those who care for and support them. We interrogate the notion of a shrinking world and in so doing highlight an absence of attention paid to the agency and actions of people with dementia themselves. The paper draws together a socio-relational and embodied-material approach to question the adequacy of the shrinking world concept as an explanatory framework and to challenge reliance within policy and practice upon notions of place as fixed or stable. We argue instead for the importance of foregrounding ‘lived place’ and attending to social practices and the networks in which such practices evolve. Our findings have implications for policy and practice, emphasising the need to bolster the agency of people living with dementia as a route to fostering accessible and inclusive neighbourhoods.
Structural models of psychopathology consistently identify internalizing (INT) and externalizing (EXT) specific factors as well as a superordinate factor that captures their shared variance, the p factor. Questions remain, however, about the meaning of these data-driven dimensions and the interpretability and distinguishability of the larger nomological networks in which they are embedded.
Methods
The sample consisted of 10 645 youth aged 9–10 years participating in the multisite Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study. p, INT, and EXT were modeled using the parent-rated Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). Patterns of associations were examined with variables drawn from diverse domains including demographics, psychopathology, temperament, family history of substance use and psychopathology, school and family environment, and cognitive ability, using instruments based on youth-, parent-, and teacher-report, and behavioral task performance.
Results
p exhibited a broad pattern of statistically significant associations with risk variables across all domains assessed, including temperament, neurocognition, and social adversity. The specific factors exhibited more domain-specific patterns of associations, with INT exhibiting greater fear/distress and EXT exhibiting greater impulsivity.
Conclusions
In this largest study of hierarchical models of psychopathology to date, we found that p, INT, and EXT exhibit well-differentiated nomological networks that are interpretable in terms of neurocognition, impulsivity, fear/distress, and social adversity. These networks were, in contrast, obscured when relying on the a priori Internalizing and Externalizing dimensions of the CBCL scales. Our findings add to the evidence for the validity of p, INT, and EXT as theoretically and empirically meaningful broad psychopathology liabilities.
Evidence-based treatment for panic disorder consists of disorder-specific cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) protocols. However, most measures of CBT competence are generic and there is a clear need for disorder-specific assessment measures.
Aims:
To fill this gap, we evaluated the psychometric properties of the Cognitive Therapy Competence Scale (CTCP) for panic disorder.
Method:
CBT trainees (n = 60) submitted audio recordings of CBT for panic disorder that were scored on a generic competence measure, the Cognitive Therapy Scale – Revised (CTS-R), and the CTCP by markers with experience in CBT practice and evaluation. Trainees also provided pre- to post-treatment clinical outcomes on disorder-specific patient report measures for cases corresponding to their therapy recordings.
Results:
The CTCP exhibited strong internal consistency (α = .79–.91) and inter-rater reliability (ICC = .70–.88). The measure demonstrated convergent validity with the CTS-R (r = .40–.54), although investigation into competence classification indicated that the CTCP may be more sensitive at detecting competence for panic disorder-specific CBT skills. Notably, the CTCP demonstrated the first indication of a relationship between therapist competence and clinical outcome for panic disorder (r = .29–.35); no relationship was found for the CTS-R.
Conclusions:
These findings provide initial support for the reliability and validity of the CTCP for assessing therapist competence in CBT for panic disorder and support the use of anxiety disorder-specific competence measures. Further investigation into the psychometric properties of the measure in other therapist cohorts and its relationship with clinical outcomes is recommended.
This article draws upon six social research studies completed by members of the Dementia and Ageing Research Team at The University of Manchester and their associated networks over an eight-year period (2011–2019) with the aim of constructing a definition of ‘being in the moment’ and situating it within a continuum of moments that could be used to contextualise and frame the lived experience of dementia. Using the approach formulated by Pound et al. (2005) in synthesising qualitative studies, we identified this continuum of moments as comprising four sequential and interlinked steps: (a) ‘creating the moment’, defined as the processes and procedures necessary to enable being in the moment to take place – the time necessary for this to occur can range from fleeting to prolonged; (b) ‘being in the moment’, which refers to the multi-sensory processes involved in a personal or relational interaction and embodied engagement – being in the moment can be sustained through creativity and flow; (c) ‘ending the moment’, defined as when a specific moment is disengaged – this can be triggered by the person(s) involved consciously or subconsciously, or caused by a distraction in the environment or suchlike; and (d) ‘reliving the moment’, which refers to the opportunity for the experience(s) involved in ‘being in the moment’ to be later remembered and shared, however fragmentary, supported or full the recall.