Public Health – Page 3 – UROP Spring Symposium 2021

Public Health

Identifying physiological and behavioral mechanisms linking discrimination and subclinical cardiovascular disease among racially diverse young sexual minority men

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains a leading cause of death for men in the United States. This is in part due to stress and substance use being closely associated with early risk factors of CVD prevalence. While little research exists on potential protective factors against the negative effects of stress, one possible mechanism that may mitigate the effects of stress exposure is social support. This cross-sectional study seeks to examine the association between physiological stress, substance use, and Carotid Intima-Media Thickness (CIMT). Approximately 50 participants, comprising of young sexual minority men (YSMM) between the ages of 18-35 years old, will be enrolled where these participants will have to fill out an online survey, providing information on stress and experiences of discrimination in childhood stress , adulthood stress, substance use behaviors, and current PSS. Participants will also be asked to take part in a non-invasive ultrasound to obtain CIMT measurements to evaluate possible signs of pre-clinical CVD. In addition, participants will be asked to provide saliva samples to measure salivary cortisol. At this current time, our project has not been able to produce results, however the investigation team hypothesize that YSMM that experienced higher in discrimination based on sexual orientation and/or racial/ethnic identity will have higher cIMT measurements than those lower in discrimination. The final conclusions and implications of this study might provide increased knowledge to the scientific community and clinical practice when it comes to understanding of CVD risk factors.

Identifying physiological and behavioral mechanisms linking discrimination and subclinical cardiovascular disease among racially diverse young sexual minority men

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains a leading cause of death for men in the United States. This is in part due to stress and substance use being closely associated with early risk factors of CVD prevalence. While little research exists on potential protective factors against the negative effects of stress, one possible mechanism that may mitigate the effects of stress exposure is social support. This cross-sectional study seeks to examine the association between physiological stress, substance use, and Carotid Intima-Media Thickness (CIMT). Approximately 50 participants, comprising of young sexual minority men (YSMM) between the ages of 18-35 years old, will be enrolled where these participants will have to fill out an online survey, providing information on stress and experiences of discrimination in childhood stress , adulthood stress, substance use behaviors, and current PSS. Participants will also be asked to take part in a non-invasive ultrasound to obtain CIMT measurements to evaluate possible signs of pre-clinical CVD. In addition, participants will be asked to provide saliva samples to measure salivary cortisol. At this current time, our project has not been able to produce results, however the investigation team hypothesize that YSMM that experienced higher in discrimination based on sexual orientation and/or racial/ethnic identity will have higher cIMT measurements than those lower in discrimination. The final conclusions and implications of this study might provide increased knowledge to the scientific community and clinical practice when it comes to understanding of CVD risk factors.

The Seasonality of Infectious Diseases Across the Globe

Dysentery is an infection causing inflammation of the intestines and bloody diarrhea. It is often spread via contaminated food and water and was a prevalent public health concern throughout the twentieth century and still today to an extent. Data provided by the World Health Organization from 1944-1977 categorizes dysentery as either amoebic or bacillary. Amoebic dysentery is caused by the parasite, amoeba Entamoeba histolytica, and bacillary dysentery is caused by the Shigella bacteria. Dysentery cases were examined in a variety of countries around the world from 1944-1977. This data was first scanned from World Health Organization record books, and PDFs were converted into Excel files using optical character recognition (OCR) software. The cumulative data over the entire timespan was then graphed and visualized using the R programming language using time series to determine if any trends in seasonality existed for either or both forms of dysentery. These visualizations will help doctors and public health professionals better understand the seasonality of dysentery as well as where and when it is most prevalent. This will provide vital information that can improve timing and delivery of treatment in parts of the world with high incidences of dysentery.

The Historical Seasonality of Paratyphoid Across the Globe

Paratyphoid fever is one of many bacterial infectious diseases shown to exhibit seasonal dynamics, likely influenced by environmental conditions. However, a complete understanding of the seasonal patterns and identification of environmental factors which drive disease transmission have not been fully studied. We compiled and analyzed global data from the World Health Organization spanning from 1932-1957 and provincial level Thailand data from 1980-2020. Both of these datasets report monthly clinical cases and deaths of paratyphoid that occur in the given area. We used optical character recognition software to transform the data from pdf format to a format conducive to statistical analysis with R. Based on previous studies and initial findings, it appears that paratyphoid cases spike during hot weather months which vary depending on hemisphere. Other environmental factors, such as rainfall and variation in temperature have also been shown to influence paratyphoid spread and seasonality. Understanding the transmission dynamics of infectious diseases such as paratyphoid fever is imperative for public health officials to develop comprehensive guidelines and policies. The nuances of infectious disease transmission are also important to understand to reduce the size of epidemics and prevent the inundation of healthcare systems that would stop an otherwise treatable condition from being treated.

Using Google Earth to assess neighborhood features in the built environment: Inter-Rater Reliability results

Relevance: The built environment plays a significant role in contributing to health outcomes. The Environment and Policy Lab (EPL) is researching the association between the built environment and health outcomes in a cost-effective, accessible way by using Google Earth to assess neighborhood features. However, there are challenges in assessing certain neighborhood features. This study assessed the inter-rater reliability of several features of the built environment.

COVID-19 and the Community

The goal of this research project has been to collect stories about the health experiences of people living in Washtenaw County, Michigan during the time of COVID-19. We used document analysis, semi-structured interviews, structured observations, and statistical analysis to understand how people in Washtenaw discuss the health, social and economic problems stemming from the pandemic as well as the ways in which they attempt to confront and solve these problems. We are using this data to advise policy decisions in Washtenaw County.

Optimizing a Daily Mindfulness Intervention to Reduce Stress from Discrimination among Sexual and Gender Minorities of Color

Sexual and gender minorities of color face a disproportionate amount of stress from microaggressions, discrimination in the workplace and in the social world, and other sources on a daily basis as a result of their identity. This study will ask sexual and gender minorities of color to participate in a week of mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness is a practice designed to have positive effects on an individual’s mental health by focusing on “the four pillars of the science of training the mind”: awareness, connection, insight, and purpose. This study will be administered remotely through the mobile application Healthy Minds Program. It will ask participants to take a survey to measure stress at the beginning of the study, act out guided meditation exercises, and a final survey at the end of the study. This study will randomize which guided meditation exercises a participant will receive in order to determine which ones have the greatest positive effect on their stress levels. In addition, participants will log nightly diary entries detailing their daily activities and how meditation impacted their mood throughout the study. This project will then compile and measure the difference in stress levels before and after the meditation exercises to see whether mindfulness will significantly reduce participants’ stress levels. We expect that these mindfulness sessions will reduce their stress levels because we believe that purposeful reflection will especially help participants manage how they view their stressors, which are often beyond their control.

Demographic Impacts of Covid-19 in the US and Europe

The Covid-19 pandemic has had disproportionate impacts across the globe. When comparing the impact of the pandemic on different nations, researchers rely on metrics such as national excess mortality which often fail to capture demographic differences between populations. This study aims to construct a comparative framework of excess mortality in the US and select European countries which accounts for age and sex. In this context, excess mortality is the difference between the observed number of deaths during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic from the expected number of deaths based on historical data. To construct this framework, monthly mortality data from 2015-2019 segregated by age and sex was analyzed from the US and EU. This data was used to estimate the mortality of specific age and sex cohorts by country, which was compared to the observed monthly mortality of those cohorts in 2020. When compared to the reported deaths attributed to Covid-19, a robust and nuanced comparison of the relative impacts of Covid-19 in the US and EU is possible.

Whole Health Educational Resource Development and Evaluation for Veterans and VA Staff

The Veterans Association (VA) is one of the largest integrative healthcare systems in the country. Its success in patient outcomes is contributed to the widespread practice of Whole Health in the VA system. Whole Health is known as “Personalized, Proactive, Patient-driven Care” and it focuses on several areas of health and well-being while empowering the patient to take an active role in their healthcare alongside providers. The impact of Whole Health and use of its techniques and practices among veterans and patients who receive this healthcare is not widely known. This study aims to assess how many skills and practices from the Whole Health system are being used and applied by patients (Veterans) in their everyday lives. Specifically, questions are designed to reflect practices from the 8 modalities of Whole Health. To conduct our test, we created an online survey using Qualtrics and distributed it among colleagues, students, patients, and veterans in association with the VA Ann Arbor. We collected basic demographic information including sex, age range, and Veteran status and asked a series of questions designed to assess the practice of mindfulness and other techniques among respondents and also to assess how much of the Whole Health practice they have experienced. At the time of publication of this abstract, the data has been collected and preliminary analysis is in process. Specific, detailed, and final results will be available at the time of the Symposium presentation.

Examining the co-seasonality of historical respiratory infections

Scarlet fever and diphtheria are two historical infectious disease in 20th century. It has been shown that the occurrence of influenza outbreak has seasonal pattern.The occurrence of Scarlet fever and diphtheria also have this characteristics. We want to fins such pattern based on the data gained from each states of the United States from 1928-1951 for scarlet fever and 1928-1948 for diphtheria. Though one is bacterium while the other is virus, researchers found there is link between them. In order to understand these two pathogens better, we plot many different kinds of graphs of these two separately and together, weekly and yearly in R, based on the weekly data of number of infected people in the United States. We will also plot some wavelets and cross-wavelets to find the co-seasonality within states and between disease. The expected result will be that some patterns between these two pathogens that deserve further research and study do exist. Though these two are historical infectious disease, studying these two pathogens may provide us with more information on the potential link between them and many other disease, which will benefit other disease study or even help find potential method to forecast other diseases forecast and take them under control.

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