Primary prevention of cardiovascular disease: Communitywide strategies for youth.

National interest in health promotion and disease prevention has led naturally to a concern with primary prevention and with youth. This attention to youth has been particularly notable in efforts to prevent injuries and chronic diseases. Specific behavior patterns that are learned in childhood and adolescence are implicated in the development of chronic diseases. These behavior patterns logically become the targets for early intervention. Over the past two decades, studies on the prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD), the primary cause of mortality in the Western world, have become numerous and comprehensive and have included substantial work with youth. This article provides a rationale for that focus. We review promising communitywide strategies for youth and argue that communitywide strategies ought to be most efficient and efficacious for primary prevention. Both interest in and research on communitywide strategies are relatively recent; consequently, few strategies can be recommended unequivocally. The need for future research in this area by multidisciplinary teams is identified. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Amphetamine and morphine produce a conditioned taste and place preference in the house musk shrew (Suncus murinus).

Rats have been shown to avoid consuming a flavor, but prefer a location, previously paired with amphetamine or morphine. A series of 4 experiments evaluated the hedonic properties of amphetamine and morphine in the house musk shrew (Suncus murinus), an insectivore that (unlike rats) is capable of vomiting when exposed to toxins. Unlike rats, amphetamine (20 mg/kg) and morphine (20 mg/kg) produced both a conditioned sucrose (0.3 M) and saccharin (0.1%) preference in shrews (administered intraperitoneally), when measured by both a 1-and a 2-bottle test. At the same dose, both drugs also produced a place preference in shrews. These results suggest that the potential of rewarding drugs to produce taste avoidance may vary on the basis of the ability of the species to vomit. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychologists' Use of Touch in Individual Psychotherapy.

A national sample of 470 practicing psychologists responded to a survey regarding touch in adult individual psychotherapy. Results reflected a high degree of caution regarding physical contact with clients. Close to 90% of respondents never or rarely offered touch to clients during a session. The handshake, a socially stereotyped form of touch most likely to occur during greeting or parting, was the only form of touch that occurred with some frequency. Therapist and client gender, theoretical orientation, and touch experience of the therapist were related to the use of touch. Contrary to guidelines, touch was typically not discussed with clients when it occurred. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Access to health care services among people with rehabilitation needs receiving Medicaid.

Objective: To investigate access to care for individuals with rehabilitation-related conditions receiving fee-for-service Medicaid. Study Design: Telephone survey. Participants: One hundred thirty-eight individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI), brain injury (BI), or stroke. Main Outcome Measures: Frequency of difficulty or failure to access medical services, perceived effect on health, services most difficult to access, and reasons for difficulty. Results: People with SCI reported the most frequent difficulty accessing services (87%), followed by persons with BI (79%) and stroke (65%). In a subgroup of respondents, 60% reported failure to receive at least 1 service; 81% reported that access difficulties affected health or daily routine. Conclusions: People with rehabilitation-related disabilities may experience greater barriers to needed services than the larger population of persons with disabilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Characterological resistances in psychotherapy supervision.

A developmental model is used to provide greater understanding of the phenomena of resistance in psychotherapy supervision. Some underlying developmental or characterological issues that may cause resistance include autonomy, identity, basic trust, shame, and narcissism. The manifestations of and approaches for dealing with characterological resistances are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introduction to the special section on aging, cognition, and neuroimaging.

In response to the recent increase in the number of laboratories engaged in the use of functional and structure neuroimaging to study cognitive aging, this special section has been compiled to serve as an entry into this area for the readers of Psychology and Aging. These articles are representative of the field and cover many of the issues faced by researchers in this area. This introduction presents some background into the techniques that are used and provides an overview of the articles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Season of birth and schizophrenia: A response to the Lewis and Griffin critique.

A number of studies have suggested that schizophrenics are particularly likely to have been born in the winter months. M. S. Lewis and T. A. Griffin (1981) have argued that this "seasonality" effect may be an artifact resulting from (a) the use of inappropriate expected values in calculating chi-squares; (b) the age–incidence effect—the tendency of risk to increase with time in disorders whose incidence increases with age; and (c) the age–prevalence effect—the fact that people born early in a reporting period have been at risk for any disease longer than those born later in that period. The birth months of 3,556 schizophrenics at a Minnesota VA hospital were studied before and after instituting corrections in expected values for year-to-year across-month variations in birthrates and for the age-prevalence bias toward the January–March seasonality effect. Data on a subset of patients in whom the age–incidence effect should be minimal were reanalyzed. Even after these corrections, results support the contention that the winter birthrate for schizophrenics is excessive, at least in severe climates. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Revising the redundancy principle in multimedia learning.

College students viewed a short multimedia PowerPoint presentation consisting of 16 narrated slides explaining lightning formation (Experiment 1) or 8 narrated slides explaining how a car's braking system works (Experiment 2). Each slide appeared for approximately 8-10 s and contained a diagram along with 1-2 sentences of narration spoken in a female voice. For some students (the redundant group), each slide also contained 2-3 printed words that were identical to the words in the narration, conveyed the main event described in the narration, and were placed next to the corresponding portion of the diagram. For other students (the nonredundant group), no on-screen text was presented. Results showed that the group whose presentation included short redundant phrases within the diagram outperformed the nonredundant group on a subsequent test of retention (d = 0.47 and 0.70, respectively) but not on transfer. Results are explained by R. E. Mayer's (2001, 2005a) cognitive theory of multimedia learning, in which the redundant text served to guide the learner's attention without priming extraneous processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fate and transport of viruses during sewage treatment in a mound system

Studies undertaken to assess the performance of filter materials to remove phosphorus in decentralised sewage systems have not reported on the broader performance of these systems. This study aimed to identify virus fate and transport mechanisms at the laboratory scale for comparison with field experiments on a mound system amended with blast furnace slag. Inactivation was a significant removal mechanism for MS2 bacteriophage, but not for PRD1 bacteriophage. Column studies identified rapid transport of PRD1. Laboratory studies predicted lower removal of PRD1 in a full scale system than was experienced in the field study, highlighting the importance of considering pH and flow rate in pathogen removal estimates. The results highlight the necessity for studying a range of organisms when assessing the potential for pathogen transport.