Introduction: Childhood obesity is a public health crisis that increases the risk of lifelong obesity and associated conditions like hypertension, sleep apnea, Type II diabetes, depression, and social stigma. Diet-related diseases are worsened by high intake of ultra-processed foods and insufficient whole foods rich in fiber. Addressing food insecurity and promoting a healthy diet in early childcare settings is critical, especially in West Virginia, where food insecurity and childhood obesity rates are among the nation's highest. In 2023, the American Heart Association’s (AHA) Social Impact Fund supported Healthy Kids, Inc. (HKI) to implement a Child Nutrition Program in childcare centers in Morgantown, West Virginia. The program provided children with healthy meals to improve dietary behavior and health outcomes. Hypothesis: Implementing HKI’s Program would increase children's fruit and vegetable (F&V) consumption. Methods: The AHA Evaluation team conducted a mixed-methods evaluation from February to July 2024. Retrospective surveys were completed by parents/guardians of children in participating childcare centers, with 54 eligible responses. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five childcare center staff to assess the program's impact. Survey data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, and interviews were coded for themes related to outcomes and challenges. Results: Findings showed that over 90% of respondents (n=54) rated their child’s health as excellent or very good. Additionally, 60% of parents/guardians reported an increase in their child’s F&V consumption. The frequency of families eating healthy meals with their children increased, with 65% reporting they ate together more than five times a week after the program, compared to 44% before. Interviews with childcare center staff revealed positive experiences with the HKI Program, highlighting improved access to fresh, healthy meals, improved meal quality, and increased children’s willingness to try new foods. Conclusions: Findings from the pilot evaluation suggest that the HKI Program increased children’s F&V consumption and willingness to try new healthy foods. These findings indicate that community-driven nutrition programs can address children's and households' nutritional needs, highlighting the need for nutrition educational opportunities for families. Further research is needed to explore long-term effects and identify strategies for sustaining and scaling these outcomes.
Co-creation of a citizen-science research initiative with a collaborative team of community members and university-based scientists to address regional disparities in maternal and fetal health outcomes for Black birthing people. Citizen scientist-led projects, where community members actively contribute to each discovery step, from setting a research agenda to collecting data and disseminating results, can extend community participatory research initiatives and help reconceptualize traditional research processes. The Pregnancy Collaborative is a citizen-science research initiative and one of nine scientific committees of The Pittsburgh Study—a longitudinal, community-partnered study designed to bring together collaborators to improve child thriving. Ten community members and five university-based scientists participated during all phases of developing a citizen-scientist collaboration over an initial two-and-a-half-year period. Phases include forming the Pregnancy Collaborative and group research ethics training; co-creating a research agenda grounded in shared principles; and community-partnered data collection, analysis, and dissemination. These phases produced three key co-designed products: (1) a mission and vision statement of the Pregnancy Collaborative, (2) a Collaborative-endorsed research agenda, and (3) a citizen-scientist-executed research survey. Lessons learned from the formation of the Pregnancy Collaborative highlight the importance of equitable power distribution through bidirectional knowledge sharing and by centering intellectual effort, lived experience, and tools and resources of those affected by health inequities. Using a citizen science approach to co-designing and executing research helps us move maternal health inequity work from “research on” to “research with.” Persistent disparities characterize maternal and child health outcomes in the United States. These disparities, mediated by poverty, racism, and place-based social and structural determinants of health, are the biggest threats to Black maternal health. Recently, community-engaged efforts to improve Black maternal health disparities have moved towards cross-sector approaches that center the lived experiences of Black birthing people. Despite these comprehensive approaches, community members rarely participate throughout the research lifecycle. Citizen science-led projects like those described in this paper are one way to acknowledge and commit to bidirectional community-partnered research and action.
The U.S. EnvironmentalProtection Agency estimates thatthere areover 3.2 million abandoned wells in the United States. Studies conductedon gas emissions from abandoned wells have been limited to methane,a powerful greenhouse gas, due to concerns regarding climate change.However, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including benzene, a knownhuman carcinogen, are known to be associated with upstream oil andgas development and hence could also be released when methane is emittedto the atmosphere. In this investigation, we analyze gas from 48 abandonedwells in western Pennsylvania for fixed gases, light hydrocarbons,and VOCs and estimate associated emission rates. We demonstrate that(1) gas from abandoned wells contains VOCs, including benzene; (2)VOCs are emitted from abandoned wells, the magnitude of which dependson the flow rate and concentration of VOCs in the gas stream; and(3) nearly one-quarter of abandoned wells are located within 100 mof buildings, including residences, in Pennsylvania. Together, theseobservations indicate that further investigation is necessary to determinewhether emissions from abandoned wells pose an inhalation risk topeople living, working, or congregating near abandoned wells.
BACKGROUND AND AIM: Even at historically low air pollution concentrations in the US, pollutants are consistently associated with adverse health. To improve exposure assessment, spatio-temporal predictions are used, which possess inherent uncertainty. This uncertainty, however, is not commonly accounted for in health effects models. Uncertainty propagation is critical for comprehensively assessing air pollution impacts on health. We characterized the association between estimated annual PM2.5 concentrations and Medicare death rates in Washington State (WA) while fully propagating PM2.5 uncertainty. METHOD: We leveraged WA-wide annual all-cause death records for people ≥65 years (N=222,503) at the ZIP Code level from Medicare claims (2010–2015). We used the Bayesian Non-parametric Ensemble (BNE) to generate spatio-temporal PM2.5 concentrations and uncertainties, then used 500 random samples of annual ZIP Code-level PM2.5 concentrations from the BNE posterior distribution estimates. For each of the 500 WA-wide sample estimates, we fit a health model with a Bayesian formulation of the conditional Poisson model, adjusting for potential confounders. We then collected 2000 samples from each posterior health estimate (for 1,000,000 total samples) into a single pool for the final overall association incorporating uncertainty. RESULTS: In a preliminary analysis assuming a linear exposure-response relationship, we estimated an overall increase in death rates of 0.68% [95%CrI: 0.08%, 1.44%; 98.8% posterior probability of positive association] per 1µg/m3 increase in PM2.5 concentrations. 474 of 500 (95%) estimates had a 95% posterior probability of a positive association. CONCLUSIONS: During 2010–2015, when propagating the full spatio-temporal uncertainty in PM2.5 predicted concentrations in WA state, estimates of the positive association between PM2.5 concentrations and death rates were still positive indicating a consistently harmful association even at PM2.5 levels well below the newly proposed national standards.
