Explore the vast range of titles available.

Recent data from HIV prevention trials conducted with sero-discordant couples suggest that HIV transmission drops when the infected individual is taking anti-retroviral medications (ARV). However, there is potential for unintended social and behavioural consequences of this and other interventions. Using the HIV treatment cascade as a lens, the review will cover individual and population-level data in HIV and STD prevention research with a view to identifying such consequences of intervention. Although the focus will be upon risk compensation as a potential consequence of HIV treatment, the review will also attend to potential positive social and behavioural consequences. With respect to data from which to predict social and behavioural consequences, the majority of HIV and STD prevention interventions are conducted through small groups or on a one-to-one basis (e.g., in clinical settings), rather than at the population level. Most are concerned explicitly with risk reduction behaviours or address the behaviours essential to successful biomedical intervention. Population-level interventions are rarer, but do include communication campaigns and efforts to affect HIV or STD through social determinants. With respect to risk compensation, some studies explicitly address risk compensation, while others have sufficient behavioural follow-up data from which to measure it - the unintended measurement of unintended consequences. Fewer studies permit one to attribute effects to different potential causes of risk compensation, including risk homeostasis, overestimation of protection, or the intentional resumption of previous behaviour patterns. The final part of the review is devoted to approaches that seek to minimise negative consequences or to maximise positive consequences, the latter arising when an intervention gives people hope where they once had little or none, and leading to further individual efforts to protect themselves and others (including changes in risk homeostasis). Positively-framed communication campaigns in particular may accelerate efforts and further population-level protective action and health promotion.

Background Population-level rates of sexual health indicators such as STI rates have stimulated interest in a public health approach to improving sexual health in the United States. We used several existing definitions (World Health Organization, U.S Surgeon-General’s office, CDC/HRSA Advisory Committee) to derive sexual health principles: recognition of sexuality as intrinsic to individual health and relationships should have positive outcomes for all partners involved. Methods Studies for a systematic review of intervention literature were drawn from Medline and PsycInfo databases (English language, adult populations, published between 1996–2011, country with developed public health infrastructure). They addressed outcomes in one or more domains: knowledge, attitudes, communication, healthcare use, sexual behaviours or adverse events. Data were summarised in a narrative review organised by population (adults, parents, sexual minorities, vulnerable populations) across domains. Selected data from knowledge, attitudes and behaviours were summarised in meta-analyses. Results From 9064 studies, 58 were retained in the narrative review. Studies employed qualitative, experimental, pre-post and matched comparison group designs; the number of studies published was correlated with publication year (r = 0.77, p < 0.001). Interventions were predominantly individual and small-group in-person designs that addressed sexual behaviours (42 studies, 72%) and attitudes/norms (32, 55%). Studies with parents covered communication. All but one study reported at least one positive finding, but many (29 studies, 50%) also reported null findings. The most consistent positive effects on behaviours and adverse events were found for sexual minorities and vulnerable populations; interventions with parents uniformly increased attitudes and communication skills. Conclusions Sexual health-framed interventions generate positive effects across adult populations, as well as mental and behavioural domains and adverse outcomes. Interventions may be especially effective among vulnerable populations and in improving parent communication. Where scalable, incorporating aspects of existing sexual health definitions into public health may contribute to improving sexual health.

Partner notification, a principal means of controlling sexually transmitted diseases, has traditionally been performed by public health professionals. They interview infected persons and contact the sex partners of these persons to notify them and convince them of the need to seek evaluation and treatment (known as “provider referral”). This notification method is labor intensive; the typical alternative to provider referral is to leave notification to the infected person (known as “patient referral”). However, innovations in partner notification, often created by public health professionals responsible for the practice, have yielded adjuncts and complements to both provider and patient referral. The present review article covers 4 areas of innovation: (1) enhancements to patient referral instructions and provider interview techniques, (2) use of the Internet in partner notification, (3) the emerging influence of network methods, and (4) expedited partner therapy, principally through patient-delivered medications or prescriptions. Partner notification remains necessary, and flexibility, openness to the use of multiple methods, and collaboration are likely to be helpful.

Phonological awareness, letter knowledge, oral language (including sentence recall) and rapid automatised naming are acknowledged within-child predictors of literacy development. Separate research has identified family factors including socio-economic status, parents' level of education and family history. However, both approaches have left unexplained significant amounts of variance in literacy outcomes. This longitudinal study sought to improve prospective classification accuracy for young children at risk of literacy failure by adding two new family measures (parents' phonological awareness and parents' perceived self-efficacy), and then combining the within-child and family factors. Pre-literacy skills were measured in 102 four year olds (46 girls and 56 boys) at the beginning of Preschool, and then at the beginning and end of Kindergarten, when rapid automatised naming was also measured. Family factors data were collected at the beginning of Preschool, and children's literacy outcomes were measured at the end of Year 1 (age 6-7 years). Children from high-risk backgrounds showed poorer literacy outcomes than low-risk students, though three family factors (school socio-economic status, parents' phonological awareness, and family history) typically accounted for less Year 1 variance than the within-child factors. Combining these family factors with the end of Kindergarten within-child factors provided the most accurate classification (i.e., sensitivity = .85; specificity = .90; overall correct = .88). Our approach would identify at-risk children for intervention before they began to fail. Moreover, it would be cost-effective because although few at-risk children would be missed, allocation of unnecessary educational resources would be minimised.

Patients being treated for gonorrhea or chlamydia were offered medication to give to their sexual partners or standard referral of partners. There was a lower rate of recurrent or persistent gonorrhea among the patients with expedited treatment of partners than among those with standard referral of partners (10 percent vs. 13 percent). This strategy had a smaller effect on recurrent chlamydial infection than on recurrent gonorrhea. There was a lower rate of recurrent or persistent gonorrhea among the patients with expedited treatment of partners than among those with standard referral of partners. Partner notification, the process of informing and treating the sex partners of patients with sexually transmitted infections, has been a centerpiece of U.S. efforts to control sexually transmitted infections since the 1940s. 1 However, in areas with the highest rates of sexually transmitted infections in the United States, public health departments provide partner-notification services for less than 20 percent of patients with gonorrhea or chlamydial infection, leaving most patients to arrange their partners' treatment without assistance. 2 , 3 Many, and perhaps most, such partners do not receive treatment after their partner's diagnosis, 4 – 8 and reinfection and further transmission are common. 6 , 9 – . . .

It has been proposed that specific language impairment (SLI) is caused by an impairment of auditory processing, but it is unclear whether this problem affects temporal processing, frequency discrimination (FD), or both. Furthermore, there are few longitudinal studies in this area, making it hard to establish whether any deficit represents a developmental lag or a more permanent deficit. To address these issues, the authors retested a group of 10 children with SLI and 12 control children first tested 42 months previously. At Time 1, the children with SLI (between 9 and 12 years of age) had significantly elevated FD thresholds compared to the matched controls. At Time 2, the thresholds of both groups had improved, but the children with SLI still had poorer FD thresholds than those of the controls. To assess temporal resolution, auditory backward masking was measured and it was found that most of the children with SLI performed as well as the controls, but 2 children had exceptionally high thresholds. There was also greater variability among the children with SLI compared to that measured among the controls on the FD task. These studies indicate considerable heterogeneity in auditory function among children with SLI and suggest that, as with auditory temporal deficits, difficulties in FD discrimination are important in this population.

BackgroundNovel approaches to monitoring sexually transmitted infections (STI) may contribute to understanding of STI rates and associated behaviors, especially during the coronavirus (COVID)-19 pandemic, when healthcare and surveillance systems are likely affected. Therefore, we explored public interest in STI-related internet search terms from 2019–2020.MethodsWe downloaded Google Trends data for the United States (US) to capture number of searches including at least one of 64 search terms within four STI-related categories (STIs, symptoms, testing, and treatment) from January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2020. We expressed search interest across weeks as the unit of analysis, with scores normalized from 0–100; 100 represents the week with the most search interest for each variable.ResultsFor many STI-related search terms, interest dropped in March 2020 (when most states deployed COVID mitigation measures), increased later in the year, but did not increase to pre-pandemic interest. For example, ‘chlamydia’ ranged from 73–100 from January 2019-February 2020, dropped to a low of 55 in mid-April before increasing to values between 59–79 through December. Only a few search terms did not change during the pandemic. For example, besides one peak week of 100, ‘syphilis’ ranged from 21–35. Although the COVID-19 pandemic shifted interest away from STIs for spring and summer of 2020, most search terms remained used throughout July to December 2020 (ranges for chlamydia: 60–79, gonorrhea: 32–44, herpes: 44–55, HPV: 38–57, STD: 60–92, and STI: 58–80).ConclusionsIn the US, internet searches for STI-related terms prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic dropped from March through fall 2020. Concerns over STI symptoms, testing, and treatment increased by fall and winter 2020, which may indicate a need for access to STI services. Google Trends is a novel way to understand public interest in health topics, especially during a global pandemic.

The use of a polygenic risk score to screen for prostate cancer was assessed. Of the 468 persons in at least the 90th percentile of genetic risk who underwent MRI and prostate biopsy, 187 (40.0%) had prostate cancer.

Rates of reported gonorrhea and chlamydial infections have increased substantially over the past decade in the USA and disparities persist across age and race/ethnicity. We aimed to understand potential changes in sexual behaviors, sexual network attributes, and sexually transmitted infection (STI) screening that may be contributing to these trends. We analyzed data from 29,423 female and 24,605 male respondents ages 15–44 years from the National Survey of Family Growth, 2008–2019. We used survey-weighted linear or logistic regression to evaluate linear temporal trends in sexual behaviors with opposite-sex partners, network attributes, and STI testing, treatment, and diagnosis. Significant declines were observed in condom use at last vaginal sex, mean number of vaginal sex acts, proportion of condom-protected sex acts in the past 4 weeks, and racial/ethnic homophily with current partners among males and females from 2008–2010 through 2017–2019. Among males, mean number of female partners in the past 12 months and concurrency also declined, while the percent reporting ever having sex with another male increased. Past-year testing for chlamydia and any STI increased among females. Research is needed to understand how these changes interact and potentially contribute to increasing reported gonorrhea and chlamydia diagnoses and identify avenues for future intervention.