The influence of parent-child gender on intentions to refuse HPV vaccination due to safety concerns/side effects, National Immunization Survey - Teen, 2010-2019

Amid subpar uptake of HPV vaccination in the United States, gender-generated disparities in HPV vaccination uptake have the potential to perpetuate existing disparities in HPV-associated cancers. Yet few studies have investigated the influence of parent-child gender on intentions to refuse HPV vaccination due to safety concerns/side effects. This study used nationally representative data, spanning 2010-2019, from the National Immunization Survey-Teen (NIS-Teen). NIS-Teen respondents are parents/guardians or primary caregivers of adolescents 13-17 years old living in the United States. Over the study period, intentions to refuse HPV vaccination due to safety concerns rose among all parent-child gender pairings but were highest among respondent mothers regarding their unvaccinated daughters. The results revealed a statistically significant increased likelihood of having intentions to refuse HPV vaccination due to safety concerns among all parent-child combinations compared with father-son pairs. These odds were consistently highest among mother-daughter pairs. In 2019, compared with father-son pairs, fathers were 1.94 (95% CI: 1.21-3.12) times more likely to report the intention to not vaccinate against HPV for their daughters, while mothers were 2.23 (95% CI: 1.57-3.17) and 2.87 (95% CI: 2.02-4.09) times more likely to report intentions to refuse HPV vaccination for their sons and daughters, respectively. These findings were persistent and constantly increased over the 10-year study period. Interventions aimed at correcting gender-based misperceptions and countering misinformation about the safety of the HPV vaccine are warranted.

Safety Concerns or Adverse Effects as the Main Reason for Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Refusal: National Immunization Survey-Teen, 2008 to 2019

This secondary analysis assesses safety concerns and adverse effects as reported reasons for HPV vaccine refusal.

Political Ideology and the Support or Opposition to United States Tobacco Control Policies

This cross-sectional study examines the association between US adults’ self-reported political ideology and support of or opposition to policies that limit visibility and restrict advertisement of tobacco products.

Identifying demographic and psychosocial factors related to the escalation of smoking behavior among Mexican American adolescents

Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States; smoking in Mexican American adolescents, a rapidly growing population, remains a major concern. Factors associated with escalation or progression along the smoking trajectory have not been studied in adolescent Mexican Americans. A better understanding of escalation is needed for cancer prevention and overall health. N=1,328 Mexican American adolescents joined a cohort in 2005-06. At baseline participants provided demographic, acculturation and psychosocial data, and reported their smoking status using the Minnesota Smoking Index. Those that never tried a cigarette or only had a few puffs in their life were included in this study. The primary outcome of interest, escalation in smoking status, was defined as moving up the Minnesota Smoking Index by 2010-2011. The current analysis is based on 973 participants of whom 48.2% were male, mean age=11.8 (SD=0.8), and 26.0% were born in Mexico. By 2010-2011, 283 (29%) escalated their smoking status and 690 (71%) remained the same. Being older (OR=1.30; CI=1.07-1.57), male (OR=1.88, CI=1.40-2.53), having higher levels of anxiety (OR=1.03, CI=1.02-1.05), intending to smoke (OR=1.70, CI=1.18-2.46), having friends who smoke (OR=1.73, CI=1.12-2.70) and having parents' friends who smoke (OR=1.38, CI=1.02-1.88) increased risk for smoking escalation. Higher levels of subjective social status (OR=0.91, CI=0.83-0.99) were protective against smoking escalation. Contrasting previous work in smoking experimentation, parents' friends influence was a stronger predictor than the family household influence. Preventative interventions for Mexican American youth could address this risk factor to reduce smoking escalation.

Placenta in PIH

A variety of changes in placental villi are known to occur in Pregnancy Induced Hypertension. In this study an attempt is made to study 49 placentae from PIH and its correlation to perinatal outcome. Quantification of villous lesions was carried out. The striking villious changes were cytotrophoblastic proliferation, paucity of vasculosyncytial membrane, trophoblastic basement membrane thickening and fibrinoid necrosis of villi. The changes were directly proportional to the severity of disease and perinatal outcome was worse with advancing grades of PIH.

Kasabach-Merritt syndrome: a case report

Kasabach-Meritt syndrome is a combination of thromobocytopenia, hemolytic anemia, and acute or chronic consumptive coagulopathy in association with rapidly enlarging hemangioma. A male infant of 5 days was admitted in paediatric ward with this syndrome. The baby had ecchymotic patches over face and extremities and bleeding through umbilical stump. The child expired due to severe thrombocytopenia with consumptive coagulopathy leading to precipituous hemorrhage superimposed by septicemia. An autopsy was performed which confirmed retroperitoneal lesion as kaposiform hemangioendothelioma.

Modeling age x major gene interaction by a variance component approach

The variance component method has become popular for linkage analysis due to its computational simplicity and generally high power. In this paper we model phenotypic variability of an individual as a mixed effects model in which both the major gene as well as the polygene effects interact with age. We applied the proposed model to the simulated data of Genetic Analysis Workshop 12. We considered the quantitative trait, Q4, in the outbred population. Two major genes influence this trait, each interacting with age independently. Consequently, trait variability is a function of age and also there is interaction of major gene effects with age. By using our model we were able to detect interaction between the major gene effects and age for this trait.

Familial thoracic aortic aneurysms and dissections: genetic heterogeneity with a major locus mapping to 5q13-14

BACKGROUND

Aneurysms and dissections affecting the ascending aorta are associated primarily with degeneration of the aortic media, called medial necrosis. Families identified with dominant inheritance of thoracic aortic aneurysms and dissections (TAA/dissections) indicate that single gene mutations can cause medial necrosis in the absence of an associated syndrome.

METHODS AND RESULTS

Fifteen families were identified with multiple members with TAAs/dissections. DNA from affected members from 2 of the families was used for a genome-wide search for the location of the defective gene by use of random polymorphic markers. The data were analyzed by the affected-pedigree-member method of linkage analysis. This analysis revealed 3 chromosomal loci with multiple markers demonstrating evidence of linkage to the phenotype. Linkage analysis using further markers in these regions and DNA from 15 families confirmed linkage of some of the families to 5q13-14. Genetic heterogeneity for the condition was confirmed by a heterogeneity test. Data from 9 families with the highest conditional probability of being linked to 5q were used to calculate the pairwise and multipoint logarithm of the odds (LOD) scores, with a maximum LOD of 4.74, with no recombination being obtained for the marker D5S2029. In 6 families, the phenotype was not linked to the 5q locus.

CONCLUSIONS

A major locus for familial TAAs and dissections maps to 5q13-14, with the majority (9 of 15) of the families identified demonstrating evidence of linkage to this locus. The condition is genetically heterogeneous, with 6 families not demonstrating evidence of linkage to any loci previously associated with aneurysm formation.

Parallel computation of a maximum-likelihood estimator of a physical map

Reconstructing a physical map of a chromosome from a genomic library presents a central computational problem in genetics. Physical map reconstruction in the presence of errors is a problem of high computational complexity that provides the motivation for parallel computing. Parallelization strategies for a maximum-likelihood estimation-based approach to physical map reconstruction are presented. The estimation procedure entails a gradient descent search for determining the optimal spacings between probes for a given probe ordering. The optimal probe ordering is determined using a stochastic optimization algorithm such as simulated annealing or microcanonical annealing. A two-level parallelization strategy is proposed wherein the gradient descent search is parallelized at the lower level and the stochastic optimization algorithm is simultaneously parallelized at the higher level. Implementation and experimental results on a distributed-memory multiprocessor cluster running the parallel virtual machine (PVM) environment are presented using simulated and real hybridization data.