Prenatal Exposures

Prenatal Exposures
Author: Roy P. Martin
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 283
Release: 2008-02-01
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0387743987

In this first compendium in the growing literature of behavioral teratology, readers will discover an easy-to-access, concise presentation that covers a huge range of subjects. The book synthesizes important findings that help explain why prenatal events may result in abnormal behavior and learning disabilities later in life. It goes further to examine the role of prenatal perturbations in conditions as varied as dyslexia, schizophrenia, fetal alcohol syndrome, and autism.

The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids

The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 487
Release: 2017-03-31
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0309453070

Significant changes have taken place in the policy landscape surrounding cannabis legalization, production, and use. During the past 20 years, 25 states and the District of Columbia have legalized cannabis and/or cannabidiol (a component of cannabis) for medical conditions or retail sales at the state level and 4 states have legalized both the medical and recreational use of cannabis. These landmark changes in policy have impacted cannabis use patterns and perceived levels of risk. However, despite this changing landscape, evidence regarding the short- and long-term health effects of cannabis use remains elusive. While a myriad of studies have examined cannabis use in all its various forms, often these research conclusions are not appropriately synthesized, translated for, or communicated to policy makers, health care providers, state health officials, or other stakeholders who have been charged with influencing and enacting policies, procedures, and laws related to cannabis use. Unlike other controlled substances such as alcohol or tobacco, no accepted standards for safe use or appropriate dose are available to help guide individuals as they make choices regarding the issues of if, when, where, and how to use cannabis safely and, in regard to therapeutic uses, effectively. Shifting public sentiment, conflicting and impeded scientific research, and legislative battles have fueled the debate about what, if any, harms or benefits can be attributed to the use of cannabis or its derivatives, and this lack of aggregated knowledge has broad public health implications. The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids provides a comprehensive review of scientific evidence related to the health effects and potential therapeutic benefits of cannabis. This report provides a research agendaâ€"outlining gaps in current knowledge and opportunities for providing additional insight into these issuesâ€"that summarizes and prioritizes pressing research needs.

Prenatal Alcohol Exposure

Prenatal Alcohol Exposure
Author: Mansfield Mela
Publisher:
Total Pages: 472
Release: 2021
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9781615373697

Prenatal Alcohol Exposure: A Clinician's Guide provides comprehensive, clinically relevant information for mental health practitioners and professionals in educational, vocational, legal, child welfare, and correctional settings who may encounter individuals with a "hidden disability" that compromises their success in career, family, and life. The author is a noted scholar and clinician in the field of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), and the book fills a glaring gap in the training literature on prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE). Lacking a diagnosis and the professional assistance they so desperately need, people with FASD can experience great frustration and suffering. Many are institutionalized unnecessarily or have entered the criminal justice system. Drawing upon evidence-based research and employing the most current assessment techniques and treatment strategies, the book aims to help the reader understand that pathophysiology is key to interpreting outcomes and that the effects of PAE vary according to the differential impacts of other biopsychosocial factors. The book emphasizes the need for individual clinicians to develop expert knowledge of PAE, rather than create new alternative services or systems to cater to these patients. Beautifully written and clinically rich, the guide offers in-depth coverage of essential topics: * Through the use of clinical vignettes, the book helps clinicians work through differential diagnoses, recognize the "red flags" that individuals with PAE may exhibit, and implement evidence- and practice-based modifications to care that help patients improve and even thrive.* Over the five decades that the complications of PAE have been recognized in the scientific literature, the terms used to describe the entities have changed. The book helps readers understand this nosological evolution and recognize the bridging of FASD in the interface of PAE and its mental disorder sequelae.* The section on assessment and diagnosis covers the latest techniques, including neuroimaging and psychological testing, both of which are promising although not yet reliable, and laboratory testing for general screening, diagnostic confirmation, monitoring, and risk management.* Chapters are included on pharmacological intervention, which reviews both medications currently in use and those requiring further study and psychological treatment, which focuses on interventions to replace deficits with techniques that correct affect regulation, executive dysfunction, and impulsivity.* Strategies and programs that enhance quality of life, ensure interdependence, and are socially responsible and inclusive are explored in a chapter on the "critical success factors." Proper diagnosis of FASD is fraught with difficulty, and clinicians need specialized knowledge to navigate the red herrings and red flags. Prenatal Alcohol Exposure: A Clinician's Guide equips professionals with the requisite skills and clinical acumen to identify individuals with PAE and provide them with optimum care.

Registries for Evaluating Patient Outcomes

Registries for Evaluating Patient Outcomes
Author: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality/AHRQ
Publisher: Government Printing Office
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2014-04-01
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1587634333

This User’s Guide is intended to support the design, implementation, analysis, interpretation, and quality evaluation of registries created to increase understanding of patient outcomes. For the purposes of this guide, a patient registry is an organized system that uses observational study methods to collect uniform data (clinical and other) to evaluate specified outcomes for a population defined by a particular disease, condition, or exposure, and that serves one or more predetermined scientific, clinical, or policy purposes. A registry database is a file (or files) derived from the registry. Although registries can serve many purposes, this guide focuses on registries created for one or more of the following purposes: to describe the natural history of disease, to determine clinical effectiveness or cost-effectiveness of health care products and services, to measure or monitor safety and harm, and/or to measure quality of care. Registries are classified according to how their populations are defined. For example, product registries include patients who have been exposed to biopharmaceutical products or medical devices. Health services registries consist of patients who have had a common procedure, clinical encounter, or hospitalization. Disease or condition registries are defined by patients having the same diagnosis, such as cystic fibrosis or heart failure. The User’s Guide was created by researchers affiliated with AHRQ’s Effective Health Care Program, particularly those who participated in AHRQ’s DEcIDE (Developing Evidence to Inform Decisions About Effectiveness) program. Chapters were subject to multiple internal and external independent reviews.

Catalog of Teratogenic Agents

Catalog of Teratogenic Agents
Author: Thomas H. Shepard
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 564
Release: 2004
Genre: Teratogenic agents
ISBN: 9780801879531

Links information on experimental teratogenic agents with the congenital defects in human beings.

The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke

The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 736
Release: 2006
Genre: Passive smoking
ISBN:

This Surgeon General's report returns to the topic of the health effects of involuntary exposure to tobacco smoke. The last comprehensive review of this evidence by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) was in the 1986 Surgeon General's report, The Health Consequences of Involuntary Smoking, published 20 years ago this year. This new report updates the evidence of the harmful effects of involuntary exposure to tobacco smoke. This large body of research findings is captured in an accompanying dynamic database that profiles key epidemiologic findings, and allows the evidence on health effects of exposure to tobacco smoke to be synthesized and updated (following the format of the 2004 report, The Health Consequences of Smoking). The database enables users to explore the data and studies supporting the conclusions in the report. The database is available on the Web site of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco.

Encyclopedia of Basic Epilepsy Research

Encyclopedia of Basic Epilepsy Research
Author:
Publisher: Academic Press
Total Pages: 1853
Release: 2009-05-27
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0123739616

As a truly translational area of biomedical investigation, epilepsy research spans an extraordinary breadth of subjects and involves virtually every tool that modern neuroscience has at its disposal. The Encyclopedia of Basic Epilepsy Research provides an up to date, comprehensive reference for all epilepsy researchers. With an expert list of authors, the encyclopedia covers the full spectrum of research activities from genes and molecules to animal models and human patients. The encyclopedia's electronic format also provides unparalleled access to frequent updates and additions, while the limited edition print version provides another option for owning this content. The Encyclopedia of Basic Epilepsy Research is an essential resource for researchers of all levels and clinicians who study epilepsy. The only comprehensive reference for basic research and current activities in epilepsy Electronic format provides fast and easy access to updates and additions, with limited print version available as well Contains over 85 articles, all written by experts in epilepsy research

Preterm Birth

Preterm Birth
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 791
Release: 2007-05-23
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 030910159X

The increasing prevalence of preterm birth in the United States is a complex public health problem that requires multifaceted solutions. Preterm birth is a cluster of problems with a set of overlapping factors of influence. Its causes may include individual-level behavioral and psychosocial factors, sociodemographic and neighborhood characteristics, environmental exposure, medical conditions, infertility treatments, and biological factors. Many of these factors co-occur, particularly in those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged or who are members of racial and ethnic minority groups. While advances in perinatal and neonatal care have improved survival for preterm infants, those infants who do survive have a greater risk than infants born at term for developmental disabilities, health problems, and poor growth. The birth of a preterm infant can also bring considerable emotional and economic costs to families and have implications for public-sector services, such as health insurance, educational, and other social support systems. Preterm Birth assesses the problem with respect to both its causes and outcomes. This book addresses the need for research involving clinical, basic, behavioral, and social science disciplines. By defining and addressing the health and economic consequences of premature birth, this book will be of particular interest to health care professionals, public health officials, policy makers, professional associations and clinical, basic, behavioral, and social science researchers.

Birth Settings in America

Birth Settings in America
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2020-05-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0309669820

The delivery of high quality and equitable care for both mothers and newborns is complex and requires efforts across many sectors. The United States spends more on childbirth than any other country in the world, yet outcomes are worse than other high-resource countries, and even worse for Black and Native American women. There are a variety of factors that influence childbirth, including social determinants such as income, educational levels, access to care, financing, transportation, structural racism and geographic variability in birth settings. It is important to reevaluate the United States' approach to maternal and newborn care through the lens of these factors across multiple disciplines. Birth Settings in America: Outcomes, Quality, Access, and Choice reviews and evaluates maternal and newborn care in the United States, the epidemiology of social and clinical risks in pregnancy and childbirth, birth settings research, and access to and choice of birth settings.

Misconceiving Mothers

Misconceiving Mothers
Author: Laura E. Gómez
Publisher: Temple University Press
Total Pages: 230
Release: 1997
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 9781566395588

A tiny African-American baby lies in a hospital incubator, tubes protruding from his nostrils, head, and limbs. "He couldn't take the hit," the caption warns. "If you're pregnant, don't take drugs." Ten years earlier, this billboard would have been largely unintelligible to many of us. But when it appeared in 1991, it immediately conjured up several powerful images: the helpless infant himself; his unseen environment, a newborn intensive care unit filled with babies crying inconsolably; and the mother who did this -- crack-addicted and unrepentant. Misconceiving Mothersis a case study of how public policy about reproduction and crime is made. Laura E. Goacute;mez uses secondary research and first-hand interviews with legislators and prosecutors to examine attitudes toward the criminalization and/or medicalization of drug use during pregnancy by the legislature and criminal justice system in California. She traces how an initial tendency toward criminalization gave way to a trend toward seeing the problem of "crack babies" as an issue of social welfare and public health. It is no surprise that in an atmosphere of mother-blaming, particularly targeted at poor women and women of color, "crack babies" so easily captured the American popular imagination in the late 1980s. What is surprising is the way prenatal drug exposure came to be institutionalized in the state apparatus. Goacute;mez attributes this circumstance to four interrelated causes: the gendered nature of the social problem; the recasting of the problem as fundamentally "medical" rather than "criminal"; the dynamic nature of the process of institutionalization; and the specific features of the legal institutions -- that is, the legislature and prosecutors' offices -- that became prominent in the case. At one levelMisconceiving Motherstells the story of a particular problem at a particular time and place how the California legislature and district attorneys grappled with pregnant women's drug use in the late 1980s and early 1990s. At another level, the book tells a more general story about the political nature of contemporary social problems. The story it tells is political not just because it deals with the character of political institutions but because the process itself and the nature of the claims-making concern the power to control the allocation of state resources. A number of studies have looked at how the initial criminalization of social problems takes place.Misconceiving Motherslooks at the process by which a criminalized social problem is institutionalized through the attitudes and policies of elite decision-makers. Author note: Laura E. Gomezis Acting Professor of Law and Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles.