Last data update: Jun 17, 2024. (Total: 47034 publications since 2009)
Records 1-9 (of 9 Records) |
Query Trace: Dryer E [original query] |
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Development of a maturity assessment tool to evaluate and strengthen National Immunization Technical Advisory Groups (NITAGs)
Dryer E , Shefer A , Desai S , Rodewald L , Bastías M , El Omeiri N , Ndiaye S , Cook K , Henaff L , Kennedy E . Vaccine 2024 As dozens of new National Immunization Technical Advisory Groups (NITAGs) were established worldwide in the past decade, and as existing NITAGs continued to play an important role in vaccine policy, global NITAG partners recognized a need for a standardized assessment tool to evaluate and strengthen their functions. This article describes the development of the NITAG Maturity Assessment Tool (NMAT), a stepwise evaluation tool that assesses NITAGs on seven key indicators of structure and process. A draft tool was developed through an iterative, consensus-based process with an expert working group before it was piloted with an economically and geographically diverse convenience sample of NITAGs. The final NMAT is a flexible tool that can be used by in-country or external evaluators to understand NITAG maturity, identify priorities for optimization, and measure the impact of strengthening efforts. |
Personal protection measures to prevent tick bites in the United States: Knowledge gaps, challenges, and opportunities
Eisen L . Ticks Tick Borne Dis 2022 13 (4) 101944 Personal protection measures to prevent human tick encounters from resulting in bites are widely recommended as the first line of defense against health impacts associated with ticks. This includes using repellents, wearing untreated or permethrin-treated protective clothing, and conducting tick checks after coming inside, aided by removing outdoor clothing articles and running them in a dryer on high heat (to kill undetected ticks) and taking a shower/bath (to aid in detecting ticks on the skin). These measures have the benefit of incurring no or low cost, but they need to be used consistently to be most effective. In this paper, I review the level of use (acceptability combined with behavior) of the above-mentioned personal protection measures and their effectiveness to prevent tick bites and tick-borne disease. Studies on the level of use of personal protection measures to prevent tick bites have used different recruitment strategies, focused on different types of respondent populations, employed variable phrasings of survey questions relating to a given personal protection measure, and presented results based on variable frequencies of taking action. This complicates the synthesis of the findings, but the studies collectively indicate that members of the public commonly take action to prevent tick bites, most frequently by wearing untreated protective clothing or conducting tick checks (done routinely by 30 to 70% of respondents in most studies of the public), followed by showering/bathing after being outdoors or using repellents on skin/clothing (15 to 40% range), and with permethrin-treated clothing being the least frequently used tick bite prevention method (<5 to 20% range). A suite of experimental studies have shown that applying repellents or permethrin to coveralls or uniform-style clothing can result in decreased numbers of tick bites, but similar studies are lacking for members of the public wearing summer-weight clothing during normal daily activities. Moreover, a set of case-control and cross-sectional studies have explored associations between use of different personal protection measures to prevent tick bites and Lyme disease or other tick-borne infections. The results are mixed for each personal protection measure, with some studies indicating that regular use of the measure is associated with a reduction in tick-borne disease while other studies found no similar protective effect. One possible interpretation is that these personal protection measures can protect against tick-borne infection but the information gathered to date has not been sufficiently detailed to clarify the circumstances under which protection is achieved, especially with regards to frequency of use, parts of the body being protected, and use of combinations of two or more potentially protective measures. In conclusion, personal protection measures to prevent tick bites are used by the public and merit further study to better understand how they need to be used to have the greatest public health impact. |
The heat is on: killing blacklegged ticks in residential washers and dryers to prevent tickborne diseases
Nelson CA , Hayes CM , Markowitz MA , Flynn JJ , Graham AC , Delorey MJ , Mead PS , Dolan MC . Ticks Tick Borne Dis 2016 7 (5) 958-963 Reducing exposure to ticks can help prevent Lyme disease and other tickborne diseases. Although it is currently recommended to dry clothes on high heat for one hour to kill ticks on clothing after spending time outdoors, this recommendation is based on a single published study of tick survival under various washing conditions and a predetermined one-hour drying time. We conducted a series of tests to investigate the effects of temperature, humidity, and drying time on killing nymphal and adult blacklegged ticks (Ixodes scapularis). Muslin bags containing 5 ticks each were washed then dried or dried only with six cotton towels during each drying cycle. All nymphal and adult ticks were killed when exposed to wash cycles when the water temperature reached ≥54 degrees C (≥130 degrees F); however, 50% of ticks survived hot water washes when the water temperature was <54 degrees C. The majority (94%) of ticks survived warm washes [temperature range, 27-46 degrees C (80-115 degrees F)] and all ticks survived cold washes [15-27 degrees C (59-80 degrees F)]. When subsequently dried on high heat setting [54-85 degrees C (129-185 degrees F)], it took 50min to kill all ticks (95% confidence limit, 55min). Most significantly, we found that all adult and nymphal ticks died when placed directly in the dryer with dry towels and dried for 4min on high heat (95% confidence limit, 6min). We have identified effective, easily implemented methods to rid clothing of ticks after spending time outdoors. Placing clothing directly in a dryer and drying for a minimum of 6min on high heat will effectively kill ticks on clothing. If clothing is soiled and requires washing first, our results indicate clothing should be washed with water temperature ≥54 degrees C (≥130 degrees F) to kill ticks. When practiced with other tick-bite prevention methods, these techniques could further reduce the risk of acquiring tickborne diseases. |
Air sampling filtration media: Collection efficiency for respirable size-selective sampling
Soo J-C , Monaghan K , Lee T , Kashon M , Harper M . Aerosol Sci Technol 2015 50 (1) 76-87 The collection efficiencies of commonly used membrane air sampling filters in the ultrafine particle size range were investigated. Mixed cellulose ester (MCE; 0.45, 0.8, 1.2 and 5 microm pore sizes), polycarbonate (0.4, 0.8, 2 and 5 microm pore sizes), polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE; 0.45, 1, 2 and 5 microm pore sizes), polyvinyl chloride (PVC; 0.8 and 5 microm pore sizes) and silver membrane (0.45, 0.8, 1.2 and 5 microm pore sizes) filters were exposed to polydisperse sodium chloride (NaCl) particles in the size range of 10-400 nm. Test aerosols were nebulized and introduced into a calm air chamber through a diffusion dryer and aerosol neutralizer. The testing filters (37 mm diameter) were mounted in a conductive polypropylene filter-holder (cassette) within a metal testing tube. The experiments were conducted at flow rates between 1.7 and 11.2 l min-1. The particle size distributions of NaCl challenge aerosol were measured upstream and downstream of the test filters by a Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer (SMPS). Three different filters of each type with at least three repetitions for each pore size were tested. In general, the collection efficiency varied with airflow, pore size, and sampling duration. In addition, both collection efficiency and pressure drop increased with decreased pore size and increased sampling flow rate, but they differed among filter types and manufacturer. The present study confirmed that the MCE, PTFE and PVC filters have a relatively high collection efficiency for challenge particles much smaller than their nominal pore size and are considerably more efficient than polycarbonate and silver membrane filters, especially at larger nominal pore sizes. |
Noise impacts from professional dog grooming forced-air dryers
Scheifele PM , Johnson MT , Byrne DC , Clark JG , Vandlik A , Kretschmer LW , Sonstrom KE . Noise Health 2012 14 (60) 224-6 This study was designed to measure the sound output of four commonly used brands of forced-air dryers used by dog groomers in the United States. Many dog groomers have questions about the effect of this exposure on their hearing, as well as on the hearing of the dogs that are being groomed. Readings taken from each dryer at 1 meter (the likely distance of the dryer from the groomer and the dog) showed average levels ranging from 105.5 to 108.3 dB SPL or 94.8 to 108.0 dBA. Using the 90 dBA criterion required by the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration, dog groomers/bathers are at risk if exposure to the lowest intensity dryer (94.8 dBA) exceeds 4 hours per day. If the more stringent 85 dBA criterion and 3 dB tradeoff is applied, less than one hour of exposure is permissible in an 8 hour day. Cautions are recommended for any persons exposed to noise from forced-air dryers. |
Canadian adolescents and young adults with cancer: opportunity to improve coordination and level of care
De P , Ellison LF , Barr RD , Semenciw R , Marrett LD , Weir HK , Dryer D , Grunfeld E . CMAJ 2011 183 (3) (3) E187-E194 Cancers in adolescents and young adults (aged 15–29 years) represent a transition between the nonepithelial types, especially acute leukemias and embryonal tumours, that are common during childhood and the epithelial types (i.e., carcinomas) that account for most cancers in older adults. The embryonal tumours that are common in children, such as neuroblastoma, Wilms tumour, retinoblastoma, medulloblastoma and hepatoblastoma, are rare among adolescents and young adults. Similarly, the most common carcinomas in older adults, such as lung, breast, prostate and colorectal cancers, have a much lower incidence among young people. The differences relative to other age groups is such that the classification system used to report cancer incidence in adolescents and young adults is a blend of those used for cancers in childhood and adult life.1 | Adolescents and young adults account for about 2% of all patients with a new diagnosis of invasive cancer in Canada.2 Although the annual number of cases is small relative to those in older adults, a diagnosis of cancer during adolescence or young adulthood can have a major impact on future quality of life and life expectancy, as well as disrupting normal trajectories of development (e.g., physical, psychological and social) and life goals related to family and careers.3 Self-image among young cancer patients can be compromised by the adverse effects of therapy (e.g., loss of hair, gain or loss of weight, impairment of sexuality, mutilating surgery). Social relationships are also challenged by the strain caused by a diagnosis of cancer and subsequent therapy. Medical professionals are often ill-equipped to deal with the psychosocial challenges faced by young people with cancer. |
Variability of the polymerase gene (NS5B) in HCV-infected women
Blackard JT , Ma G , Limketkai BN , Welge JA , Dryer PD , Martin CM , Hiasa Y , Taylor LE , Mayer KH , Jamieson DJ , Sherman KE . J Clin Microbiol 2010 48 (11) 4256-9 ![]() There are limited data on diversity within the HCV polymerase (NS5B). In concordance with its key functional role during the life cycle, NS5B intrapatient variability was low. Moreover, NS5B dN-dS values were positively correlated with CD4 cell count, while non-synonymous mutations were strongly correlated with reduced replication in vivo. |
Influence of artificial gastric juice composition on bioaccessibility of cobalt- and tungsten-containing powders
Stefaniak AB , Abbas Virji M , Harvey CJ , Sbarra DC , Day GA , Hoover MD . Int J Hyg Environ Health 2010 213 (2) 107-15 The dissolution of metal-containing particles in the gastric compartment is poorly understood. The purpose of this study was to elucidate the influence of artificial gastric juice chemical composition on bioaccessibility of metals associated with ingestion-based health concerns. Dissolution rates were evaluated for well-characterized feedstock cobalt, tungsten metal, and tungsten carbide powders, chemically bonded pre-sintered (spray dryer material) and post-sintered (chamfer grinder) cemented tungsten carbide materials, and an admixture of pure cobalt and pure tungsten carbide, prepared by mechanically blending the two feedstock powders. Dissolution of each study material was evaluated in three different formulations of artificial gastric juice (from simplest to most chemically complex): American Society of Testing Materials (ASTM), U.S. Pharmacopoeia (USP), and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Approximately 20% of cobalt dissolved in the first dissolution phase (t(1/2) = 0.02 days) and the remaining 80% was released in the second long-term dissolution phase (t(1/2) = 0.5 to 1 days). Artificial gastric juice chemical composition did not influence dissolution rate constant values (k, g/cm(2)day) of cobalt powder, either alone or as an admixture. Approximately 100% of the tungsten and tungsten carbide that dissolved was released in a single dissolution phase; k-values of each material differed significantly in the solvents: NIOSH > ASTM > USP (p<0.05). The k-values of cobalt and tungsten carbide in pre- and post-sintered cemented tungsten carbide powders were significantly different from values for the pure feedstock powders. Solvent composition had little influence on oral bioaccessibility of highly soluble cobalt and our data support consideration of the oral exposure route as a contributing pathway to total-body exposure. Solvent composition appeared to influence bioaccessibility of the low soluble tungsten compounds, though differences may be due to variability in the data associated with the small masses of materials that dissolved. Nonetheless, ingestion exposure may not contribute appreciably to total body burden given the short residence time of material in the stomach and relatively long dissolution half-times of these materials (t(1/2) = 60 to 380 days). |
Comparison of free radical generation by pre- and post-sintered cemented carbide particles
Stefaniak AB , Harvey CJ , Bukowski VC , Leonard SS . J Occup Environ Hyg 2010 7 (1) 23-34 Rapid generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) may occur in response to cellular contact with metal particles. Generation of ROS by cobalt and/or tungsten carbide is implicated in causing hard metal lung disease (HMD) and allergic contact dermatitis (ACD). In this study, ROS generation and particle properties that influence radical generation were assessed for three sizes of tungsten, tungsten carbide, cobalt, admixture (tungsten carbide and cobalt powders), spray dryer, and post-sintered chamfer grinder powders using chemical (H(2)O(2) plus phosphate buffered saline, artificial lung surfactant, or artificial sweat) and cellular (RAW 264.7 mouse peritoneal monocytes plus artificial lung surfactant) reaction systems. For a given material, on a mass basis, hydroxyl (.OH) generation generally increased as particle size decreased; however, on a surface area basis, radical generation levels were more, but not completely, similar. Chamfer grinder powder, polycrystalline aggregates of tungsten carbide in a metallic cobalt matrix, generated the highest levels of .OH radicals (p < 0.05). Radical generation was not dependent on the masses of metals, rather, it involved surface-chemistry-mediated reactions that were limited to a biologically active fraction of the total available surface area of each material. Improved understanding of particle surface chemistry elucidated the importance of biologically active surface area in generation of ROS by particle mixtures. |
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