Maternal and Child Health Library
This and past issues of the MCH Alert are available at http://www.mchlibrary.info/alert/archives.html
November 20, 2009
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Special Notice: The Office of Disease Prevention and Health
Promotion of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has
announced a public comment period on the Healthy People 2020 national
health objectives. Public comments will be accepted through December
31, 2009. The Web site provides visitors with an opportunity to view
objectives and comment publicly or anonymously, review the
objective-development process, or search comments. More information is
available at http://www.healthypeople.gov/hp2020/comments.
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1. New Edition of Diabetes Knowledge Path Available
2. Research Brief Examines the Association Between
Parental Involvement and Adolescent Sexual Behaviors
3. Paper Explores Varied Strategies for Offering
Technical Assistance and Implications for Evaluation
4. Journal Supplement Highlights Approaches to the
Integrated Use of Data by STD Epidemiologists
5. Report Provides Recommendations Regarding School-Based
Dental Sealant Programs
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1. NEW EDITION OF DIABETES KNOWLEDGE PATH AVAILABLE
Diabetes in Children and Adolescents: Knowledge Path is an electronic
guide to resources about diabetes prevalence, diagnosis, management,
type 2 diabetes prevention, and pediatric diabetes research. The new
edition of the knowledge path, produced by the Maternal and Child
Health (MCH) Library at Georgetown University, contains information on
Web sites, publications, databases, and social media. Separate sections
address diabetes management in school, medications and monitoring,
nutrition, and physical activity. The knowledge path is intended for
use by health professionals, educators, program administrators,
researchers, and families, and it will be updated periodically. The
knowledge path is available at http://www.mchlibrary.info/KnowledgePaths/kp_diabetes.html.
MCH Library knowledge paths on other topics are available at
http://www.mchlibrary.info/KnowledgePaths/index.html. The MCH Library
welcomes feedback on the usefulness and value of these knowledge paths.
A feedback form is available at http://www.mchlibrary.info/feedback/index.html.
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2. RESEARCH BRIEF EXAMINES THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT
AND ADOLESCENT SEXUAL BEHAVIORS
Parents Matter: The Role of Parents in Teens' Decisions About Sex looks
at whether parental involvement in adolescence reduces the chances of
adolescents being sexually active at a young age. The research brief,
published by Child Trends, reports key findings from an analysis of
data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth -- 1997 cohort to
explore how parenting practices that occur before adolescents become
sexually active are associated with the probability of having had
sexual experience by age 16. The authors highlight several dimensions
of parental involvement in adolescents' lives, including
parent-adolescent relationship quality, parental awareness and
monitoring of whom their adolescents spend time with, and frequency of
eating dinner together as a family. The brief is available at http://www.childtrends.org/Files//Child_Trends-2009_11_11_RB_Parents&TeenSex.pdf.
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3. PAPER EXPLORES VARIED STRATEGIES FOR OFFERING TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
AND IMPLICATIONS FOR EVALUATION
Can You Hear Me Now? Evaluating Your Technical Assistance examines the
provision of technical assistance and training to encourage the
adoption of science-based approaches to preventing adolescent
pregnancy. The paper, published by the National Campaign, outlines
technical-assistance strategies including conferences, consultants,
dissemination of materials, facilitation, formal training, group
events, needs assessment, off-site support, and referrals to needed
resources. Challenges to evaluating technical assistance, outcomes of
technical assistance, using logic models in evaluating technical
assistance, and measurement and data collection are discussed. The
authors also offer guidelines for improving evaluations of
technical-assistance efforts. The paper is available at http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/resources/pdf/pubs/canyouhearmenow.pdf.
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4. JOURNAL SUPPLEMENT HIGHLIGHTS APPROACHES TO THE INTEGRATED USE OF
DATA BY STD EPIDEMIOLOGISTS
The supplement to the November-December 2009 issue of Public Health
Reports presents a selection of innovative strategies designed and
implemented between 1998 and 2005 to enhance the ability of public
health officials to use surveillance data to monitor sexually
transmitted diseases (STDs) in the United States and to respond to STD
trends. The supplement describes strategies that reflect the
collaborative efforts of the Outcome Assessment through Systems of
Integrated Surveillance (OASIS) Project workgroup, a group of public
health STD epidemiologists from local and state health departments and
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The articles discuss
efforts by the OASIS workgroup to enhance the public health value of
surveillance data by integrating activities among previously unlinked
surveillance systems, to use spatial data to improve understanding of
disease transmission within communities, and to promote various other
innovative means of improving disease monitoring and evaluation
activities. The supplement is available to subscribers at http://www.publichealthreports.org/archives/issuecontents.cfm?Volume=124&Issue=8.
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5. REPORT PROVIDES RECOMMENDATIONS ON SCHOOL-BASED DENTAL SEALANT
PROGRAMS
"These recommendations complement the ADA [American Dental Association]
sealant recommendations and are consistent with them on virtually all
topics," write the authors of an article published in the November 2009
issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association. Available data
show that children and adolescents ages 6-11 from families living below
the federal poverty threshold are almost twice as likely to have
developed dental caries in their permanent teeth as are children from
families with incomes greater than two times the federal poverty
threshold. Overall, about 90 percent of carious lesions are found in
the pits and fissures of permanent posterior teeth, with molars being
the most susceptible tooth type. Only about one in five children and
adolescents ages 6-11 from families living below the federal poverty
threshold has received dental sealants, compared with 40 percent of
their counterparts from families with incomes greater than two times
the poverty threshold. Significant disparities also exist according to
race and ethnicity, with non-Hispanic African-American (21 percent) and
Mexican-American (24 percent) children and adolescents less likely to
have received sealants than non-Hispanic white children and adolescents
(36 percent). School-based dental sealant programs (SBSPs) can be an
important intervention to increase the receipt of sealants, especially
among underserved children and adolescents. This report provides
updated recommendations for sealant use in SBSPs and provides
information about the evidence for SBSPs.
Recommendations are based on published findings of systematic reviews,
when available, as well as on information gathered at two Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) expert work group meetings. The
work group addressed questions about the following topics: (1)
effectiveness of sealants on sound and carious pit-and-fissure
surfaces, (2) methods for caries assessment before sealant application,
(3) effectiveness of selected placement techniques, and (4) risk of
developing caries in sealed teeth among children who might be lost to
follow-up and for whom sealant retention cannot be ensured. For topics
about which there were no existing reviews, CDC staff members conducted
analyses of the available evidence and published these results in
peer-reviewed journals.
The CDC workgroup recommendations are as follows:
- Indications for sealant placement: Seal sound and noncavitated
pit-and-fissure surfaces of posterior teeth, with first and second
permanent molars receiving highest priority.
- Tooth-surface assessment: Differentiate between cavitated and
noncavitated lesions.
- Sealant placement and evaluation: Clean the tooth surface. Use a
four-handed technique when resources allow. Seal children's teeth even
if follow-up cannot be ensured. Evaluate sealant retention within 1
year.
The authors conclude that "these updated recommendations . . . should
increase practitioners' awareness of the SBSP as an important and
effective public health approach that complements clinical care systems
in promoting the oral health of children and adolescents."
Gooch BF, Griffin SO, Kolavic G, et al. 2009. Preventing dental caries
through school-based sealant programs: Updated recommendations and
reviews of evidence. Journal of the American Dental Association
140(11):1356-1365. Full-text (open access) available at http://jada.ada.org/cgi/reprint/140/11/1356.
Readers: More information is available from the following MCH Library
resource:
- Oral Health for Infants, Children, Adolescents, and Pregnant Women:
Knowledge Path at
http://www.mchlibrary.info/KnowledgePaths/kp_oralhealth.html
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and
Child Health and Georgetown University. MCH Alert is produced by
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