Cigarette smoking is disproportionately high among people experiencing homelessness (PEH). Contingency management (CM) is a strategy that has shown considerable efficacy for smoking cessation and has ...been used in short-term studies of smoking abstinence in PEH. We describe a pilot, pragmatic randomized controlled trial protocol, which leverages an electronic health record (EHR) infrastructure to assess the feasibility and acceptability of an extended CM intervention to improve long-term abstinence in PEH.
We will conduct the study at three safety-net clinics in San Francisco among 90 adults experiencing homelessness who smoke cigarettes currently and have a desire to quit. We will encourage all participants to receive smoking cessation services that include behavioral counseling and pharmacotherapy through their clinics. We will randomly assign participants to an extended CM intervention group with escalating incentives contingent on abstinence or to a control group with fixed incentives for attending study visits. We will use the EHR to recruit participants, track receipt of counseling and pharmacotherapy during clinical care, and communicate with providers on participants' progress. CM participants will get escalating incentives for demonstration of carbon monoxide-verified abstinence over 6 months, with a total possible earnings of $475. Control participants will receive a fixed incentive of $5 for attending study visits, totaling $125. We will conduct the carbon-monoxide verified abstinence assessments-which will determine CM incentive amounts-daily during week 1, bi-weekly through week 4, weekly through week 13, and monthly through week 24. Measures of feasibility and acceptability, both quantitative and qualitative, will include assessments of screening and recruitment, adherence to study visits, engagement in smoking cessation clinical care, retention, and participant satisfaction. One of the primary clinical outcomes will be biochemically verified 7-day point prevalence abstinence at 6 months. We will measure secondary outcomes, which will include 7-day point prevalence abstinence at 2 weeks, 3 and 12 months.
This trial will allow us to assess the feasibility and acceptability of a CM cessation intervention among PEH. The protocol's clinical setting and use of EHRs gives it significant potential for scalability. If found to be feasible, acceptable, and subsequently efficacious in a larger trial, the intervention could reduce tobacco-related health disparities by increasing long-term smoking abstinence among this vulnerable population.
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04982952. Registered on July 29, 2021.
We evaluated the efficacy of a motivational tobacco cessation treatment combined with nicotine replacement relative to usual care initiated in inpatient psychiatry.
We randomized participants (n = ...224; 79% recruitment rate) recruited from a locked acute psychiatry unit with a 100% smoking ban to intervention or usual care. Prior to hospitalization, participants averaged 19 (SD = 12) cigarettes per day; only 16% intended to quit smoking in the next 30 days. Results. Verified smoking 7-day point prevalence abstinence was significantly higher for intervention than usual care at month 3 (13.9% vs 3.2%), 6 (14.4% vs 6.5%), 12 (19.4% vs 10.9%), and 18 (20.0% vs 7.7%; odds ratio OR = 3.15; 95% confidence interval CI = 1.22, 8.14; P = .018; retention > 80%). Psychiatric measures did not predict abstinence; measures of motivation and tobacco dependence did. The usual care group had a significantly greater likelihood than the intervention group of psychiatric rehospitalization (adjusted OR = 1.92; 95% CI = 1.06, 3.49).
The findings support initiation of motivationally tailored tobacco cessation treatment during acute psychiatric hospitalization. Psychiatric severity did not moderate treatment efficacy, and cessation treatment appeared to decrease rehospitalization risk, perhaps by providing broader therapeutic benefit.
Nitrification and denitrification are key processes that control nitrogen (N) availability and loss in terrestrial systems. Nitrification in soils is thought to be performed primarily by ...chemoautotrophic prokaryotes such as bacteria and archaea, and denitrification by bacterial heterotrophs. However, recent work in drylands suggests that fungi may play a larger role in N transformations than previously recognized. Arid and semi-arid ecosystems experience extreme temperatures and low moisture conditions, both of which favor growth and survival of some fungi, but the extent of fungal nitrification and denitrification in these soils has not been explored. We investigated the role of fungi in nitrate (NO3−) and nitrous oxide (N2O) production in soils from regions across the southwestern US. Soils were collected from urban and Sonoran Desert sites within the Phoenix metropolitan area in Arizona, and from grasslands in Arizona and New Mexico. Rates of potential nitrification were measured in soils subjected to biocide treatments (fungal and bacterial inhibitors) and acetylene, an inhibitor of autotrophic ammonia oxidation. Nitrous oxide production was measured from soils incubated at two moisture levels in the presence of the biocide treatments. Rates of potential nitrification decreased significantly in all soils with additions of acetylene, indicating that autotrophic microorganisms may dominate ammonia oxidation and NO3− production rather than heterotrophs (e.g., fungi). Similarly, fungi played a minor role in N2O production in urban turfgrass soils that were highly managed with irrigation and fertilizers. In contrast, fungi were major sources of N2O production in desert and semi-arid grassland soils across a range of soil water content. We conclude that fungi are likely responsible for denitrification in aridland soils, and that land-use changes associated with urbanization alter the biotic pathways responsible for N cycling.
•Fungi are responsible for N2O production in drylands but not managed grass soils.•Autotrophic bacteria or archaea control nitrification in dryland and managed soils.•These patterns are consistent both under shrub canopies and in spaces between plants.•Fungi contribute to N2O flux across variable moisture conditions in arid ecosystems.•Land-cover changes associated with urbanization in drylands alter N cycling pathways.
Ecological homogenization of urban USA Groffman, Peter M; Cavender-Bares, Jeannine; Bettez, Neil D ...
Frontiers in ecology and the environment,
February 2014, Letnik:
12, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
A visually apparent but scientifically untested outcome of land-use change is homogenization across urban areas, where neighborhoods in different parts of the country have similar patterns of roads, ...residential lots, commercial areas, and aquatic features. We hypothesize that this homogenization extends to ecological structure and also to ecosystem functions such as carbon dynamics and microclimate, with continental-scale implications. Further, we suggest that understanding urban homogenization will provide the basis for understanding the impacts of urban land-use change from local to continental scales. Here, we show how multi-scale, multi-disciplinary datasets from six metropolitan areas that cover the major climatic regions of the US (Phoenix, AZ; Miami, FL; Baltimore, MD; Boston, MA; Minneapolis-St Paul, MN; and Los Angeles, CA) can be used to determine how household and neighborhood characteristics correlate with land-management practices, land-cover composition, and landscape structure and ecosystem functions at local, regional, and continental scales.
Background: Justice-involved youth are at risk to become cigarette smokers as they age, leading to a variety of poor health outcomes. However, little is known about cigarette use among ...justice-involved youth, especially youth supervised in the community where there is ample opportunity to smoke. Objective: This study investigates the prevalence of cigarette smoking and the associations between cigarette smoking, emotional and behavioral functioning, and other substance use among a sample of first-time offending court-involved, non-incarcerated (FTO-CINI) youth. Methods: Youth were recruited from a family court in the Northeast (N = 423). Substance use was self-reported using the Adolescent Risk Behavior Assessment (ARBA). Emotional and behavioral functioning was measured using the Behavior Assessment Schedule for Children-Second Edition (BASC-2), the Affect Dysregulation Scale (ADS), National Stressful Events Survey PTSD Short Scale (NSESSS), and the National Survey of Self-Reported Delinquency (NYS-SRD). Results: About 9.9% of FTO-CINI youth had smoked cigarettes in the past 30 days. Compared with FTO-CINI youth who had not smoked recently, recent smokers endorsed more emotional and behavioral symptoms, such as school problems (p < .001), internalizing problems (p = .012), inattention/hyperactivity (p = .020), affect dysregulation (p = .044), PTSD symptoms (p = .006), and delinquent behavior (p < .001). Recent smokers were also more likely to use alcohol (OR = 5.61, p < .001), marijuana (OR = 11.27, p < .001), and other drugs (OR = 5.00, p < .001). Conclusions: Recent smoking was higher among FTO-CINI youth than youth in the general population. Findings underscore the need to incorporate nicotine into existing substance use prevention interventions for this population, who are at high risk to initiate cigarette use as they age.
Wildlife populations in semi‐arid regions are increasingly challenged by human activities and dependent on the connectivity of riparian corridors for access to surface water. The Madrean Archipelago ...is a biodiversity hotspot along the arid United States–Mexico borderlands that support both Neotropical and Nearctic wildlife. Infrastructure development (e.g., the border wall and the expansion of Mexican Federal Highway 2) in this region inhibits wildlife movement along the transnational mountain archipelago by disconnecting habitat. To explore the relationship between habitat variables and mammal use of riparian corridors in northern Sonora, Mexico, we collected data from 19 motion‐sensitive cameras between October 2018 and April 2019 and used single‐season occupancy models and Royle‐Nichols abundance estimation models to analyze our data. We recorded 21 species of mammals, including the first sighting of jaguar (Panthera onca) in this region in 25 years. River characteristics (distance from river, riparian corridor width, water availability), remoteness (distance from highway, productivity, elevation), and topographic variety (vertical elevation difference) influenced patterns of occupancy probability and estimated abundance of mammals >1 kg, but the strength and direction of these relationships varied by species. Additionally, intermittently wet desert washes were comparable in species richness to the perennial system. These results highlight the importance of examining physical and biological aspects of habitat. This is especially true when identifying corridors where mitigation structures should be placed to improve wildlife connectivity in biodiversity hotspots like the Madrean Archipelago and semi‐arid ecosystems worldwide.
Wildlife populations in semi‐arid regions are increasingly challenged by human activities and dependent on the connectivity of riparian corridors for water. Our data show that river characteristics (distance from river, riparian corridor width, water availability), remoteness (distance from highway, productivity, and elevation), and topographic variety (vertical elevation difference) informed patterns of both occupancy probability and relative habitat use of mammals >1 kg, but the strength and direction of these relationships varied by species. These results highlight the importance of examining both physical and biological aspects of habitat variability.
Residential landscapes are a common setting of human-environment interactions. These ubiquitous ecosystems provide social and ecological services, and yard maintenance leads to intended and ...unintended ecological outcomes. The ecological characteristics of residential landscapes and the human drivers of landscape management have been the focus of disciplinary studies, often at a single scale of analysis. However, an interdisciplinary examination of residential landscapes is needed to understand the feedbacks and tradeoffs of these complex adaptive social-ecological systems as a whole. Our aim is to synthesize the diversity of perspectives, scales of analysis, and findings from the literature in order to 1) contribute to an interdisciplinary understanding of residential landscapes and 2) identify research needs while providing a robust conceptual approach for future studies. We synthesize 256 studies from the literature and develop an interdisciplinary, multi-scalar framework on residential landscape dynamics. Complex human drivers (attitudinal, structural, and institutional factors) at multiple scales influence management practices and the feedbacks with biophysical characteristics of residential landscapes. However, gaps exist in our interdisciplinary understanding of residential landscapes within four key but understudied areas: 1) the link between social drivers and ecological outcomes of management decisions, 2) the ecosystem services provided by these landscapes to residents, 3) the interactions of social drivers and ecological characteristics across scales, and 4) generalizations of patterns and processes across cities. Our systems perspective will help to guide future interdisciplinary collaborations to integrate theories and research methods across geographic locations and spatial scales.
Residential land is expanding in the United States, and lawn now covers more area than the country's leading irrigated crop by area. Given that lawns are widespread across diverse climatic regions ...and there is rising concern about the environmental impacts associated with their management, there is a clear need to understand the geographic variation, drivers, and outcomes of common yard care practices. We hypothesized that 1) income, age, and the number of neighbors known by name will be positively associated with the odds of having irrigated, fertilized, or applied pesticides in the last year, 2) irrigation, fertilization, and pesticide application will vary quadratically with population density, with the highest odds in suburban areas, and 3) the odds of irrigating will vary by climate, but fertilization and pesticide application will not. We used multi-level models to systematically address nested spatial scales within and across six U.S. metropolitan areas-Boston, Baltimore, Miami, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. We found significant variation in yard care practices at the household (the relationship with income was positive), urban-exurban gradient (the relationship with population density was an inverted U), and regional scales (city-to-city variation). A multi-level modeling framework was useful for discerning these scale-dependent outcomes because this approach controls for autocorrelation at multiple spatial scales. Our findings may guide policies or programs seeking to mitigate the potentially deleterious outcomes associated with water use and chemical application, by identifying the subpopulations most likely to irrigate, fertilize, and/or apply pesticides.
Nitrogen (N) deposition to semiarid ecosystems is increasing globally, yet few studies have investigated the ecological consequences of N enrichment in these ecosystems. Furthermore, soil CO2 flux – ...including plant root and microbial respiration – is a key feedback to ecosystem carbon (C) cycling that links ecosystem processes to climate, yet few studies have investigated the effects of N enrichment on belowground processes in water-limited ecosystems. In this study, we conducted two-level N addition experiments to investigate the effects of N enrichment on microbial and root respiration in a grassland ecosystem on the Loess Plateau in northwestern China. Two years of high N additions (9.2 g N m−2 y−1) significantly increased soil CO2 flux, including both microbial and root respiration, particularly during the warm growing season. Low N additions (2.3 g N m−2 y−1) increased microbial respiration during the growing season only, but had no significant effects on root respiration. The annual temperature coefficients (Q10) of soil respiration and microbial respiration ranged from 1.86 to 3.00 and 1.86 to 2.72 respectively, and there was a significant decrease in Q10 between the control and the N treatments during the non-growing season but no difference was found during the growing season. Following nitrogen additions, elevated rates of root respiration were significantly and positively related to root N concentrations and biomass, while elevated rates of microbial respiration were related to soil microbial biomass C (SMBC). The microbial respiration tended to respond more sensitively to N addition, while the root respiration did not have similar response. The different mechanisms of N addition impacts on soil respiration and its components and their sensitivity to temperature identified in this study may facilitate the simulation and prediction of C cycling and storage in semiarid grasslands under future scenarios of global change.
•High-N addition significantly increased soil respiration and its components, particularly during the growing season.•Low-N addition increased microbial respiration during the growing season only, but had no effects on root respiration.•There was a decrease of annual Q10 between control and N additions.
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