*Objective: To understand how underserved populations attend to prescription warning label (PWL) instructions, examine the importance of PWL instructions to participants and describe the challenges associated with interpreting the information on PWLs. Methods: Adults from an underserved population (racial and ethnic minorities, individuals with low income, older adults) who had a history of prescription medication use and were able to understand English took part in semistructured interviews. Participants were presented with eight different prescription bottles with an attached PWL. Participants were asked, "If this prescription was yours, what information would you need to know about the medicine?" The number of participants who attended to the warning labels was noted. Other questions assessed the importance of PWLs, the challenges with understanding PWLs, and ways a pharmacist could help participant understanding of the PWL. Results: There were 103 participants. The mean age was 50.25 years (SD=18.05). Majority attended to the PWL. Participants not currently taking medications and who had limited health literacy were likely to overlook the warning labels. Majority rated the warning instructions to be extremely important (n=86, 83.5 %), wanted the pharmacist to help them understand PWLs by counseling them on the information on the label (n=63, 61.2%), and thought the graphics made the label information easy to understand. Conclusions: PWLs are an important method of communicating medication information, as long as they are easily comprehensible to patients. In addition to placing PWLs on prescription bottles, health care providers need to counsel underserved populations on medication warnings, especially individuals with limited health literacy who are not currently using a prescription medication.
We consider how trust in government, trust in physicians, and interpersonal trust affect the likelihood of COVID-19 vaccine uptake. Methods: A survey of 3057 registered South Dakota voters was fielded in April 2021 that measured COVID-19 vaccine uptake, three aspects of trust, and several other factors related to vaccine hesitancy. Logistic regression was utilized to analyze the responses. Results: We found positive, statistically significant, and substantively impactful effects for trust in government and trust in physicians on the likelihood of COVID-19 vaccine uptake, and null results for interpersonal trust. Conclusions: Our findings provide a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between trust and COVID-19 vaccine uptake, and suggest that public health official as well as physicians should strive to increase the public's trust in the medical community.
THE CHALLENGE OF COVID-19 VACCINE HESITANCYVaccination is considered the most effective protection against COVID-19 and the best way to prevent further COVID-19 caused deaths. Governments and public health officials in the United States and around the world have been striving to vaccinate a critical portion of the population. Despite an abundance and availability of Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved vaccines and evidence of their high effectiveness, the pace of vaccination has slowed down throughout many parts of the United States. In 2021, President Biden did not succeed in reaching the goal of having 70 percent of adults receive at least the first dose of a vaccine by Independence Day despite making it a priority. More worryingly, large portions of the American society, such as evangelical Christians and residents of rural areas, report an unwillingness to be vaccinated (Dias and Graham 2021). According to a Gallup poll, the total number of people who do not want to get vaccinated could be over 1 billion globally (Ray 2021). Unwillingness to vaccinate, or in some cases hostility toward vaccination, is one of the central challenges of bringing the COVID-19 pandemic under control. Discovering underlying contributors to citizens' unwillingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccination is necessary to address vaccine hesitancy.
Green experiments in the organic teaching lab are a vital part of training a new generation of scientists. Not only do they make the lab experience safer and produce less costly waste, they allow students an opportunity to examine and consider potentially hazardous chemical methodologies and develop alternatives. The work discussed here focuses on a series of Wittig reactions that are carried out in aqueous conditions, at room temperature, and in less than one hour. The reactions have been applied to a variety of starting aldehydes. Results for this work and strategies for implementing a green chemistry case study into the laboratory curriculum are presented.
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