Toxic Gas That Sterilizes Medical Devices Prompts Safety Rule Update
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Over the past two years, Madeline Beal has heard frustration and even bewilderment during public meetings about ethylene oxide, a cancer-causing gas that is used to sterilize half of the medical devices in the U.S.
Beal, senior risk communication adviser for the Environmental Protection Agency, has fielded questions about why the agency took so long to alert people who live near facilities that emit the chemical about unusually high amounts of the carcinogenic gas in their neighborhoods. Residents asked why the EPA couldn’t close those facilities, and they wanted to know how many people had developed cancer from their exposure.
“If you’re upset by the information you’re hearing tonight, if you’re angry, if it scares you to think about risk to your family, those are totally reasonable responses,” Beal told an audience in Laredo, Texas, in September 2022. “We think the risk levels near this facility are too high.”
There are about 90 sterilizing plants in the U.S. that use ethylene oxide, and for decades companies used the chemical to sterilize medical products without drawing much attention. Many medical device-makers send their products to the plants to be sterilized before they are shipped, typically to medical distribution companies.
But people living around these facilities have been jolted in recent years by a succession of warnings about cancer risk from the federal government and media reports, an awareness that has also spawned protests and lawsuits alleging medical harm.
The EPA is expected to meet a March 1 court-ordered deadline to finalize tighter safety rules around how the toxic gas is used. The proposed changes come in the wake of a 2016 agency report that found that long-term exposure to ethylene oxide is more dangerous than was previously thought.
But the anticipated final rules — the agency’s first regulatory update on ethylene oxide emissions in more than a decade — are expected to face pushback. Medical device-makers worry stricter regulation will increase costs and may put patients at higher risk of infection from devices, ranging from surgical kits to catheters, due to deficient sterilization. The new rules are also not likely to satisfy the concerns of environmentalists or members of the public, who already have expressed frustration about how long it took the federal government to sound the alarm.
“We have been breathing this air for 40 years,” said Connie Waller, 70, who lives with her husband, David, 75, within two miles of such a sterilizing plant in Covington, Georgia, east of Atlanta. “The only way to stop these chemicals is to hit them in their pocketbook, to get their attention.”
The EPA says data shows that long-term exposure to ethylene oxide can increase the risk of breast cancer and cancers of the white blood cells, such as non-Hodgkin lymphoma, myeloma, and lymphocytic leukemia. It can irritate the eyes, nose, throat, and lungs, and has been linked to damage to the brain and nervous and reproductive systems. Children are potentially more vulnerable, as are workers routinely exposed to the chemical, EPA officials say. The agency calculates the risk based on how much of the gas is in the air or near the sterilizing facility, the distance a person is from the plant, and how long the person is exposed.
Waller said she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004 and that her husband was found to have non-Hodgkin lymphoma eight years later.
A 2022 study of communities living near a sterilization facility in Laredo found the rates of acute lymphocytic leukemia and breast cancer were greater than expected based on statewide rates, a difference that was statistically significant.
Beal, the EPA risk adviser, who regularly meets with community members, acknowledges the public’s concerns. “We don’t think it’s OK for you to be at increased risk from something that you have no control over, that’s near your house,” she said. “We are working as fast as we can to get that risk reduced with the powers that we have available to us.”
In the meantime, local and state governments and industry groups have scrambled to defuse public outcry.
Hundreds of personal injury cases have been filed in communities near sterilizing plants. In 2020, New Mexico’s then-attorney general filed a lawsuit against a plant in Santa Teresa, and that case is ongoing. In a case that settled last year in suburban Atlanta, a company agreed to pay $35 million to 79 people who alleged ethylene oxide used at the plant caused cancer and other injuries.
In Cook County, Illinois, a jury in 2022 awarded $363 million to a woman who alleged exposure to ethylene oxide gas led to her breast cancer diagnosis. But, in another Illinois case, a jury ruled that the sterilizing company was not liable for a woman’s blood cancer claim.
Greg Crist, chief advocacy officer for the Advanced Medical Technology Association, a medical device trade group that says ethylene oxide is an effective and reliable sterilant, attributes the spate of lawsuits to the litigious nature of trial attorneys.
“If they smell blood in the water, they’ll go after it,” Crist said.
Most states have at least one sterilizing plant. According to the EPA, a handful, like California and North Carolina, have gone further than the agency and the federal Clean Air Act to regulate ethylene oxide emissions. After a media and political firestorm raised awareness about the metro Atlanta facilities, Georgia started requiring sterilizing plants that use the gas to report all leaks.
The proposed rules the EPA is set to finalize would set lower emissions limits for chemical plants and commercial sterilizers and increase some safety requirements for workers within these facilities. The agency is expected to set an 18-month deadline for commercial sterilizers to come into compliance with the emissions rules.
That would help at facilities that “cut corners,” with lax pollution controls that allow emissions of the gas into nearby communities, said Richard Peltier, a professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Stronger regulation also prevents the plants from remaining under the radar. “One of the dirty secrets is that a lot of it is self-regulated or self-policed,” Peltier added.
But the proposed rules did not include protections for workers at off-site warehouses that store sterilized products, which can continue to emit ethylene oxide. They also did not require air testing around the facilities, prompting debate about how effective they would be in protecting the health of nearby residents.
Industry officials also don’t expect an alternative that is as broadly effective as ethylene oxide to be developed anytime soon, though they support researching other methods. Current alternatives include steam, radiation, and hydrogen peroxide vapor.
Increasing the use of alternatives can reduce industry dependence on “the crutch of ethylene oxide,” said Darya Minovi, senior analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group.
But meeting the new guidelines will be disruptive to the industry, Crist said. He estimates companies will spend upward of $500 million to comply with the new EPA rules and could struggle to meet the agency’s 18-month timetable. Sterilization companies will also have difficulty adjusting to new rules on how workers handle the gas without a dip in efficiency, Crist said.
The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates drugs and medical devices, is also watching the regulatory moves closely and worries the updated emissions rule could “present some unique challenges” if implemented as proposed, said Audra Harrison, an FDA spokesperson. “The FDA is concerned about the rule’s effects on the availability of medical devices,” she added.
Other groups, like the American Chemistry Council and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state’s environmental agency, assert that ethylene oxide use isn’t as dangerous as the EPA says. The EPA’s toxicity assessment has “severe flaws” and is “overly conservative,” the council said in an emailed statement. Texas, which has several sterilizing plants, has said ethylene oxide isn’t as high a cancer risk as the agency claims, an assessment that the EPA has rejected.
Tracey Woodruff, a researcher at the University of California-San Francisco who previously worked at the EPA, said it can be hard for the agency to keep up with regulating chemicals like ethylene oxide because of constrained resources, the technical complications of rulemaking, and industry lobbying.
But she’s hopeful the EPA can strike a balance between its desire to reduce exposure and the desire of the FDA not to disrupt medical device sterilization. And scrutiny can also help the device sterilization industry think outside the box.
“We continue to discover these chemicals that we’ve already been exposed to were toxic, and we have high exposures,” she said. “Regulation is an innovation forcer.”
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
To Err Is Human; To Forgive, Healthy
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
How To Forgive (And Why)
There’s an old saying that holding onto a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. If only it were so simple and easy as just choosing to let go!
But it’s not, is it?
When people have wronged us and/or wronged our loved ones, it’s hard to forgive, especially if they have not changed. For that matter, it can be hard to forgive ourselves for mistakes that we made, too.
Either way, “drinking that poison” can be close to literal, in terms of what harboring such anger and resentment can do for our cortisol levels.
So, what to do about it?
If you have a dialogue with the person, our previous article on communication may help a lot.
If you don’t, there are various other angles that can be taken:
The Unsent Letter
You can even send it, if you like, but it’s not the point here. The idea is to write to the person, expressing your grievances. But, (as per the above-linked article on communication) try to focus at least as much on your feelings as their actions. “When you did/said x, I felt y”, etc.
This is important for helping you process your feelings. If you send the letter, it’s also important for the other person to be able to understand your feelings.
Sometimes, we feel the things we do so strongly because we don’t have an outlet for them. Pouring out our emotions in such a fashion, on the other hand, means (to labor the metaphor) they’re no longer bottled up. Even just in and of itself, that can provide us a lot of relief.
And when we the negative emotions are no longer such high pressure, it can be easier to let go of them.
Mindfulness
Following on from the above idea, a good strategy can be simply sitting and feeling everything you need to feel, noticing it without judgement, like a curious observer.
Sometimes what we need is just to be heard, and that starts with hearing ourselves.
Compassion
There’s a Buddhist exercise that involves actively feeling compassion for three people: a loved one, a stranger, and an enemy. Many people report that it’s actually harder to feel compassion for a random stranger, than an enemy. Why? Because we don’t know them; we don’t know what’s good and bad about them in our estimation.
If you’re reading this because you want to be able to gain the peace of being able to forgive someone (even if that someone is yourself), then in at least some respect right now, that person is in the “enemy” category. So how do we unpack that?
To err is human. Everybody screws up sometimes. And also, everyone has a reason (or a complex of reasons) for acting the way they do. This does not mean that those reasons excuse the behavior, but it can explain it.
You don’t get angry at a storm for soaking you through. Even if you might not understand the physics of it in the way a meteorologist might, you understand that there were things that led to that, and you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
So why do we get angry at someone else for wronging us? Even if we might not understand the personal background of it in the way their psychologist or therapist might, we (hopefully) understand that there were things that caused them to be the way they were, and we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And ourselves? We probably know, when we made a mistake, why we made it. Maybe we were afraid, insecure, reactive, forgetful, or too focused on some other thing. Whatever it was, we did our best at the time and, apparently, our best wasn’t as good as we’d like.
If we didn’t deserve forgiveness, we wouldn’t be critical of our past selves in the first place.
And, the science is very clear that it’s important for our health for other reasons besides cortisol management, too.
And as for others? They did the best they knew how. Maybe they were afraid, insecure, reactive, forgetful, or too focused on some other thing. Same story, different character.
Remembering that can be key to “accepting the apology we never received”.
Forgiving without forgetting
Developing the ability to forgive is a useful tool for our own mental health. It doesn’t mean we must or even should make ourselves a doormat.
“I forgive you” does not have to mean a clean slate; it means remembering that the thing happened, and just not holding on to the anger/resentment associated with it.
It may be water under the bridge now, but it might have been a devastatingly destructive wave at the time, and continuing to acknowledge truth that is sensible. Just, from a position of peace now, hopefully.
Share This Post
-
California Is Investing $500M in Therapy Apps for Youth. Advocates Fear It Won’t Pay Off.
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
With little pomp, California launched two apps at the start of the year offering free behavioral health services to youths to help them cope with everything from living with anxiety to body acceptance.
Through their phones, young people and some caregivers can meet BrightLife Kids and Soluna coaches, some who specialize in peer support or substance use disorders, for roughly 30-minute virtual counseling sessions that are best suited to those with more mild needs, typically those without a clinical diagnosis. The apps also feature self-directed activities, such as white noise sessions, guided breathing, and videos of ocean waves to help users relax.
“We believe they’re going to have not just great impact, but wide impact across California, especially in places where maybe it’s not so easy to find an in-person behavioral health visit or the kind of coaching and supports that parents and young people need,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom’s health secretary, Mark Ghaly, during the Jan. 16 announcement.
The apps represent one of the Democratic governor’s major forays into health technology and come with four-year contracts valued at $498 million. California is believed to be the first state to offer a mental health app with free coaching to all young residents, according to the Department of Health Care Services, which operates the program.
However, the rollout has been slow. Only about 15,000 of the state’s 12.6 million children and young adults have signed up for the apps, school counselors say they’ve never heard of them, and one of the companies isn’t making its app available on Android phones until summer.
Advocates for youth question the wisdom of investing taxpayer dollars in two private companies. Social workers are concerned the companies’ coaches won’t properly identify youths who need referrals for clinical care. And the spending is drawing lawmaker scrutiny amid a state deficit pegged at as much as $73 billion.
An App for That
Newsom’s administration says the apps fill a need for young Californians and their families to access professional telehealth for free, in multiple languages, and outside of standard 9-to-5 hours. It’s part of Newsom’s sweeping $4.7 billion master plan for kids’ mental health, which was introduced in 2022 to increase access to mental health and substance use support services. In addition to launching virtual tools such as the teletherapy apps, the initiative is working to expand workforce capacity, especially in underserved areas.
“The reality is that we are rarely 6 feet away from our devices,” said Sohil Sud, director of Newsom’s Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative. “The question is how we can leverage technology as a resource for all California youth and families, not in place of, but in addition to, other behavioral health services that are being developed and expanded.”
The virtual platforms come amid rising depression and suicide rates among youth and a shortage of mental health providers. Nearly half of California youths from the ages of 12 to 17 report having recently struggled with mental health issues, with nearly a third experiencing serious psychological distress, according to a 2021 study by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. These rates are even higher for multiracial youths and those from low-income families.
But those supporting youth mental health at the local level question whether the apps will move the needle on climbing depression and suicide rates.
“It’s fair to applaud the state of California for aggressively seeking new tools,” said Alex Briscoe of California Children’s Trust, a statewide initiative that, along with more than 100 local partners, works to improve the social and emotional health of children. “We just don’t see it as fundamental. And we don’t believe the youth mental health crisis will be solved by technology projects built by a professional class who don’t share the lived experience of marginalized communities.”
The apps, BrightLife Kids and Soluna, are operated by two companies: Brightline, a 5-year-old venture capital-backed startup; and Kooth, a London-based publicly traded company that has experience in the U.K. and has also signed on some schools in Kentucky and Pennsylvania and a health plan in Illinois. In the first five months of Kooth’s Pennsylvania pilot, 6% of students who had access to the app signed up.
Brightline and Kooth represent a growing number of health tech firms seeking to profit in this space. They beat out dozens of other bidders including international consulting companies and other youth telehealth platforms that had already snapped up contracts in California.
Although the service is intended to be free with no insurance requirement, Brightline’s app, BrightLife Kids, is folded into and only accessible through the company’s main app, which asks for insurance information and directs users to paid licensed counseling options alongside the free coaching. After KFF Health News questioned why the free coaching was advertised below paid options, Brightline reordered the page so that, even if a child has high-acuity needs, free coaching shows up first.
The apps take an expansive view of behavioral health, making the tools available to all California youth under age 26 as well as caregivers of babies, toddlers, and children 12 and under. When KFF Health News asked to speak with an app user, Brightline connected a reporter with a mother whose 3-year-old daughter was learning to sleep on her own.
‘It’s Like Crickets’
Despite being months into the launch and having millions in marketing funds, the companies don’t have a definitive rollout timeline. Brightline said it hopes to have deployed teams across the state to present the tools in person by midyear. Kooth said developing a strategy to hit every school would be “the main focus for this calendar year.”
“It’s a big state — 58 counties,” Bob McCullough of Kooth said. “It’ll take us a while to get to all of them.”
So far BrightLife Kids is available only on Apple phones. Brightline said it’s aiming to launch the Android version over the summer.
“Nobody’s really done anything like this at this magnitude, I think, in the U.S. before,” said Naomi Allen, a co-founder and the CEO of Brightline. “We’re very much in the early innings. We’re already learning a lot.”
The contracts, obtained by KFF Health News through a records request, show the companies operating the two apps could earn as much as $498 million through the contract term, which ends in June 2027, months after Newsom is set to leave office. And the state is spending hundreds of millions more on Newsom’s virtual behavioral health strategy. The state said it aims to make the apps available long-term, depending on usage.
The state said 15,000 people signed up in the first three months. When KFF Health News asked how many of those users actively engaged with the app, it declined to say, noting that data would be released this summer.
KFF Health News reached out to nearly a dozen California mental health professionals and youths. None of them were aware of the apps.
“I’m not hearing anything,” said Loretta Whitson, executive director of the California Association of School Counselors. “It’s like crickets.”
Whitson said she doesn’t think the apps are on “anyone’s” radar in schools, and she doesn’t know of any schools that are actively advertising them. Brightline will be presenting its tool to the counselor association in May, but Whitson said the company didn’t reach out to plan the meeting; she did.
Concern Over Referrals
Whitson isn’t comfortable promoting the apps just yet. Although both companies said they have a clinical team on staff to assist, Whitson said she’s concerned that the coaches, who aren’t all licensed therapists, won’t have the training to detect when users need more help and refer them to clinical care.
This sentiment was echoed by other school-based social workers, who also noted the apps’ duplicative nature — in some counties, like Los Angeles, youths can access free virtual counseling sessions through Hazel Health, a for-profit company. Nonprofits, too, have entered this space. For example, Teen Line, a peer-to-peer hotline operated by Southern California-based Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, is free nationwide.
While the state is also funneling money to the schools as part of Newsom’s master plan, students and school-based mental health professionals voiced confusion at the large app investment when, in many school districts, few in-person counseling roles exist, and in some cases are dwindling.
Kelly Merchant, a student at College of the Desert in Palm Desert, noted that it can be hard to access in-person therapy at her school. She believes the community college, which has about 15,000 students, has only one full-time counselor and one part-time bilingual counselor. She and several students interviewed by KFF Health News said they appreciated having engaging content on their phone and the ability to speak to a coach, but all said they’d prefer in-person therapy.
“There are a lot of people who are seeking therapy, and people close to me that I know. But their insurances are taking forever, and they’re on the waitlist,” Merchant said. “And, like, you’re seeing all these people struggle.”
Fiscal conservatives question whether the money could be spent more effectively, like to bolster county efforts and existing youth behavioral health programs.
Republican state Sen. Roger Niello, vice chair of the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee, noted that California is forecasted to face deficits for the next three years, and taxpayer watchdogs worry the apps might cost even more in the long run.
“What starts as a small financial commitment can become uncontrollable expenses down the road,” said Susan Shelley of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.
This article was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
USE OUR CONTENT
This story can be republished for free (details).
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.
Share This Post
-
Hope: A research-based explainer
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
This year, more than 60 countries, representing more than 4 billion people, will hold major elections. News headlines already are reporting that voters are hanging on to hope. When things get tough or don’t go our way, we’re told to hang on to hope. HOPE was the only word printed on President Barack Obama’s iconic campaign poster in 2008.
Research on hope has flourished only in recent decades. There’s now a growing recognition that hope has a role in physical, social, and mental health outcomes, including promoting resilience. As we embark on a challenging year of news, it’s important for journalists to learn about hope.
So what is hope? And what does the research say about it?
Merriam-Webster defines hope as a “desire accompanied by expectation of or belief in fulfillment.” This definition highlights the two basic dimensions of hope: a desire and a belief in the possibility of attaining that desire.
Hope is not Pollyannaish optimism, writes psychologist Everett Worthington in a 2020 article for The Conversation. “Instead, hope is a motivation to persevere toward a goal or end state, even if we’re skeptical that a positive outcome is likely.”
There are several scientific theories about hope.
One of the first, and most well-known, theories on hope was introduced in 1991 by American psychologist Charles R. Snyder.
In a paper published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Snyder defined hope as a cognitive trait centered on the pursuit of goals and built on two components: a sense of agency in achieving a goal, and a perceived ability to create pathways to achieve that goal. He defined hope as something individualistic.
Snyder also introduced the Hope Scale, which continues to be used today, as a way to measure hope. He suggested that some people have higher levels of hope than others and there seem to be benefits to being more hopeful.
“For example, we would expect that higher as compared with lower hope people are more likely to have a healthy lifestyle, to avoid life crises, and to cope better with stressors when they are encountered,” they write.
Others have suggested broader definitions.
In 1992, Kaye Herth, a professor of nursing and a scholar on hope, defined hope as “a multidimensional dynamic life force characterized by a confident yet uncertain expectation of achieving good, which to the hoping person, is realistically possible and personally significant.” Herth also developed the Herth Hope Index, which is used in various settings, including clinical practice and research.
More recently, others have offered an even broader definition of hope.
Anthony Scioli, a clinical psychologist and author of several books on hope, defines hope “as an emotion with spiritual dimensions,” in a 2023 review published in Current Opinion in Psychology. “Hope is best viewed as an ameliorating emotion, designed to fill the liminal space between need and reality.”
Hope is also nuanced.
“Our hopes may be active or passive, patient or critical, private or collective, grounded in the evidence or resolute in spite of it, socially conservative or socially transformative,” writes Darren Webb in a 2007 study published in History of the Human Sciences. “We all hope, but we experience this most human of all mental feelings in a variety of modes.”
To be sure, a few studies have shown that hope can have negative outcomes in certain populations and situations. For example, one study highlighted in the research roundup below finds that Black college students who had higher levels of hope experienced more stress due to racial discrimination compared with Black students who had lower levels of hope.
Today, hope is one of the most well-studied constructs within the field of positive psychology, according to the journal Current Opinion in Psychology, which dedicated its August 2023 issue to the subject. (Positive psychology is a branch of psychology focused on characters and behaviors that allow people to flourish.)
We’ve gathered several studies below to help you think more deeply about hope and recognize its role in your everyday lives.
Research roundup
The Role of Hope in Subsequent Health and Well-Being For Older Adults: An Outcome-Wide Longitudinal Approach
Katelyn N.G. Long, et al. Global Epidemiology, November 2020.The study: To explore the potential public health implications of hope, researchers examine the relationship between hope and physical, behavioral and psychosocial outcomes in 12,998 older adults in the U.S. with a mean age of 66.
Researchers note that most investigations on hope have focused on psychological and social well-being outcomes and less attention has been paid to its impact on physical and behavioral health, particularly among older adults.
The findings: Results show a positive association between an increased sense of hope and a variety of behavioral and psychosocial outcomes, such as fewer sleep problems, more physical activity, optimism and satisfaction with life. However, there wasn’t a clear association between hope and all physical health outcomes. For instance, hope was associated with a reduced number of chronic conditions, but not with stroke, diabetes and hypertension.
The takeaway: “The later stages of life are often defined by loss: the loss of health, loved ones, social support networks, independence, and (eventually) loss of life itself,” the authors write. “Our results suggest that standard public health promotion activities, which often focus solely on physical health, might be expanded to include a wider range of factors that may lead to gains in hope. For example, alongside community-based health and nutrition programs aimed at reducing chronic conditions like hypertension, programs that help strengthen marital relations (e.g., closeness with a spouse), provide opportunities to volunteer, help lower anxiety, or increase connection with friends may potentially increase levels of hope, which in turn, may improve levels of health and well-being in a variety of domains.”
Associated Factors of Hope in Cancer Patients During Treatment: A Systematic Literature Review
Corine Nierop-van Baalen, Maria Grypdonck, Ann van Hecke and Sofie Verhaeghe. Journal of Advanced Nursing, March 2020.The study: The authors review 33 studies, written in English or Dutch and published in the past decade, on the relationship between hope and the quality of life and well-being of patients with cancer. Studies have shown that many cancer patients respond to their diagnosis by nurturing hope, while many health professionals feel uneasy when patients’ hopes go far beyond their prognosis, the authors write.
The findings: Quality of life, social support and spiritual well-being were positively associated with hope, as measured with various scales. Whereas symptoms, psychological distress and depression had a negative association with hope. Hope didn’t seem to be affected by the type or stage of cancer or the patient’s demographics.
The takeaway: “Hope seems to be a process that is determined by a person’s inner being rather than influenced from the outside,” the authors write. “These factors are typically given meaning by the patients themselves. Social support, for example, is not about how many patients experience support, but that this support has real meaning for them.”
Characterizing Hope: An Interdisciplinary Overview of the Characteristics of Hope
Emma Pleeging, Job van Exel and Martijn Burger. Applied Research in Quality of Life, September 2021.The study: This systematic review provides an overview of the concept of hope based on 66 academic papers in ten academic fields, including economics and business studies, environmental studies, health studies, history, humanities, philosophy, political science, psychology, social science, theology and youth studies, resulting in seven themes and 41 sub-themes.
The findings: The authors boil down their findings to seven components: internal and external sources, the individual and social experience of hope, internal and external effects, and the object of hope, which can be “just about anything we can imagine,” the authors write.
The takeaway: “An important implication of these results lies in the way hope is measured in applied and scientific research,” researchers write. “When measuring hope or developing instruments to measure it, researchers could be well-advised to take note of the broader understanding of the topic, to prevent that important characteristics might be overlooked.”
Revisiting the Paradox of Hope: The Role of Discrimination Among First-Year Black College Students
Ryon C. McDermott, et al. Journal of Counseling Psychology, March 2020.The study: Researchers examine the moderating effects of hope on the association between experiencing racial discrimination, stress and academic well-being among 203 first-year U.S. Black college students. They build on a small body of evidence that suggests high levels of hope might have a negative effect on Black college students who experience racial discrimination.
The authors use data gathered as part of an annual paper-and-pencil survey of first-year college students at a university on the Gulf Coast, which the study doesn’t identify.
The findings: Researchers find that Black students who had higher levels of hope experienced more stress due to racial discrimination compared with students who had lower levels of hope. On the other hand, Black students with low levels of hope may be less likely to experience stress when they encounter discrimination.
Meanwhile, Black students who had high levels of hope were more successful in academic integration — which researchers define as satisfaction with and integration into the academic aspects of college life — despite facing discrimination. But low levels of hope had a negative impact on students’ academic well-being.
“The present study found evidence that a core construct in positive psychology, hope, may not always protect Black students from experiencing the psychological sting of discrimination, but it was still beneficial to their academic well-being,” the authors write.
The takeaway: “Our findings also highlight an urgent need to reduce discrimination on college campuses,” the researchers write. “Reducing discrimination could help Black students (and other racial minorities) avoid additional stress, as well as help them realize the full psychological and academic benefits of having high levels of hope.”
Additional reading
Hope Across Cultural Groups Lisa M. Edwards and Kat McConnell. Current Opinion in Psychology, February 2023.
The Psychology of Hope: A Diagnostic and Prescriptive Account Anthony Scioli. “Historical and Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Hope,” July 2020.
Hope Theory: Rainbows in the Mind C.R. Snyder. Psychological Inquiry, 2002
This article first appeared on The Journalist’s Resource and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Share This Post
-
What you need to know about FLiRT, an emerging group of COVID-19 variants
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
What you need to know
- COVID-19 wastewater levels are currently low, but a recent group of variants called FLiRT is making headlines.
- KP.2 is one of several FLiRT variants, and early lab tests suggest that it’s more infectious than JN.1.
- Getting infected with any COVID-19 variant can cause severe illness, heart problems, and death.
KP.2, a new COVID-19 variant, is now dominant in the United States. Lab tests suggest that it may be more infectious than JN.1, the variant that was dominant earlier this year.
Fortunately, there’s good news: Current wastewater data shows that COVID-19 infection rates are low. Still, experts are closely watching KP.2 to see if it will lead to an uptick in infections.
Read on to learn more about KP.2 and how to stay informed about COVID-19 cases in your area.
Where can I find data on COVID-19 cases in my area?
Hospitals are no longer required to report COVID-19 hospital admissions or hospital capacity to the Department of Health and Human Services. However, wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) estimates the number of COVID-19 infections in a community based on the amount of COVID-19 viral particles detected in local wastewater.
View this map of wastewater data from the CDC to visualize COVID-19 infection rates throughout the U.S., or look up COVID-19 wastewater trends in your state.
What do we know so far about the new variant?
Early lab tests suggest that KP.2—one of a group of emerging variants called FLiRT—is similar to the previously dominant variant, JN.1, but it may be more infectious. If you had JN.1, you may still get reinfected with KP.2, especially if it’s been several months or longer since your last COVID-19 infection.
A CDC spokesperson said they have no reason to believe that KP.2 causes more severe illness than other variants. Experts are closely watching KP.2 to see if it will lead to an uptick in COVID-19 cases.
How can I protect myself from COVID-19 variants?
Staying up to date on COVID-19 vaccines reduces your risk of severe illness, long COVID, heart problems, and death. The CDC recommends that people 65 and older and immunocompromised people receive an additional dose of the updated COVID-19 vaccine this spring.
Wearing a high-quality, well-fitting mask reduces your risk of contracting COVID-19 and spreading it to others. At indoor gatherings, improving ventilation by opening doors and windows, using high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters, and building your own Corsi-Rosenthal box can also reduce the spread of COVID-19.
This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
The Best Mobility Exercises For Each Joint
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Stiff joints and tight muscles limit movement, performance, and daily activities. They also increase the risk of injury, and increase recovery time if the injury happens. So, it’s pretty important to take care of that!
Here’s how
Key to joint health involves understanding mobility, flexibility, and stability:
- Mobility: active joint movement through a range of motion.
- Flexibility: muscle lengthening passively through a range of motion.
- Stability: body’s ability to return to position after disturbance.
Different body parts have different needs when it comes to prioritizing mobility, flexibility, and stability exercises. So, with that in mind, here’s what to do for your…
- Wrists: flexibility and stability (e.g., wrist circles, loaded flexions/extensions).
- Elbows: Stability is key; exercises like wrist and shoulder movements benefit elbows indirectly.
- Shoulders: mobility and stability; exercises include prone arm circles, passive hangs, active prone raises, easy bridges, and stick-supported movements.
- Spine: mobility and stability; recommended exercises include cat-cow and quadruped reach.
- Hips: mobility and flexibility through deep squat hip rotations; beginners can use hands for support.
- Knees: stability; exercises include elevated pistols, Bulgarian split squats, lunges, and single-leg balancing.
- Ankles: flexibility and stability; exercises include lunges, prying goblet squats, and deep squats with support if necessary.
For more on all of these, plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Building & Maintaining Mobility
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
-
Greek Yogurt vs Cottage Cheese – Which is Healthier?
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Our Verdict
When comparing Greek yogurt to cottage cheese, we picked the yogurt.
Why?
These are both dairy products popularly considered healthy, mostly for their high-protein, low-carb, low-fat profile. We’re going to assume that both were made without added sugars. Thus, their macro profiles are close to identical, and nothing between them there.
In the category of vitamins, both are a good source of some B vitamins, and neither are good source of much else. The B-vitamins they have most of, B2 and B12, Greek yogurt has more.
We’ll call this a small win for Greek yogurt.
As they are dairy products, you might have expected them to contain vitamin D—however (unless they have been artificially fortified, as is usually done with plant-based equivalents) they contain none or trace amounts only.
When it comes to minerals, both are reasonable sources of calcium, selenium, and phosphorus. Of these, they’re equal on the selenium, while cottage cheese has more phosphorus and Greek yogurt has more calcium.
Since it’s also a mineral (even if it’s usually one we’re more likely to be trying to get less of), it’s also worth noting here that cottage cheese is quite high in sodium, while Greek yogurt is not.
Another win for Greek yogurt.
Beyond those things, we’d be remiss not to mention that Greek yogurt contains plenty of probiotic bacteria, while cottage cheese does not.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
