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DATE:
April 04, 2024 at 01:27AM
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TITLE:
Representation of marginalised populations in digital surveillance for notifiable conditions in Australia: a systematic review
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URL: https://ifp.nyu.edu/2024/journal-article-abstracts/17579139241237101/
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<p>Perspectives in Public Health, Ahead of Print. <br />Aim:This study aims to establish whether digital surveillance methods for notifiable diseases in Australia collect and report data in relation to marginalised populations.Methods:The literature was systematically reviewed to identify primary research studies published between January 2005 and July 2023. Studies were included if they described an Australian digital surveillance system for notifiable conditions. The results were synthesised with a focus on evaluating the collection and reporting of data in relation to marginalised populations.Results:A total of 13 articles reporting on seven surveillance systems were identified. Influenza and adverse events following immunisation were the two most common notifiable conditions monitored. A total of six surveillance systems encompassing 16 articles reported information on sub-populations. Of these, three surveillance systems (nine articles) included data on marginalised populations.Conclusion:The data collected or reported in relation to sub-groups that characterise diversity in terms of health care needs, access, and marginalised populations are minimal. It is recommended that a set of equity and reporting principles is established for the future creation and use of any digital surveillance system.</p>
<p><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/17579139241237101?ai=2b4&mi=ehikzz&af=R" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Read the full article ›</a></p>
<p>The post <a href="https://ifp.nyu.edu/2024/journal-article-abstracts/17579139241237101/">Representation of marginalised populations in digital surveillance for notifiable conditions in Australia: a systematic review</a> was curated by <a href="https://ifp.nyu.edu">information for practice</a>.</p>
Are you 80% angry and 2% sad? Why ‘emotional AI’ is fraught with problems
“Emotional AI’s essential problem is that we can’t definitively say what emotions are. “Put a room of psychologists together and you will have fundamental disagreements,” says McStay. “There is no baseline, agreed definition of what emotion is.”
Nor is there agreement on how emotions are expressed. Lisa Feldman Barrett is a professor of psychology at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, and in 2019 she and four other scientists came together with a simple question: can we accurately infer emotions from facial movements alone? “We read and summarised more than 1,000 papers,” Barrett says. “And we did something that nobody else to date had done: we came to a consensus over what the data says.”
<p>A recent study published in the <em><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/02654075241239604" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Journal of Social and Personal Relationships</a></em> explores how adolescent attachment styles influence brain activity in adulthood during social interactions. The findings reveal that securely attached adolescents exhibit increased brain activity in regions associated with emotion, cognition, and reward when holding hands with a romantic partner or even a stranger. These results suggest that the quality of attachment in adolescence can shape adult responses to social support at a neural level.</p>
<p>Attachment theory posits that early relationships with caregivers form the blueprint for future social interactions. It argues that children develop attachment strategies based on their caregiver’s responsiveness, which later influences their emotional and social behaviors. Securely attached individuals generally feel comfortable with intimacy and are adept at forming close relationships. In contrast, those with insecure attachments may experience difficulty trusting others and maintaining relationships.</p>
<p>Previous research predominantly concentrated on adult attachment without much emphasis on its developmental trajectory from adolescence. Moreover, while existing studies highlighted the neural mechanisms underlying social interactions and attachment, there was a gap in understanding these processes from a developmental perspective.</p>
<p>“I’m broadly interested in social support and more importantly, how people utilize social resources to combat stress,” said study author <a href="https://twitter.com/LinJingrun" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jingrun Lin</a>, a PhD candidate at the University of Virginia. “In my previous work, one’s willingness to seek support in the presence of social others was linked to better health outcomes years later. In this paper, I want to understand its developmental root, and in other words, how attachment-related experience in adolescence shapes support seeking processes in adult relationships.”</p>
<p>To explore these dynamics, the study utilized a longitudinal design, following participants initially recruited during adolescence and then reassessed in adulthood approximately ten years later.</p>
<p>At the onset, during their mid-teens, participants underwent the Adult Attachment Interview , a well-established method that assesses one’s state of mind regarding attachment through detailed narratives about childhood relationships with caregivers. This interview evaluates participants’ coherence, emotional balance, and perspective on their attachment experiences, providing a measure of their attachment security or insecurity.</p>
<p>In the second phase of the study, conducted when participants were in their mid-twenties, the same individuals were invited to participate in an fMRI study to measure brain responses under social support conditions. This part of the study involved three experimental conditions: holding the hand of a romantic partner, holding the hand of a stranger, and being alone without handholding. These conditions were designed to mimic varying levels of social support and proximity, allowing researchers to observe how these situations influenced brain activity in areas known to be associated with stress, reward, and emotional regulation.</p>
<p>The fMRI tasks were specifically set up to involve a threat of shock, which simulated a stressful situation where the support of another person might modulate the brain’s threat response. By comparing brain activity across different handholding conditions, researchers could discern how attachment styles established in adolescence impacted the brain’s response to potential threats when different levels of social support were available.</p>
<p>The final sample included 85 participants, with diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, who completed both the AAI and the fMRI tasks.</p>
<p>Individuals who had higher levels of secure attachment during their teenage years demonstrated increased brain activity in adulthood under conditions of social support. When these adults anticipated a threat while holding the hand of their partner, there was heightened activation in the posterior cingulate cortex — a brain region associated with empathy and perspective taking — compared to when they were alone. This suggests that secure attachment enhances the brain’s ability to engage empathetic and social processing circuits in the presence of supportive relationships.</p>
<p>Furthermore, when these securely attached individuals held the hand of a stranger while anticipating a threat, they exhibited increased activation not only in the posterior cingulate cortex but also in other areas such as the lateral occipital cortex, middle and inferior frontal gyrus, right pallidum/putamen, and insular cortex. This indicates a broader neural readiness to process social and emotional information, even with less familiar individuals.</p>
<p>“Attachment related experience in adolescence can shape how people respond to their partners’ support neurally as adults. Adolescents who were securely attached found handholding as rewarding, evidenced by increased activation in reward related circuitry, even with strangers,” Lin told PsyPost.</p>
<p>Adults who had higher levels of preoccupied attachment in adolescence, in contrast, showed decreased activation in regions like the lateral occipital cortex and the frontal pole — areas linked to cognitive control and perception — when holding the hand of a stranger compared to being alone. Interestingly, this reduction in neural activity did not occur when these individuals were with a partner, suggesting that the familiarity of the relationship might buffer the negative neural effects typically associated with preoccupied attachment.</p>
<p>“Our study found that adolescents who were securely attached showed increased activation in regions associated with cognitive control during partner hand-holding compared to being alone in adulthood, and this is in the opposite direction from our hypothesis,” Lin noted. “One interpretation is that our study employed the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) to measure adolescent attachment; more recently, researchers argued that that AAI status is a reflection of emotion regulation in the context of discussing attachment-related experiences.”</p>
<p>“If the AAI in adolescence measures teens’ autonomy, it makes sense for adolescents who were more self-regulated to show reduced neural reactivity in regions implicated in cognitive control when they were alone compared to when they were with a relational partner or stranger. We encourage future researchers to similarly consider the difference between attachment experience in childhood versus adolescence, measurement and/or scales selected, and their implications for research findings.”</p>
<p>These findings highlight the lasting influence of adolescent attachment on the adult brain’s response to social support. But the study is not without limitations. The sample size, although adequate, was relatively modest, which might affect the generalizability of the findings. Future research could include a larger, more diverse sample and examine other forms of social interaction. Additionally, exploring other developmental stages and the potential changes in attachment styles over time could provide deeper insights into the dynamic nature of human social interactions.</p>
<p>“I aim to examine social support and its linkage to physical and mental health using a multi-level approach,” Lin said. “My next line of work will focus on understanding the role of social support and health, via a behavioral ecology perspective and through a computerized foraging game.”</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/02654075241239604" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Does attachment in adolescence predict neural responses to handholding in adulthood? A functional magnetic resonance imaging study</a>,” was authored by Jingrun Lin, Jessica A. Stern, Joseph P. Allen, and James A. Coan.</p>
What is a Master’s in Applied Educational Psychology and what can it do for you? Find out in this latest episode of the Emerging Research in Educational Psychology podcast, with David Timony and Jeanette King: https://soundcloud.com/user-883650452/david-d-timony-jeanette-king
A couple suggestions that aren’t perfect workarounds but can reduce the issue you identify:
…When assessing support needs in terms of cog abilities or academic aptitudes, the use of age vs. grade norms will more likely support an appropriate decision.
…Younger vs. older Ss show greater variability on most measures, and so besides using multiple measures for Gifted ID, impose a higher cog ability cut-off score for primary-aged Ss.
Super excited to share the latest article in our topical collection on Theory Development in Educational Psychology! In this article, Pani Kendeou reviews the development of the Knowledge Revision Components Framework and how it can be used to address the current misinformation crisis. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-024-09885-y
"...all educators would do well to create mastery-focused classroom goal structures, to push all students in a more positive direction. Perhaps the only person a student should focus upon out-performing is who the student was yesterday."
<p>Have you ever felt detached from yourself or your surroundings, as if watching your life unfold from a distance? A recent study published in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-024-05658-7"><em>BMC Psychiatry</em></a> sheds light on these lesser-known symptoms — depersonalization and derealization — and their profound impact on individuals with depression. The findings reveal that those experiencing these symptoms alongside depression face a more severe illness course, less response to treatment, and overall poorer health outcomes.</p>
<p>Depersonalization refers to a state of feeling detached from oneself, where individuals may experience themselves as if they are an outside observer of their own thoughts, body, or sensations. This often manifests as a sense of estrangement or detachment from one’s own being, as if they are watching their life unfold from a distance without being able to fully participate in it.</p>
<p>Derealization, on the other hand, pertains to the external world, casting a veil of unreality over one’s surroundings. People experiencing derealization might describe the world around them as foggy, dreamlike, or visually distorted, as though they are living in a movie or a bubble from which they cannot escape. Unlike depersonalization, which affects one’s sense of self, derealization distorts one’s perception of the environment, making the world appear unreal and distant.</p>
<p>Depersonalization and derealization symptoms have been reported in 30-80% of various mental disorders and affect a significant portion of the general population to varying degrees. Despite their prevalence, these symptoms are often overlooked in clinical settings, particularly in the context of depression, where they are not currently recognized as diagnostic criteria. Given their potential to complicate treatment and prognosis, understanding the role of depersonalization and derealization in depression is crucial for improving patient care.</p>
<p>“I have been researching the symptoms of depersonalization and derealization for many years. These symptoms are largely neglected in mental health care, although they carry important prognostic and treatment-relevant information,” said study author <a href="https://www.unimedizin-mainz.de/psychosomatik/startseite/mitarbeiter/klinikdirektion.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Matthias Michal</a>, a specialist for psychosomatic medicine and psychotherapy at University Medical Center Mainz.</p>
<p>For their study, the researchers utilized data from the Gutenberg Health Study (GHS), a comprehensive, population-based cohort study conducted in the Rhine-Main-Region of Germany. This study’s design was observational and prospective, aiming to capture a wide array of health-related data from a large sample of the population, specifically targeting individuals aged 35 to 74 years.</p>
<p>Upon recruitment, participants underwent a detailed baseline examination between 2007 and 2012, with follow-up assessments five years later. These examinations incorporated clinical evaluations, computer-assisted personal interviews, laboratory tests from venous blood samples, and measurements of blood pressure and body metrics. Out of over 15,000 initial participants who underwent extensive baseline examinations between 2007 and 2012, this analysis focused on 10,422 individuals.</p>
<p>Among the study’s participants, a subset of individuals with clinically significant depression also exhibited depersonalization and derealization symptoms. This group faced a notably more severe disease trajectory compared to their depressed counterparts without depersonalization and derealization symptoms.</p>
<p>Depressed individuals with depersonalization and derealization symptoms reported higher levels of distress across various measures, including higher scores on the PHQ-9 for depression, indicating more severe depressive symptoms. They also exhibited greater anxiety, social anxiety, and personality distress, alongside poorer self-rated physical and mental health.</p>
<p>These findings suggest that depersonalization and derealization symptoms compound the burden of depression, amplifying its severity and the associated health impacts. Additionally, this group experienced more pronounced interpersonal problems, such as issues within the family and feelings of loneliness, and were more likely to be taking antidepressants and to have sought psychiatric consultation in the past month.</p>
<p>When examining outcomes over a five-year follow-up period, the study revealed a stark prognosis for individuals with depression. Only 15.9% of those with depression achieved remission.</p>
<p>“This is a somewhat disillusioning result because in Germany, health care is fully covered by statutory health insurance (mental health care: psychotherapy up to 300 hours, inpatient psychotherapy, psychiatric treatment, etc.),” Michal told PsyPost. “Mainz and the surrounding area, where the Gutenberg Health Study is conducted, is well-supplied with health care facilities and psychotherapists.”</p>
<p>An even smaller fraction of those with depersonalization and derealization symptoms achieved remission (6.9%), underlining the detrimental impact of these symptoms on the likelihood of recovery from depression. Michal was particularly surprised by the low remission rates. “The aim of depression treatment is remission,” he noted.</p>
<p>The study also found that depersonalization and derealization symptoms not only affect mental health outcomes but also have implications for physical health. Despite similar rates of chronic physical illnesses between depressed individuals with and without depersonalization and derealization symptoms, those experiencing depersonalization and derealization reported worse self-rated physical health.</p>
<p>This suggests that the perception and impact of physical health conditions may be exacerbated by the presence of depersonalization and derealization symptoms, further complicating the health profile of these individuals. Interestingly, the researchers also observed that depersonalization and derealization symptoms were associated with prolonged hospital stays, although they did not increase the overall likelihood of hospitalization for physical health reasons.</p>
<p>“Symptoms of depersonalization and derealization are predictors of worse outcomes for persons suffering from depression,” Michal said. “These symptoms are easy to assess. The study might motivate healthcare professionals to increase efforts to identify depersonalization and derealization symptoms and improve treatment rates and outcomes.”</p>
<p>While the study’s insights are invaluable, the authors acknowledge certain limitations, including the reliance on self-reported data and the potential for selection bias. Additionally, the study’s demographic focus on a specific region in Germany may limit the generalizability of the findings to broader populations. Finally, there was only limited data regarding treatment.</p>
<p>“We had no comprehensive information about treatment rates and treatment dosages,” Michal explained. “We do not know how many depressed persons have received adequate treatment.”</p>
<p>Looking ahead, the researchers call for further studies to explore the underlying mechanisms linking depersonalization and derealization symptoms with depression’s prognosis. There’s a particular interest in investigating the role of early identification and targeted treatment strategies for depersonalization and derealization symptoms in improving depressive disorder outcomes.</p>
<p>“I want to contribute to the improvement of mental healthcare for disadvantaged persons,” Michal said.</p>
<p>The study, “<a href="https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-024-05658-7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Impact of depersonalization on the course of depression: longitudinal observations from the gutenberg health study</a>,” was authored by Matthias Michal, Jörg Wiltink, Ana N. Tibubos, Philipp S. Wild, Thomas Münzel, Karl Lackner, Norbert Pfeiffer, Jochem König, Alexander Gieswinkel, Manfred Beutel, and Jasmin Ghaemi Kerahrodi.</p>