United States: Black parents with teenagers with autism have concerns about their children’s vulnerability when they encounter police officers.

Key Findings from the Study

A study published on Dec. 16 in the Autism Journal has revealed that aspects like reduced eye contact observed in children with autism may make police consider them to be guilty, as reported by HealthDay.

Sadly, police officers do not learn that these actions are typical among children with autism, families informed scholars.

Voices of the Researchers

“It’s important for everyone to understand that the parents in this study said they were hopeful, which we interpreted as Black caregivers’ faith that interactions between officers and Black autistic youth could be better,” said lead researcher Ashlee Yates Flanagan, a clinical psychologist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Center (CHOP) for Autism Research.

Researchers reveal important themes to improve interactions between police and Black autistic youth https://t.co/4KaqLTKU8M

— Continental Clinical (@Conti_Clinical) December 16, 2024

“This demonstrates that there’s space for improvement in training, and we can take what we know from this study and explore it further,” Flanagan added in a CHOP news release.

During the interviews, four distinct themes surfaced:

• The caliber of police officer education

• Inappropriate police enforcement of typical autistic behaviors

• The overt threat of injury and death

• Families believe that police officers may become aggressive towards gestures and responses that are normal for AS children but not for other children, as the study indicated.

Some families said that training might make police see these differences in conduct, which should bring about tolerance and perseverance that could enhance the relations between children and the police.

CHOP Researchers Identify Key Ways to Improve Police Interactions with Black Autistic Youthhttps://t.co/8wlvNa0HUu pic.twitter.com/RhpNeYSc0f

— Autism and Friends (@autismtalknd) December 17, 2024

“In this study, we captured rich narratives from stakeholders who have not been represented well in prior research, but whose thoughts and perspectives are critical for knowing how to improve outcomes for Black autistic youth and police,” said senior researcher Julia Parish-Morris, a scientist in the CHOP Center for Autism Research, as reported by HealthDay.

“Our findings suggest that there is a lot of room for growth in training for police officers and that Black parents of Black autistic youth carry hope that outcomes can be improved,” Parish-Morris added.

United States: Research says that people with breathing problems can know whether they are suffering from COPD with the help of a new lung AI test.

AI Offers a One-Scan Solution for COPD

The newly developed AI can accurately diagnose COPD using data from a single chest CT scan performed as a person inhales, researchers reported Dec. 12 in the journal Radiology: Cardiothoracic Imaging, as reported by HealthDay.

The researchers said it can also inform from that scan how severe a person’s COPD is.

So far, doctors have required two CT scans to diagnose and assess COPD — one when the person has taken a deep breath and one when he or she has exhaled.

“Our study shows that COPD diagnosis and staging is feasible with a single CT acquisition and relevant clinical data,” said researcher Kyle Hasenstab, an assistant statistics and data science professor at San Diego State University.

A Growing Global Health Concern

COPD is defined as a systemic group of lung diseases that become worse over time and make it difficult for individuals in the community to breathe. COPD is chronic, and there is no known treatment for the disease, although it ranks third in deaths globally, according to the researchers’ background information.

The researchers added that spirometry, a lung function test that tests the amount of air, including vital capacity, that a patient can inhale and exhale, has been the primary approach toward identifying COPD.

Some hospitals already use CT images of the lungs to help diagnose COPD because the images can point out lung tissue that might be limiting breath, Hasenstab said.

“However, this type of protocol is not clinically standard across institutions,” Hasenstab said; this is due to the fact that it requires additional training for the staff to be able to take good CT images as well as to be able to interpret them.

Scientists believed that if the AI could read CT scans for COPD, more people could be provided with CT scans, despite a lack of training.

How the AI Works

To provide answers for this study, the researchers captured the inhaled and expelled lung CT scans of nearly 8,900 patients who were tested from November 2007 to April 2011 and their spirometry results.

The average age of patients was 59, and all patients were smokers.

Benefits of the AI Tool

The team then utilized the CT scans and the clinical data to teach the AI to forecast spirometry outcomes.

Study findings indicated that the AI could identify COPD by relying on one of the CT scans and could reasonably express how severe the COPD had become.

Researchers pointed out that when they introduced clinical data, the accuracy of the AI was enhanced.

Researchers also discovered that the AI’s performance was similar when the patients had to hold their breath during the CT scan or when they were breathing normally, as reported by HealthDay.

“Reduction to a single inspiratory CT acquisition can increase accessibility to this diagnostic approach while reducing patient cost, discomfort, and exposure to ionizing radiation,” Hasenstab said in a journal news release.

United States: Most young adult vaping individuals can quit with brief intervention and counseling.

Study Highlights

Specifically, research published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine on December 10, 2019, shows that nearly half of a group of 18-24 year old who volunteered to quit vaping didn’t vape again three months after attending a quit program that included phone coaching, a health app, and nicotine replacement therapy accustomed to vaping, as reported by HealthDay.

“This study provides hope that young adult vapers want to quit and can be successful in breaking their addiction to nicotine,” said researcher Liz Klein, chair of health behavior and health promotion with the Ohio State University College of Public Health.

Study Overview

The sample comprised over 500 young adults aged between 18–35 years who were sourced through social media. About 8 out of 10 of them used the product on a daily basis.

Phone Coaching: A Key Component

The participants were split into four groups, and the researchers used the random method to divide them. All the groups got phone-based quitline coaching, but the other three received mailed Nicotine Replacement Therapy, a mobile application containing text and video-based materials, and both.

By the end of the three months of course, the research revealed that 45 percent of the young adults in the study had quit vaping.

Due to the high success rate for all, the researchers failed to give details on which of the quit supports was most effective.

However, because everyone received quitline coaching, there is a lot of potential for phone support for vapers who wish to quit.

Addressing the Vaping Epidemic

The researchers also did not expect that the majority of the participants in the study would say that they would recommend quitline calls. They assumed that young adults disliked using their phones and preferred written communication for support.

This support is important because, in 2016, the US Surgeon General deemed e-cigarette use an epidemic. After all, vaping causes nicotine addiction, and the developing brain may be negatively affected.

According to the study, 14% of young adults aged 21 to 24 and nearly 1 in 4 (19%) of those aged 18 to 20 reported vaping in 2020.

Moving Forward

“We want to know how we can help young people not develop a lifelong addiction to nicotine and how to make sure they’re not switching to cigarettes, which comes with such a high toll in terms of both death and disease,” Klein said in an Ohio State news release, as reported by HealthDay.

“We are very excited to see that this cessation approach worked so well in this group,” Klein said. “Next, we’d love to determine how to best facilitate quitting among young people who vape and smoke traditional cigarettes.”