Background: The 2018 US Physical Activity Guidelines recommend reducing sedentary behavior (SB) for cardiovascular health. SB’s role in heart failure (HF) is unclear. Methods: We studied 80 982 women in the Women’s Health Initiative Observational Study, aged 50 to 79 years, who were without known HF and reported ability to walk ≥1 block unassisted at baseline. Mean follow-up was 9 years for physician-adjudicated incident HF hospitalization (1402 cases). SB was assessed repeatedly by questionnaire. Time-varying total SB was categorized according to awake time spent sitting or lying down (≤6.5, 6.6–9.5, >9.5 h/d); sitting time (≤4.5, 4.6–8.5, >8.5 h/d) was also evaluated. Hazard ratios and 95% CI were estimated using Cox regression. Results: Controlling for age, race/ethnicity, education, income, smoking, alcohol, menopausal hormone therapy, and hysterectomy status, higher HF risk was observed across incremental tertiles of time-varying total SB (hazard ratios [95% CI], 1.00 [referent], 1.15 [1.01–1.31], 1.42 [1.25–1.61], trend P <0.001) and sitting time (1.00 [referent], 1.14 [1.01–1.28], 1.54 [1.34–1.78], trend P <0.001). The inverse trends remained significant after further controlling for comorbidities including time-varying myocardial infarction and coronary revascularization (hazard ratios: SB, 1.00, 1.11, 1.27; sitting, 1.00, 1.09, 1.37, trend P <0.001 each) and for baseline physical activity (hazard ratios: SB 1.00, 1.10, 1.24; sitting 1.00, 1.08, 1.33, trend P <0.001 each). Associations with SB exposures were not different according to categories of baseline age, race/ethnicity, body mass index, physical activity, physical functioning, diabetes, hypertension, or coronary heart disease. Conclusions: SB was associated with increased risk of incident HF hospitalization in postmenopausal women. Targeted efforts to reduce SB could enhance HF prevention in later life.

Background: Data dashboards are published tools that present visualizations; they are increasingly used to display data about behavioral health, social determinants of health, and chronic and infectious disease risks to inform or support public health endeavors. Dashboards can be an evidence-based approach used by communities to influence decision-making in health care for specific populations. Despite widespread use, evidence on how to best design and use dashboards in the public health realm is limited. There is also a notable dearth of studies that examine and document the complexity and heterogeneity of dashboards in community settings. Objective: Community stakeholders engaged in the community response to the opioid overdose crisis could benefit from the use of data dashboards for decision-making. As part of the Communities That HEAL (CTH) intervention, community data dashboards were created for stakeholders to support decision-making. We assessed stakeholders’ perceptions of the usability and use of the CTH dashboards for decision-making. Methods: We conducted a mixed methods assessment between June and July 2021 on the use of CTH dashboards. We administered the System Usability Scale (SUS) and conducted semistructured group interviews with users in 33 communities across 4 states of the United States. The SUS comprises 10 five-point Likert-scale questions measuring usability, each scored from 0 to 4. The interview guides were informed by the technology adoption model (TAM) and focused on perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, intention to use, and contextual factors. Results: Overall, 62 users of the CTH dashboards completed the SUS and interviews. SUS scores (grand mean 73, SD 4.6) indicated that CTH dashboards were within the acceptable range for usability. From the qualitative interview data, we inductively created subthemes within the 4 dimensions of the TAM to contextualize stakeholders’ perceptions of the dashboard’s usefulness and ease of use, their intention to use, and contextual factors. These data also highlighted gaps in knowledge, design, and use, which could help focus efforts to improve the use and comprehension of dashboards by stakeholders. Conclusions: We present a set of prioritized gaps identified by our national group and list a set of lessons learned for improved data dashboard design and use for community stakeholders. Findings from our novel application of both the SUS and TAM provide insights and highlight important gaps and lessons learned to inform the design of data dashboards for use by decision-making community stakeholders. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04111939; https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT04111939

Shelf-stable pickled products are thermally processed to ensure safety and stability. Carrots packed in glass jars and processed in a boiling water bath were chosen to construct models to predict accumulated lethality values given process conditions and heating times. Mixed models with a natural logarithmic transformation of accumulated lethality as response showed that the effect of blanching prior to filling did not significantly impact the response (P > 0.05), while the effects of ln process time, jar size, carrots to brine ratio, carrot spear diameter, brine temperature, and concentration of sucrose in the brine and interactions among these variables significantly affected the response (P < 0.001), as evaluated in different experimental designs. The residual unexplained replicate-to-replicate variability of all constructed models was always <3% and every trial was conducted in triplicate. Process authorities can use these models to establish processing guidelines or evaluate current processes for production of shelf-stable pickled carrots or similar foods (as demonstrated by the validation experiments) with pH values from <3.9 to 4.4. This study also demonstrated that it is feasible to use this experimental setup to evaluate the impact of changes in processing conditions on the accumulated lethality values reached through thermal processing of similar foods. Overall, these results contribute to the establishment of science-based processing guidelines that will ensure production of safe and stable products with optimized heating times to enhance quality parameters

Exposure to wildfire smoke (WFS) is associated with detrimental physical and mental health. Periods of sustained WFS are predicted to increase with climate change, affecting populations globally. Using a retrospective cross-sectional study, we assessed perceptions of and responses to WFS in a cohort of New York State (NYS) residents in Summer 2023. Data were collected using an online survey from October to November 2023. Descriptive statistics summarized respondent experiences, while exploratory analyses identified high-risk populations using chi-square and t-tests. Our sample consisted of 609 primarily healthy, white, and well-educated individuals who spent most of their time in NYS during Summer 2023. Of the 99% that reported experiencing WFS, 92% received and 91% sought out WFS-related air quality information. While only 25% reported a WFS-related illness, 87% experienced at least one symptom with WFS, frequently citing watery eyes (63%), irritated throat (50%), and headaches (49%), with women reporting symptoms more frequently than men (89.1% vs. 81.6%; p = 0.034). A majority (93%) reported taking mitigation actions, including avoiding outdoor activities (75%) and wearing masks (54%). Our results highlight widespread impacts of wildfires in NYS during Summer 2023, with nearly all respondents reporting sustained periods of WFS. Most reported at least one adverse health symptom despite taking preventative measures, indicating that current protective strategies may be insufficient and more effective interventions are needed.