Faculty Bibliography

Reading regularly with young children stimulates optimal patterns of brain development and strengthens parent-child relationships at a critical time in child development, which, in turn, builds language, literacy, and social-emotional skills that last a lifetime. Pediatric providers have a unique opportunity to encourage parents to engage in this important and enjoyable activity with their children beginning in infancy. Research has revealed that parents listen and children learn as a result of literacy promotion by pediatricians, which provides a practical and evidence-based opportunity to support early brain development in primary care practice. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that pediatric providers promote early literacy development for children beginning in infancy and continuing at least until the age of kindergarten entry by (1) advising all parents that reading aloud with young children can enhance parent-child relationships and prepare young minds to learn language and early literacy skills; (2) counseling all parents about developmentally appropriate shared-reading activities that are enjoyable for children and their parents and offer language-rich exposure to books, pictures, and the written word; (3) providing developmentally appropriate books given at health supervision visits for all high-risk, low-income young children; (4) using a robust spectrum of options to support and promote these efforts; and (5) partnering with other child advocates to influence national messaging and policies that support and promote these key early shared-reading experiences. The AAP supports federal and state funding for children's books to be provided at pediatric health supervision visits to children at high risk living at or near the poverty threshold and the integration of literacy promotion, an essential component of pediatric primary care, into pediatric resident education. This policy statement is supported by the AAP technical report "School Readiness" and supports the AAP policy statement "Early Childhood Adversity, Toxic Stress, and the Role of the Pediatrician: Translating Developmental Science Into Lifelong Health."

"The bottom line was we found that when you're matched with a roommate who drinks alcohol, your grades are likely to go down," said Dan Levy, a senior lecturer in public policy at Harvard and co-author of a 2008 study on college students and alcohol. In a study published last year, Daniel Eisenberg, an associate professor of health management and policy at the University of Michigan who directs an annual survey of college student mental health, including roommate issues, and his colleagues found no significant "contagion" effect of mental health from one roommate to another

[...]on a crowded lane packed with stalls selling Islamic-Chinese cuisine -- lamb dumplings, mutton soup, pancakes and mung bean noodles -- tourists can pose with statues of a soup seller and his customers

What are the ethics of keeping one another waiting? "These issues are hugely important to patient satisfaction, to patient compliance, to patient trust, and to physician peace of mind, or a physician's positive attitude about work and environment," said Arthur L. Caplan, director of the bioethics division at NYU Langone Medical Center

"Like it or not, we are slightly fat, furless, bipedal primates who crave sugar, salt, fat, and starch," he writes, "but we are still adapted to eating a diverse diet of fibrous fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, tubers, and lean meat.We enjoy rest and relaxation, but our bodies are still those of endurance athletes evolved to walk many miles a day, often run, as well as dig, climb, and carry."

"Like it or not, we are slightly fat, furless, bipedal primates who crave sugar, salt, fat, and starch," he writes, "but we are still adapted to eating a diverse diet of fibrous fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, tubers, and lean meat.We enjoy rest and relaxation, but our bodies are still those of endurance athletes evolved to walk many miles a day, often run, as well as dig, climb, and carry."

Since solid objects have fixed characteristics, it's relatively easy for a toddler to figure out what makes a cup, ball or chair. [...]children sitting in highchairs did learn better in the study