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As the weather warms and the days get longer, newness springs on the horizon. With COVID-19 vaccination continuing to ramp up at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, there is a light at the end of the pandemic tunnel. But how best to handle the loss, grief, emotion and turmoil of the last year that continue to linger?
Experts across the School of Medicine and the UAB Medicine Office of Wellness discuss mental health during the pandemic and give their best advice on maintaining mental and emotional well-being as we look toward the future.
Mental Health Services Surge
The Lumbar is a spirited celebration of women and science with cocktails and food in Alabama
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By Susan Swagler March 31, 2021
The Lumbar in Birmingham celebrates women and science in food and drink. (Brittany Dunn / Alabama NewsCenter)
Your first clue that The Lumbar is a bar like no other is the row of beers on tap. They are situated on what owner Rylie Hightower calls the Spinal Tap, and there are 26 of them – the same as the number of vertebrae in a human spine. Then there’s the giant (16-foot) microscope that’s actually a load-bearing wall. Colorful pop-art posters celebrate female scientists like trailblazing mathematicians Vivienne Malone-Mayes and Ada Lovelace, laser pioneer Donna Strickland and Claudia Alexander, who specialized in geophysics and planetary science. Old medical textbooks, a LEGO racecar, a vintage oscilloscope and a Brownie Target Six-16 box camera line shelves above comfy velvet sofas.
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Like their adult counterparts, U.S. children and adolescents had favorable blood pressure (BP) trends stalled or even reversed in the last decade, according to a large National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) analysis.
Children, ages 8 to 12 years, had age-adjusted mean BP fall from 102.4/57.2 mm Hg in 1999-2002 to 101.5/51.9 mm Hg in 2011-2014, and then increase to 102.5/53.2 mm Hg in 2015-2018. Prevalence of hypertension virtually stayed flat from 5.2% in 1999-2002 to 4.6% in 2015-2018.
Adolescents, ages 13 to 17 years, had mean BP decrease from 109.2/62.6 mm Hg in 1999-2002 to 108.4/59.6 mm Hg in 2011-2014, then change little to 108.4/60.8 mm Hg in 2015-2018, reported Shakia Hardy, PhD, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and colleagues.
As the city of Bessemer grew, so did LaTasha Cook-Williams.
The 45-year-old Marvel City native is the first woman and first African American to serve as president of the Bessemer Area Chamber of Commerce, a position she has held since 2015.
“I am excited to set some examples and, hopefully, make it easier for the generation after me when it comes to taking leadership positions,” she said.
Cook-Williams said she has noticed gradual changes with businesses in Bessemer since she started working with the chamber as an intern in 1992.
“It was predominately Caucasian [back then], … but I’ve seen diversity shift in Bessemer, even in the leadership positions,” she said. “More [people of color] are getting involved and knowing how important it is to reach their customer base.”
Nationally representative data were used to look at whether systolic and diastolic blood pressure levels among children and adolescents in the United States have changed during the past 20 years.