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California Department (california + department)
Selected AbstractsSurvival of individuals with cerebral palsy receiving continuous intrathecal baclofen treatment: a matched-cohort studyDEVELOPMENTAL MEDICINE & CHILD NEUROLOGY, Issue 7 2010LINDA E KRACH Aim, To determine whether intrathecal baclofen (ITB) changes mortality risk in persons with cerebral palsy (CP). Method, Records were reviewed for all persons with CP who were managed with ITB for hypertonicity at a specialty hospital in Minnesota between May 1993 and August 2007. A comparison cohort was randomly selected from clients of the California Department of Developmental Services who were initially evaluated between 1987 and 1990 and were matched to those with ITB for age, sex, Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) level, presence or absence of epilepsy, and feeding-tube use. Survival probabilities were estimated using the Kaplan,Meier method, and differences were tested via log-rank. Results, Three hundred and fifty-nine persons with CP (202 males, 157 females) receiving ITB for hypertonicity (mean age 12y 8mo, SD 7y 9mo, range 3y 1mo to 39y 9mo) were matched to 349 persons without ITB pumps (195 males, 154 females; mean age 12y 7mo, SD 8y 4mo, range 2y 7mo to 40y). The proportion of patients at different GMFCS levels in the ITB and in the non-ITB cohorts, respectively, was as follows: level II 3% and 3%, level III 16% and 16%, level IV 38% and 37%, and level V 43% and 44%. Survival at 8 years of follow-up was 92% (SD 1.9%) in the ITB cohort and 82% (SD 2.4%) in the non-ITB cohort (p<0.001). After adjustment to account for recent trends in improved survival in CP, 8-year survival in the non-ITB cohort was 88%, which was not significantly different from the ITB cohort (p=0.073). Interpretation, ITB therapy does not increase mortality in individuals with CP and may suggest an increase in life expectancy. [source] Ground Water Recharge Using Recycled Municipal Waste Water in Los Angeles County and the California Department of Public Health's Draft Regulations on Aquifer Retention TimeGROUND WATER, Issue 4 2009Theodore A. Johnson First page of article [source] "It's Just Black, White, or Hispanic": An Observational Study of Racializing Moves in California's Segregated Prison Reception CentersLAW & SOCIETY REVIEW, Issue 4 2008Philip Goodman This article takes as its launching point a 2005 U. S. Supreme Court case, Johnson v. California (543 U.S. 499), which ruled that the California Department of Corrections' unwritten practice of racially segregating inmates in prison reception centers is to be reviewed under the highest level of constitutional review, strict scrutiny. Relying on observational data from two California prison reception centers, this research is grounded in an interactionist perspective and influenced by Smith's work on "institutional ethnography." I examine how racialization occurs in carceral settings, arguing that officers and inmates collaborate to arrive at a "negotiated settlement" regarding housing decisions. They do so working together (but not always in agreement) to shape how an inmate is categorized in terms of ,race'/ethnicity and gang/group affiliation, within a framework established by official Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation paperwork and related institutional understandings of housing needs. The findings demonstrate that administrators, officers, and inmates alike have influence over the process by which people are categorized and ,race' is produced, even as they derive their power from different sources and are both enabled and constrained by the relationship between them. I conclude that California prisons are, as Wacquant has put it, "the main machine for ,race making'" (2005:128), and that the fuel for that machine,a series of patterned, negotiated settlements,happens in real time, "on the ground," and with important consequences for inmates, officers, and administrators. [source] Geographic distribution of autism in California: A retrospective birth cohort analysis,AUTISM RESEARCH, Issue 1 2010Karla C. Van Meter Abstract Prenatal environmental exposures are among the risk factors being explored for associations with autism. We applied a new procedure combining multiple scan cluster detection tests to identify geographically defined areas of increased autism incidence. This procedure can serve as a first hypothesis-generating step aimed at localized environmental exposures, but would not be useful for assessing widely distributed exposures, such as household products, nor for exposures from nonpoint sources, such as traffic. Geocoded mothers' residences on 2,453,717 California birth records, 1996,2000, were analyzed including 9,900 autism cases recorded in the California Department of Developmental Services (DDS) database through February 2006 which were matched to their corresponding birth records. We analyzed each of the 21 DDS Regional Center (RC) catchment areas separately because of the wide variation in diagnostic practices. Ten clusters of increased autism risk were identified in eight RC regions, and one Potential Cluster in each of two other RC regions. After determination of clusters, multiple mixed Poisson regression models were fit to assess differences in known demographic autism risk factors between the births within and outside areas of elevated autism incidence, independent of case status. Adjusted for other covariates, the majority of areas of autism clustering were characterized by high parental education, e.g. relative risks >4 for college-graduate vs. nonhigh-school graduate parents. This geographic association possibly occurs because RCs do not actively conduct case finding and parents with lower education are, for various reasons, less likely to successfully seek services. [source] | ||||||||||