Childhood Disability In The United States, 2019

According to a report issued on March 25, 2021 from the United States Census Bureau, the percentage of children with a disability in the U.S. increased between 2008 and 2019, from 3.9% to 4.3%. The most common type of disability among children five years and older in 2019 was cognitive difficulty. In 2019, disability rates in the U.S. were highest among American Indian and Alaska Native children (5.9%) and lowest among Asian children (2.3%). Childhood disability rates were lower among foreign-born children (3.2%) than among native-born children (4.2%) and lower among native-born children with one or more foreign-born parents (3.1%), relative to native-born children with only native-born parents (4.5%). While children in poverty were more likely to have a disability than children above the poverty threshold in 2008 and 2019, the prevalence of disability significantly increased for both groups over this period. The highest prevalence rates were in the South and the Northeast and the lowest rate was in the West.

U.S. Births: Final Data For 2019

Data from the National Vital Statistics Report on March 23, 2021 from the CDC show that a total of 3,747,540 births were registered in the United States in 2019, down 1% from 2018. The general fertility rate declined from 2018 to 58.3 births per 1,000 women aged 15–44 in 2019. The birth rate for females aged 15– 19 fell 4% between 2018 and 2019. Birth rates declined for women aged 20–34 and increased for women aged 35–44 for 2018–2019. The total fertility rate declined to 1,706.0 births per 1,000 women in 2019. Birth rates declined for both married and unmarried women from 2018 to 2019. The percentage of women who began prenatal care in the first trimester of pregnancy rose to 77.6% in 2019. The percentage of all women who smoked during pregnancy declined to 6.0%. The cesarean delivery rate decreased to 31.7% in 2019. Medicaid was the source of payment for 42.1% of all births in 2019. The rate of low birthweight essentially was unchanged from 2018 at 8.31%.

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Electronic Skin From Flexibility To A Sense Of Touch

Materials scientists represent another group engaged in efforts to defeat the coronavirus. A team at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL develops soft, flexible, skin-like materials with health-monitoring applications. According to an article published on March 23, 2021 in the journal Nature, one device that is designed to sit in the hollow at the base of the throat, is a wireless, Bluetooth-connected piece of polymer and circuitry that provides real-time monitoring of talking, breathing, heart rate, and other vital signs, which could be used in individuals who have had a stroke and require speech therapy. A previously unanswered question was whether the device also could be customized to spot symptoms of the coronavirus SARS-CoV -2. The short answer was ‘yes’. Some 400 of the devices are being used in Chicago to help identify early signs of COVID-19 in front-line health workers, as well as for disease monitoring in patients. Furthermore, the design has been tweaked to assess how coughing rates change in patients with COVID-19.

Genome-Wide Programmable Transcriptional Memory By CRISPR-Based Epigenome Editing

The epigenome plays a central role in many diseases, from viral infection to cancer. This entity consists of proteins and small molecules that latch onto DNA and control when and where genes are switched on or off. A general approach for heritably altering gene expression may lead someday to powerful epigenetic therapies. The endeavor involves modifying CRISPR's basic architecture to extend its reach beyond the genome. According to a paper published April 9, 2021, in the journal Cell, researchers at UC San Francisco and the Whitehead Institute describe a novel CRISPR-based tool called "CRISPRoff," which allows scientists to switch off almost any gene in human cells without making a single edit to the genetic code. The researchers also show that once a gene is switched off, it remains inert in the cell's descendants for hundreds of generations, unless it is switched back on with a complementary tool called CRISPRon, that also is described in the paper. This approach doesn't involve any DNA edits and is likely to be safer than conventional CRISPR therapeutics.

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