Towards an integrated framework for accelerating the end of the global HIV epidemic among young people

For decades, the HIV epidemic has exacted an enormous toll worldwide. However, trend analyses have discerned significant declines in the overall prevalence of HIV over the last two decades. More recently, advances in biomedical, behavioural, and structural interventions offer considerable promise in the battle against generalised epidemics. Despite advances in the prevention of transmission and new infections, morbidity and mortality of HIV among young people remains a considerable concern for individuals, couples, families, communities, practitioners, and policy-makers around the globe. To accelerate the end of the global HIV epidemic among young people, we must merge existing efficacious interventions with more novel, cost-effective implementation strategies to develop integrated, multi-level combination interventions. The benefits of conceptualising the HIV epidemic more broadly and adopting ecological frameworks for the development of HIV prevention programmes are critical.     

Spacing extinction trials alleviates renewal and spontaneous recovery

Studies of extinction in classical conditioning situations can reveal techniques that maximize the effectiveness of exposure-based behavior therapies. In three experiments, we investigated the effect of varying the intertrial interval during an extinction treatment in a fear-conditioning preparation with rats as subjects. In Experiment 1, we found less fear at test (i.e., more effective extinction) when extinction trials were widely spaced, relative to intermediate or massed extinction trials. In Experiment 2, we used an ABA renewal procedure and observed that spaced trials attenuated renewal of conditioned fear relative to massed trials. In Experiment 3, we used a similar design, but instead of changing the physical context at the time of testing, we interposed a retention interval after the extinction treatment to produce a change in the temporal context. The results showed less spontaneous recovery of fear after spaced than after massed extinction trials. These results suggest that extinction is more enduring when the extinction trials are spaced rather than massed. Although the benefits of spacing trials are small when there is no contextual change from extinction to testing, a change in either physical or temporal context following massed extinction trials leads to a recovery from extinction, which is reduced when the trials are spaced.     

How environmental knowledge measures up at a Big Ten university

The reported research examines the level of environmental knowledge of Michigan State University students relative to the results of a biannual national study of the environmental knowledge of the general population of the United States. While the university students were found to possess higher levels of environmental knowledge than the general public, the students' overall environmental knowledge, on average, was deficient with only 66% of them receiving a passing grade. The findings suggest a positive correlation between academic level, field of study and environmental knowledge.