Lancaster County Research Articles

Perspectives on Breast Health Education and Services Among Recent Hispanic Immigrant Women in the Midwest: a Qualitative Study in Lancaster County, Nebraska.

Breast cancer is the most common cause of cancer death among Hispanic women in the USA. Throughout the country, Hispanic immigrants face many barriers to achieving optimal breast health. Three focus groups were conducted to explore challenges and opportunities in access to breast health services and information among recent Hispanic immigrant women in Lancaster Country, Nebraska. Respondents perceived breast cancer as a serious issue and were concerned about it, but there were few cues to action to improve health given the limited information and access to services available to low-income Spanish-speaking individuals in the community. Results highlighted the need for culturally and linguistically appropriate health education and services, accessibility and promotion of low-cost screening and treatment services, and inclusive policies to promote preventative healthcare services for all women regardless of immigration status. Health is more than just clinical care, and therefore, it is important to understand the contextual and cultural factors that have resulted in low screening rates and develop methods to address these them. Failure to address these aspects of social determinants ofhealth could hamper efforts to improve breast health and reduce disparities.

Evaluating the Impact of Bridge-Deck Removal on the Performance of Precast/Prestressed Concrete I-Girders

AbstractPrecast/prestressed concrete I-girders with wide and thin top flanges have been widely used by several transportation agencies in the last two decades. These girders have many advantages, such as accommodating a large number of prestressing strands, having a reduced girder weight, and providing greater stability in construction and an adequate platform for workers. Despite these advantages, the wide and thin top flange might be disadvantageous when it comes to deck removal, as it is more susceptible to damage. In this paper, the impact of deck removal on the performance of supporting girders is investigated. Two methods, saw-cutting and jackhammering, were implemented on the Camp Creek Bridge over I-80 in Lancaster County, Nebraska, before demolition due to its functional obsolesces. Different saw-cutting and jackhammering techniques were performed for deck removal between girders and on top of girder flange. Also, two girders from the bridge were taken to the lab for structural testing after appl...

Practicality and Identity as Functions of Education in Old Order Mennonite and Hutterite Communities

This study is an exploration of common structures, theories, and practices among the educational systems of selected Anabaptist communities, focusing on a Midwestern Schmiedeleut Hutterite community and the Groffdale Conference (Old Order) Mennonites in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Building on ideas of utopian communities, this research suggests two key foci of education as practiced in Hutterite and Old Order Mennonite communities. The first is identity, both of the community—as manifested by a common purpose and identity—and of the individual—as manifested by a belief in free will. The second is practicality, both in the physical (pragmatic) and metaphysical (idealistic) realm. Anabaptist communities tend to perceive education as highly important to the continued meaningful existence of the community because education serves as a means of socializing children and youth into community norms, standards, and beliefs.

Engaging Employers and Business in the Hiring of Individuals with Criminal Records

The successful reentry and reintegration of ex-offenders with disabilities will be discussed in terms of barrier removal, employer perception, and an improved relationship with the criminal justice system. A criminal record limits opportunitiesfor employment and without collaborative community supports can increase both recidivism rates and increase costs to an over-burdened criminal justice system. Employer relationships, including outreach, marketing and evidence-based partneringlcollaboration will be reviewed, including a model program from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania that supports the discussion. Special considerations for those with sex offenses will be provided, as well as efforts to eliminate the stigma involved with criminal and/or felony records. The correlation between disability and delinquency in terms of both impairment and vocational impediments is described through three disabilities (TBL Substance Abuse/Dependency, and Mental Illness). The role of the VR counselor in terms of community efforts at reducing recidivism, increasing employment outcomes for ex-offenders/clients, through effective partnerships, can affect significantly both societal and economic improvement, as well as impact overall recidivism, reentry and community reintegration issues for ex-offenders.

Chronotype and seasonality: Morningness is associated with lower seasonal mood and behavior changes in the Old Order Amish

BackgroundSeveral studies documented that lower scores on the Morningness–Eveningness Questionnaire (MEQ) are associated with a higher global seasonality of mood (GSS). As for the Modern Man artificial lighting predominantly extends evening activity and exposure to light, and as evening bright light phase is known to delay circadian rhythms, this chronic exposure could potentially lead to both lower Morningness as well as higher GSS. The aim of the study was to investigate if the MEQ–GSS relationship holds in the Old Order Amish of Lancaster County, PA, a population that does not use network electrical light. Methods489 Old Order Amish adults (47.6% women), with average (SD) age of 49.7 (14.2) years, completed both the Seasonal Pattern Assessment Questionnaire (SPAQ) for the assessment of GSS, and MEQ. Associations between GSS scores and MEQ scores were analyzed using linear models, accounting for age, gender and relatedness by including the relationship matrix in the model as a random effect. ResultsGSS was inversely associated with MEQ scores (p=0.006, adjusted). Limitationsinclude a potential recall bias associated with self-report questionnaires and no actual light exposure measurements. ConclusionWe confirmed the previously reported inverse association between MEQ scores and lower seasonality of mood, for the first time in a population that does not use home network electrical lighting. This result suggests that the association is not a byproduct of exposure to network electric light, and calls for additional research to investigate mechanisms by which Morningness is negatively associated with seasonality.

Metabolic Syndrome and Air Pollution Exposures in the Old Order Amish

Metabolic Syndrome (MetS) is defined as the presence of at least three of the following factors: abdominal obesity, hypertension, hypertriglyceridemia, low HDL or hyperglycemia, insulin resistance, atherogenic dyslipidemia, proinflammatory state, and prothrombotic state. A little more than one-third of US adults are estimated to have MetS. It is hypothesized that air pollution may influence susceptibility to MetS through its effects on oxidative stress, inflammation, and other pathways. We are currently evaluating the association of MetS characteristics with chronic exposure to ambient particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) in the Old Order Amish from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The Old Order Amish are a genetically-closed homogeneous Caucasian population with social cohesiveness and similar socioeconomic status, limited use of prescription medication, lower relocation rates, high levels of physical activity, and obesity comparable to US rates. These attributes provide an opportunity for investigating the association of MetS with locally varying outdoor air pollution exposures. Using spatio-temporal models (that included geographic and meteorologic covariates) of monthly-average measured ambient concentrations, we have assigned monthly residential-location-specific exposure profiles to PM2.5 and PM10 between 1995 and 2007. In a preliminary cross-sectional analysis we have tested whether blood pressure, BMI, lipids and glucose measures are associated with PM2.5 and PM10 exposures adjusting for age, sex, and tobacco use. MetS was present in about 13% of the first 2408 Amish participants included. Preliminary analyses suggest associations between some MetS-related traits and PM exposures. For example each 10 ug/m3 unit increase in PM10 exposure in the prior month was associated with a 1.3-fold increased odds of having abdominal obesity (95% CI :1.0 -1.7). Analyses are ongoing.

Vitamin and Supplement Use among Old Order Amish: Sex-Specific Prevalence and Associations with Use

BackgroundComplementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in the form of vitamin and supplement use is increasingly prevalent in the United States. The interplay between CAM use and use of conventional medications is not well studied. We examined this issue in Old Order Amish (OOA), a population lacking several factors known to influence supplement use, whose culture and barriers to conventional medications may result in high rates of supplement use. ObjectiveWe characterized the patterns of supplement use in OOA, including the extent to which CAM use aggregates in families, and assessed whether higher use of supplements is associated with lower medication use. DesignWe conducted a cross-sectional study of conventional medications and supplements in 2,372 adult Amish from the Lancaster County, PA, area. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews. Supplements were subcategorized as herbal vs vitamin/mineral supplements. ResultsSeventy-seven percent of all Amish adults reported current supplement use, whereas 22% reported medication use. Women used supplements more often and used more supplements than men, and familial aggregation of supplement use was stronger in family pairs involving women. Supplement use was associated with less medication use after controlling for age, sex, body mass index, and self-reported histories of hypertension, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 0.96, 95% CI 0.92 to 1.00; P=0.047). This association was driven primarily by use of herbal supplements (adjusted OR 0.94, 95% CI 0.89 to 0.99; P=0.025) as vitamin/mineral supplements were not associated with different use of medication (adjusted OR 0.99, 95% CI 0.90 to 1.09; P=0.8). In analyses limited to cardiovascular medications and cardiovascular supplements in participants with hyperlipidemia, hypertension, or diabetes, supplement use was not associated with conventional medication use. ConclusionsOAA, particularly women, take dietary supplements much more frequently than they use conventional medications. Use of herbal supplements is associated with less use of conventional medications, whereas vitamin/mineral supplement use is not.

The Paxton Boys and the Moravians: Terror and Faith in the Pennsylvania Backcountry

ABSTRACT The diaries and letters written by Moravian ministers as the Paxton Boys bloodied Lancaster County in late 1763 challenge recent accounts of these events that have become an obligatory stop for historians studying the changing relations between Indians and whites in colonial America. These sources complicate the standard chronology in which physical violence turns to political pressure (on which, many historians suggest, the Paxton Boys were focused all along); they reveal that the killings were meant as a challenge to Edward Shippen and Lancaster’s elite, not provincial elites in Philadelphia; and they reveal that, while racial prejudice influenced the groups that the Paxton Boys considered enemies, their category of enemy itself was not limited by race. The Paxton Boys targeted whites, English Quakers and German Moravians, when they believed that these groups jeopardized the security of the backcountry. As riders cursing “God damn you, Moravians” passed through the village of Lititz, many feared that the German Moravians might be the next group to disappear from Pennsylvania’s landscape.

Impact of Maternal Vitamin D Insufficiency on Neonatal Bone and Fat Mass

Impact of Maternal Vitamin D Insufficiency on Neonatal Bone and Fat Mass

La zaratita de Cabo Ortegal (A Coruña): historia de su descubrimiento y caracterización actual

Zaratite, Ni 3 CO 3 (OH) 4 .4H 2 O is one of the few minerals discovered in Spain. Taking into account that it is an amorphous compound with variable chemical composition depending on the ore deposits, the International Mineralogical Association (IMA) currently considers zaratita in the Q status (Questionable). In this article we analyze first the nearly simultaneous discoveries of the Spanish zaratite and other material called “Emerald of Nickel” from Texas, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania (USA), of similar chemical composition. Both led to the current zaratite, where the Spanish mineral provides the name and the American one, the chemical composition anc physical properties. In addition, here we also include an experimental characterization of the zaratite historical specimen from Ortegal Cape, by electron microprobe, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, differential thermal and thermo-gravimetric analyses, micro-Raman, infrared transmission spectroscopy and spectral cathodoluminescence together with a discussion of the analytical results.

Amish quilts: crafting an American icon

Quilts have become a cherished symbol of craftsmanship and the beauty of the simple life. Country stores in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and other tourist regions display row after row of handcrafted quilts-a favorite souvenir for tourists and a source of income for the quilters. In luxury homes, office buildings, and museums, the quilts have been preserved and displayed as priceless artifacts. They are even pictured on collectible stamps. Quilts explores how these objects evolved from practical bed linens into contemporary art. In this in-depth study, illustrated with more than 100 stunning color photographs, Janneken Smucker discusses what makes an quilt Amish. She examines the value of quilts to those who have made, bought, sold, exhibited, and preserved them and how that value changes as a quilt travels from hands to marketplace to consumers. A fifth-generation Mennonite quiltmaker herself, Smucker traces the history of quilts from their use in the late nineteenth century to their sale in the lucrative business practices of today. Through her own observations as well as oral histories, newspaper accounts, ephemera, and other archival sources, she seeks to understand how the term Amish became a style and what it means to both quiltmakers and consumers. She also looks at how quilts influence fashion and raises issues of authenticity of quilts in the marketplace. Whether considered as art, craft, or commodity, quilts reflect the intersections of consumerism and connoisseurship, religion and commerce, nostalgia and aesthetics. By thoroughly examining all of these aspects, Quilts is an essential resource for anyone interested in the history of these beautiful works.

History Uncovered

After a flood ravaged a late-19th-century covered bridge in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, it took a team of engineers and builders months to inspect the damage and devise a plan to salvage or replace each water-logged member: The result is a new bridge built with 19th-century techniques that accurately re-creates a local treasure.

The Amish—A People of Preservation and Profitability: A Look at the Amish Industry in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania

Throughout much of their existence, the Amish remained relatively unknown and/or misunderstood by much of American society other than those who lived in areas with visible Amish communities. However, beginning in the second half of the twentieth century, the popularization of the Amish became a profitable commodity. With ever-increasing media exposure of the Amish during this time, some Amish communities were quickly becoming tourist destinations. It was clear by this point that the growing numbers of sightseers and lines of tour buses could be a moneymaker for businesses near the Amish communities. In many respects, the Amish during this time became a brand, representing a lifestyle that many Americans sought, if only on occasion—a bygone era when things were perceived to be simpler. Amish products and Amish imagery are now a viable commercial brand for everything from amusement parks to beer. This article examines the phenomenon of this “brand” in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Through analyses of interviews with Amish merchants, non-Amish businesspersons who profit from the Amish image, as well as the patrons of Amish stores, the following article provides a unique account of how the Amish image functions from multiple perspectives and the influence it has on consumers who financially support the Amish “brand.”

The status of zaratite: investigation of the type specimen from Cape Ortegal, Galicia, Spain

Three zaratite samples from Cape Ortegal (type locality, Spain), Texas, Lancaster County (Pennsylvania) and Heazlewood (Tasmania) were analyzed by electron-probe micro-analysis (EPMA), environmental scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive spectrometer (ESEM-EDS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), differential thermal analysis and thermogravimetry (DTA-TG), micro-Raman and Fourier-transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR). The empirical formulae calculated from EPMA exhibit different molar ratios (Ni/CO3, Ni/OH and H 2 O/Ni), showing that these three samples referred to as ‘zaratite’ are chemically distinct; they are actually close to either anhydrous zaratite (Ortegal), nullaginite (Tasmania) or gaspeite (Pennsylvania). The XRD patterns of the three samples only validate their low-crystallinity character with variable mineral inclusions. Raman and FTIR spectra confirm large similarities among the three samples, in line with the general chemical kinship of these nickel hydroxycarbonate (± hydrate) materials. Our data suggest that the natural nickel hydroxycarbonate materials, collectively referred to as ‘zaratite’ on the basis of colour, occurrence and poor crystallinity, are in fact so diverse in terms of Ni/C/H ratios that the ‘zaratite’ term should not deserve a species status and so remains highly questionable.

A comparison of the herbicide tolerances of rare and common plants in an agricultural landscape

Declining plant biodiversity in agroecosystems has often been attributed to escalating use of chemical herbicides, but other changes in farming systems, including the clearing of seminatural habitat fragments, confound the influence of herbicides. The present study introduces a new approach to evaluate the impacts of herbicide pollution on plant communities at landscape or regional scales. If herbicides are in fact a key factor shaping agricultural plant diversity, one would expect to see the signal of past herbicide impacts in the current plant community composition of an intensively farmed region, with common, successful species more tolerant to widely used herbicides than rare or declining species. Data from an extensive field survey of plant diversity in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, USA, were compared with herbicide bioassay experiments in a greenhouse to test the hypothesis that common species possess higher herbicide tolerances than rare species. Five congeneric pairs of rare and common species were treated with 3 commonly used herbicide modes of action in bioassay experiments, and few significant differences were found in the tolerances of rare species relative to common species. These preliminary results suggest that other factors beyond herbicide exposure may be more important in shaping the distribution and abundance of plant species diversity across an agricultural landscape.

A 21-Year Study of Seasonal and Interspecific Variation of Hatchling Emergence in a Nearctic Freshwater Turtle Community: To Overwinter or Not To Overwinter?

Abstract: Hatchling emergence patterns were studied in a community of six species of freshwater turtles in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, USA, including: Chelydra serpentina, Chrysemys picta, Clemmys guttata, Glyptemys insculpta, Glyptemys muhlenbergii, and Sternotherus odoratus. Data were collected every year from 1965–1985 on estimated date of emergence, carapace length, April–May precipitation, August–September precipitation, annual precipitation, and low temperature and occurrence of precipitation during the 24 h prior to the time of each hatchling detection (n = 806). Chelydra serpentina, Ch. picta, and Cl. guttata hatchlings have a facultative delayed emergence strategy. The other species (G. insculpta, G. muhlenbergii, and S. odoratus) appear to be obligate early emergers, with the exception of one hatchling G. muhlenbergii that delayed emergence. Early emergence occurred in some species every year. However, the majority of hatchlings delayed emergence until the year following oviposition, excep...

Loving in Plain Sight: Amish Romance Novels as Evangelical Gothic

This article examines Beverly Lewis’s highly popular trilogy The Heritage of Lancaster County, a series often cited as inspiring the Amish romance novel trend. Although Lewis did not invent the Amish romance, the high visibility that her work enjoys in the media, and the conventional wisdom that she was the first to develop the genre, means that subsequent novels are necessarily responding to and adapting Lewis’s texts. Looking at Lewis’s trilogy as a foundational text, this article analyzes the ways in which it draws on Gothic conventions to perform evangelical cultural work (to use Jane Tompkins’s phrase). Considering the trilogy as a Gothic text within the context of Christian publishing highlights the ways in which it functions as an extension of evangelical outreach: the narratives both celebrate Amish community values and adherence to tradition while using Gothic tropes of confinement and escape to emphasize the idea that the Amish are narrow-minded and overly rigid. Ultimately, this article argues that Lewis’s novels use the Gothic to argue that the antidote to Amish rigidity is evangelicalism.

Subfossil Leaves Reveal a New Upland Hardwood Component of the Pre-European Piedmont Landscape, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania

Widespread deforestation, agriculture, and construction of milldams by European settlers greatly influenced valley-bottom stream morphology and riparian vegetation in the northeastern USA. The former broad, tussock-sedge wetlands with small, anastomosing channels were converted into today’s incised, meandering streams with unstable banks that support mostly weedy, invasive vegetation. Vast accumulations of fine-grained “legacy” sediments that blanket the regional valley-bottom Piedmont landscape now are being reworked from stream banks, significantly impairing the ecological health of downstream water bodies, most notably the Chesapeake Bay. However, potential restoration is impaired by lack of direct knowledge of the pre-settlement riparian and upslope floral ecosystems. We studied the subfossil leaf flora of Denlingers Mill, an obsolete (breached) milldam site in southeastern Pennsylvania that exhibits a modern secondary forest growing atop thin soils, above bedrock outcrops immediately adjacent to a modified, incised stream channel. Presumably, an overhanging old-growth forest also existed on this substrate until the early 1700s and was responsible for depositing exceptionally preserved, minimally transported subfossil leaves into hydric soil strata, which immediately underlie post-European settlement legacy sediments. We interpret the eleven identified species of the subfossil assemblage to primarily represent a previously unknown, upland Red Oak-American Beech mixed hardwood forest. Some elements also appear to belong to a valley-margin Red Maple-Black Ash swamp forest, consistent with preliminary data from a nearby site. Thus, our results add significantly to a more complete understanding of the pre-European settlement landscape, especially of the hardwood tree flora. Compared with the modern forest, it is apparent that both lowland and upslope forests in the region have been modified significantly by historical activities. Our study underscores that generally overlooked subfossil leaves can provide important, local, temporally constrained paleoecological data, with much potential value in this case for stream and wetland restoration decisions in the mid-Atlantic region.

Molecular epidemiology ofStaphyloccocus aureuscolonization in the Old Order of Amish of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, USA

Transmission of Staphylococcus aureus colonization in community-based populations is not well understood. We sought to describe the molecular epidemiology of S. aureus colonization in the Old Order Amish. The study was a prospective, observational study of healthy adults and their same-sex siblings who were cultured from the anterior nares twice. S. aureus isolates were characterized using spa typing. Overall, 40% (159/398) of the study population was colonized with S. aureus. There were 84 spa types with the most abundant spa types being t012 (13%) and t021 (7%). There was no clustering of spa types within sibling groups; however, there was clustering within households. There were 111 S. aureus-colonized participant pairs living within the same household. Of these, 47% had concordant spa types. The diversity of spa types across a relatively isolated, genetically homogenous population with a similar lifestyle is striking. Taken together this suggests that S. aureus transmission is a local phenomenon limited to very close contact.

The eponymous Dr James Marion Sims MD, LLD (1813–1883)

Dr James Marion Sims was born in 1813 in Lancaster County, South Carolina. It was while pioneering numerous surgical procedures in Alabama that in 1849 he achieved the outstanding landmark in medical history of successfully, and consistently, repairing vesicovaginal fistulae. Sims soon developed a reputation as a fine surgeon, with new operations and techniques, using novel surgical instruments and his innovative approaches frequently published. Moving to New York City in 1853, he further established hospitals devoted entirely to women's health. Sims was controversial, with flamboyant descriptions of self-confident success, yet they were tempered with sober reflection of failure and loss. Today we remain with the Sims speculum and Sims position, eponymous tributes to his accomplishments as the 'Father of Gynaecology'.