Dr. Ying Liu, Assistant Professor

Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, College of Public Health, East Tennessee State University, USA

Biography: Dr. Ying Liu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, East Tennessee State University. She earned her Ph.D. from Kansas State University. After that, she had worked as a research assistant professor at Virginia Tech. University for three years and University of Missouri-Kansas City for five years.
Her research focus is biostatistics related health issues and public health such as diabetes, obesity and metabolic syndrome and health behaviors. Dr. Ying Liu is a member of numerous professional organizations including American Public Health Association, American Association for Dental Research, American Statistics Association (ASA). She also serves as an editorial board member and reviewer for several journals.

Topic: Diet Quality and Frequency of Non-Home Prepared Meals are Associated With Depression and Metabolic Syndrome Among U.S. Adults

Abstract: Background: Both depression and metabolic syndrome (MetS) are risk factors to type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and cardiovascular disease and they are bidirectionally associated to each other. Accumulating evidence suggested some lifestyle factors have relation with depression and metabolic syndrome. The objective of this study was to investigate whether frequency of not-home prepared (NHP) meals and self-reported diet are associated with depression and metabolic syndrome.
Methods: The participants (≥20 years) answered depression screener questions (PHQ-9) and finished examination and laboratory test for MetS in National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2011-2014. A set of series of weighted logistic regression model was used to investigate the aforementioned relationship. The differentiation among categories of diet and frequency of NHP meals for depression and risk factors of MetS were compared with t-test and Tukey’s post hoc test, respectively.
Results: The prevalence of depression among U.S. adults is 11.74%. Participants who eat poor diet are more likely to have depression and MetS than those who eat good diet with odd ratios 2.76 (95% CI: 2.01, 3.72) and 1.55 (95%CI: 1.25, 1.94), respectively. The individuals with 1-7 NHP meals per week have smaller likelihood to have depression compared to those who only eat home prepared meals (OR= 0.55, 95%CI= 0.39-0.77).
Conclusion: The results demonstrated self-reported diet was associated with depression and MetS. Number of not-home prepared meal is associated with depression rather than MetS. Therefore, the increased attention to quality of NHP food is needed especially for U.S. adults with overweight/obesity.

Chi-Chang Chang, Associate Professor

School of Medical Informatics, ChungShan Medical University, Taiwan

Biography: Dr. Chi-Chang Chang is currently an associate professor of medical informatics in the Chung Shan Medical University's College of Health Care and Management, and also a consultant on Biomedical Industry Research Center & Medical Information Center, Chung-Shan Medical University Hospital. Dr. Chang received the Ph.D. degree in Industry Engineering Management from the Yuan-Ze University. He is academic member of the Association for Information Systems and Society for Medical Decision Making. His primary research interests are in the areas of medical decision analysis, reliability engineering, stochastic processes, shared medical decision making, and clinical operational research. He has published in European Journal of Operational Research, Journal of Universal Computer Science, International Journal of Technology Management, Central European Journal of Medicine, Neural Computing and Applications, European Psychiatry etc. To date, he has published more than 100 articles in the forms of journals, book chapters and conference proceedings.

Topic: Rethinking a In-service Training Program for Nurses’ Strategic Hand Hygiene Behavior

Abstract: Hospital associated infections represent a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Hand hygiene compliance is the most significant, modifiable cause of hospital-acquired infections (HAIs), prolonging the duration of stay in hospitals, and then increased financial burden. The main driver for the high level of infection transmission is that self-interested nurses do not conduct hand-washing consistently but strategically and therefore, the compliance rate is generally low. To combat HAIs, hospitals have invested resources in in-service training program to improve nurses’ hand hygiene adherence. In this speech, we study the impact of self-interested nurses on the ineffectiveness in in-service education to improve HAIs. In order to capture both infection transmission dynamics and strategic behavior, we draw on an existing body of literature that has sought to combine epidemiologic compartmental models of infection transmission with strategic behavior. Further, we analyzed our model across a wide space of different parameter values meant to capture an infection transmission dynamics and formulate nurses' strategic behavior as an evolutionary game. Behavioral change in a workplace does not occur overnight. The result of our model suggests that there are three motivations behind nurses' hand-washing compliance rate. Given a policy, it takes time for group behavior to converge to equilibrium, through which we are able to explain “why don’t interventions work as expected?”

Dr. Vito Zepinic

PsychClinic P/L, UK

The University of Law, UK

Biography: Dr. Vito Zepinic has an extensive clinical experience in psychological medicine specializing in CBT and Dynamic Therapy in the assessment and treatment of the mental health problems, in particular PTSD and related disorders. He has over 20 years of academic experience as a professor/lecturer, mentor and clinical supervisor in psychiatry and psychological medicine.Dr. Vito Zepinic has obtained the following degrees: PhD in Medicine, MMed (Psych.), MD, BA (Psych.), LLB. He has published five professional books and book chapters, over 50 articles in professional journals and presented numerous papers and workshops at the national and international conferences and seminars. He is a member of The Royal Society of Medicine (UK), The European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, and The UK Psychological Trauma Society.

Topic: Disintegration of the Self-Structure Caused by Severe Trauma

Abstract: Severe trauma affects all structures of the self – one’s image of the body; the internalized images of others; and one’s values and ideals – and leads to a sense that self-coherence and self-continuity are invaded, assaulted and systematically broken down. Traumatic events overwhelm the ordinary human adaptations to life and generally involve threats to life or bodily integrity, or a close personal encounter with violence and death, and they confront human beings with the extremities of helplessness and terror, and evoke the response of catastrophe.
The vulnerable self-structure of traumatized individuals is evident in the following ways: (a) difficulties in self-regulation (self-esteem maintenance, affect tolerance, and the sense of self-discontinuity and personal agency), (b) appearance of clinical symptomatology (frequent upsurges of anxiety/fear, depression, and specific fears or phobias regarding the external world or one’s own bodily integrity), and (c) reliance on primitive or less-developed forms of self-object relatedness with attachment figures.
Severe trauma may lead to a de-centering of self (self-at-worst), loss of groundedness and a sense of sameness, self-continuity and ego-fragility, leaving scars on the one’s 'inner agency' of the psyche, fragmentation of the ego-identity resulting in proneness to dissociation. The severe trauma is analogous to a high-velocity bullet piercing through the body, tearing apart internal organs critical for survival. Treating individuals who have experienced severe trauma should target three main goals in healing traumatized self: (1) the restoration of a form of relatedness (‘Interconnectivity’), (2) the restoration of a sense of aliveness and vitality ('Dynamism'), and (3) the restoration of an awareness of the self and inner events ('Insight').