Parental Decisions on Return to Youth Sport During a Global Pandemic: Examining Parental Decisions by Race, Gender, and Socio-Economic Status

The onset of COVID-19 altered the way parents make decisions on safe activities for their children. Given the impact of this global pandemic, it is important to consider what decisions parents make when faced with the obstacle of keeping a child safe while letting them pursue extracurricular activities, such as sports. To this end, we examine decision-making of parents regarding whether or not they are comfortable allowing their children to participate in sport activities. For this purpose, we conducted two waves of surveys with youth sport parents in spring 2020 and fall 2020. The findings suggest that Black parents and female parents were more comfortable allowing their children to participate and that, in general, parents became more comfortable with local youth sport participation as the pandemic continued.

An Exploratory Study of a Health and Wellness Intervention on STEM College Students During COVID-19

To address the growing health challenges faced by college students, campus recreation departments have evolved from a primary university intramural sport setting to organizations that have an increased emphasis on student recruitment, retention, and overall wellness. Among the strategies used to attract and engage students in campus recreation programs and services, health coaching shows some promise as a potentially effective intervention strategy. This study examined the efficacy of a university campus recreation health coaching program. Students from Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) disciplines (n = 34) were provided with individual, group, and virtual support to assist in developing effective strategies for academic success. Fitbit data measuring participants' sleep and physical activity were collected along with self-reported measures of stress and perceived happiness and focus group qualitative data focused on participants' perceptions of the program. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic forcing the program to adapt, findings suggest that health coaching may be an effective intervention strategy to help university students cope with the heightened anxiety and stress levels associated with campus life.

The UCSC Genome Browser database: 2023 update.

The UCSC Genome Browser (https://genome.ucsc.edu) is an omics data consolidator, graphical viewer, and general bioinformatics resource that continues to serve the community as it enters its 23rd year. This year has seen an emphasis in clinical data, with new tracks and an expanded Recommended Track Sets feature on hg38 as well as the addition of a single cell track group. SARS-CoV-2 continues to remain a focus, with regular annotation updates to the browser and continued curation of our phylogenetic sequence placing tool, hgPhyloPlace, whose tree has now reached over 12M sequences. Our GenArk resource has also grown, offering over 2500 hubs and a system for users to request any absent assemblies. We have expanded our bigBarChart display type and created new ways to visualize data via bigRmsk and dynseq display. Displaying custom annotations is now easier due to our chromAlias system which eliminates the requirement for renaming sequence names to the UCSC standard. Users involved in data generation may also be interested in our new tools and trackDb settings which facilitate the creation and display of their custom annotations.

The UCSC Genome Browser database: 2022 update.

The UCSC Genome Browser, https://genome.ucsc.edu, is a graphical viewer for exploring genome annotations. The website provides integrated tools for visualizing, comparing, analyzing, and sharing both publicly available and user-generated genomic datasets. Data highlights this year include a collection of easily accessible public hub assemblies on new organisms, now featuring BLAT alignment and PCR capabilities, and new and updated clinical tracks (gnomAD, DECIPHER, CADD, REVEL). We introduced a new Track Sets feature and enhanced variant displays to aid in the interpretation of clinical data. We also added a tool to rapidly place new SARS-CoV-2 genomes in a global phylogenetic tree enabling researchers to view the context of emerging mutations in our SARS-CoV-2 Genome Browser. Other new software focuses on usability features, including more informative mouseover displays and new fonts.

The UCSC Genome Browser database: 2021 update.

For more than two decades, the UCSC Genome Browser database (https://genome.ucsc.edu) has provided high-quality genomics data visualization and genome annotations to the research community. As the field of genomics grows and more data become available, new modes of display are required to accommodate new technologies. New features released this past year include a Hi-C heatmap display, a phased family trio display for VCF files, and various track visualization improvements. Striving to keep data up-to-date, new updates to gene annotations include GENCODE Genes, NCBI RefSeq Genes, and Ensembl Genes. New data tracks added for human and mouse genomes include the ENCODE registry of candidate cis-regulatory elements, promoters from the Eukaryotic Promoter Database, and NCBI RefSeq Select and Matched Annotation from NCBI and EMBL-EBI (MANE). Within weeks of learning about the outbreak of coronavirus, UCSC released a genome browser, with detailed annotation tracks, for the SARS-CoV-2 RNA reference assembly.

Making an Impact: An Initial Review of U.S. Sport League Corporate Social Responsibility Responses During COVID-19

COVID-19 has brought about an unprecedented time where a majority of major American sporting organizations have ceased competition. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) actions, historically an avenue for sport organizations to positively impact society, provide a compelling avenue of study during this time. While researchers have observed the role of CSR and crisis communication when the crisis arises from within the organization, there is a need to understand CSR shifts and responses when the crisis is on a societal level. This commentary examines efforts of major U.S. sport league CSR programs (National Basketball Association/Women's National Basketball Association, National Football League, Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer, and National Hockey League), starting in mid-March when the majority of organizations ceased competition. Data were gathered using a mixed-methods approach of qualitative interviews, secondary research, and social media sentiment analysis. Key findings included the emergence of two different approaches to CSR communication strategies among U.S. sport leagues as well as three clear themes of COVID-19-related communication: educate, assist, and inspire. In addition, this commentary provides an initial glance at consumer response to CSR programs, showing both positive and negative sentiment trends.