Total and water-soluble phosphorus in broiler litter over three flocks with alum litter treatment and dietary inclusion of high available phosphorus corn and phytase supplementation.

Three pen trials were conducted to determine the main effect of alum addition to litter on form of poultry litter P using a 2 x 2 factorial structure of the subunit treatments: diets including high available phosphorus/low phytate corn (HAPC) and phytase (PHYT). Male broilers (1,760 per flock) were grown to 42 d having starter diets with 0.45% available P and grower diets with 0.35% available P. In the first trial, total litter P (tP) was greatest for the yellow dent corn (YDC) diet (12 g/kg) and least for the HAPC and PHYT combination (H&P) diet (6.9 g/kg) with the individual PHYT and HAPC diets falling in between at 9.1 g/kg and 9.4 g/kg tP. Also in the first trial, the litter water-soluble P (wP) was highest for PHYT (2.8 g/kg), least for the HAPC and H&P diets (1.5 g/kg) with the YDC diet falling between (2.2 g/kg). Alum was added to the litter after the first experiment. In the second and third experiments, alum inclusion significantly reduced the wP when compared with the treatments with no alum. In the third trial, the least wP was present in the alum-HAPC treatment. Phytase, YDC, and HAPC diets with no alum litter treatment generated the most wP. Since these diets appear to have little or no difference with respect to quantity of wP, this work suggests that form of litter P generated by alternative diets should be considered as criteria when attempting to reduce P in broiler litter applied to land.

The Fresno County Refugee Health Volunteer Project: a case study in cross-cultural health care delivery.

Beginning in 1979, Fresno County received a 2nd dramatic influx of Southeast Asian refugees. There are now approximately 20,000 of these refugees, including the largest population of Hmong in the US. This community includes about 2000 Cambodian, 14,000 Hmong, and 4000 Lowland Lao. Altogether, Southeast Asian refugees comprise nearly 10% of the population of Fresno. These demographics provide the backdrop for significant problems in health care service delivery. Some barriers include: 1) stress, loss, dislocation, poverty, illness, and unemployment that are part of the refugee experience; 2) language differences; 3) cultural isolation; and 4) cultural beliefs and practices whose spiritual, wholistic, and natural forms of care often run contrary to the West's scientific, specialized, and technological treatment modalities. The Health Department began to recognize some difficulties related to health services for refugees and developed a strategy to combat these. This strategy was named the Refugee Health Volunteer Project and its goal was to enable individuals, families, and community groups to better meet their own health care needs. Goals were to be met by 1st creating a community-based health promotion network to 1) identify health needs, 2) communicate health information, 3) train community health volunteers, and 4) build a greater capacity for self-care that would last beyond the end of the program. The program's goal would also be met by overcoming the access problems with the service system by 1) communicating community-identified needs, 2) identifying specific barriers in the service system, 3) initiating broad participation among service providers in designing more accessible approaches to service delivery, and 4) improving coordination between service providers. Significant progress has been made in a very short time. The Project demonstrates that a fairly common, bureaucratic organization can be responsive to extremely unique community needs. The project is demonstrating the effectiveness of a network approach as a model for service delivery to ethnic communities experiencing language and cultural barriers to health care. The project staff have served as a catalyst for initiatives which are creating ways in which the broader health delivery system can be more accessible to refugee clients. What is emerging is an approach to health empowerment that builds on the strengths, skills, knowledge, and experience of community people and those organizations which support their efforts.

The accumulation and loss of dieldrin and endrin in the eastern oyster.

Oysters demonstrated an ability to significantly concentrate dieldrin and endrin. Concentration ratios obtained after 168-hr exposures to endrin were 1670 at 0.1 mug/L and 2780 at 50 mug/L. Dieldrin was concentrated to higher levels. Exposure to 14C-labelled dieldrin at 0.5 mug/L produced whole body concentrations 2880 times the ambient level at 168 hr, while exposure to nine mug/L of dieldrin resulted in a concentration ratio of 2070 following the same period of exposure. Both endrin and dieldrin showed distinct linear regions in semi-logarithmic plots of uptake against time. Initial uptake was rapid and was followed by somewhat slower but still rapid uptake over the next 6 to 48 hr. Uptake within each of the stages followed an exponential form.