Laws Limiting Access to SNAP Benefits for People With Felony Drug Convictions: A Policy-Mapping Study.

To map US state Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) bans for individuals with felony drug convictions between 2004 and 2021. Using standard legal-mapping methodology, we categorized states as maintaining the lifetime ban imposed by federal law, modifying the lifetime ban, or fully opting out of the lifetime ban in each year. Among states with modified bans in 2021, we coded types of modifications.

Protocol: A mixed-methods study to evaluate implementation and outcomes of U.S. state telemental health policy expansion during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: Until the COVID-19 pandemic, it had not been possible to examine the effect of rapid policy changes surrounding telemental health on patient-reported mental health care access, costs, symptoms, and functioning. Sizable variation in telemental health use by patient race-ethnicity, age, and rurality, and in its adoption across healthcare settings, underscores the need to study equitable dissemination and implementation of high-quality telemental health services in the real world. This protocol describes an explanatory sequential mixed-methods study that aims to examine the effects of state telemental health policy expansion on patient-reported mental health outcomes, as well as the policy-to-practice pathway from the perspectives of state leaders, clinicians, and staff who care for underserved patients.

Long-Term outcomes after stress echocardiography in real world practice: five-year follow-up of the UK Evarest study.

Aims: Stress echocardiography is widely used to assess patients with chest pain. The clinical value of a positive or negative test result to inform on likely longer-term outcomes when applied in real world practice across a healthcare system has not been previously reported.

Methods And Results: 5503 patients recruited across 32 UK NHS hospitals between 2018 and 2022, participating in the EVAREST/BSE-NSTEP prospective cohort study, with data on medical outcomes up to 2023 available from NHS England were included in analysis.