Gender representation in rheumatology journals: an assessment of editors, editorial boards, and authors.

Diversity is widely recognized as a driver of excellence and innovation. In recent years, women have become an increasingly significant part of the rheumatology workforce. We aimed to assess the gender representation of the leading rheumatology journals' editors and to explore whether editors' gender correlates with the gender of the first and last authors of published articles.

The COVID-19 epidemic curve and vaccine acceptance among patients with rheumatic diseases: an ecological study.

The attitudes toward emerging COVID-19 vaccines have been of great interest worldwide, especially among vulnerable populations such as patients with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMDs). The aim of this study was to analyze the relationship between the nationwide number of COVID-19 cases and deaths, and vaccine acceptance or hesitancy of patients with RMDs from four patient care centers in Mexico. Furthermore, we explored differences in acceptance according to specific diagnoses: rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).

Inequity and vulnerability in Latin American Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations with rheumatic diseases: a syndemic approach.

Unlabelled: Syndemics are a framework that documents health inequities and vulnerabilities in populations with rheumatic diseases. Compared with other approaches, syndemics are able to conjunctly consider epidemiological, biological, sociodemographic and economic factors, and their interactions.

Objective: To estimate health inequity and vulnerability among Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMD) in Latin America using the syndemic approach.

A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review on Syndemics in Rheumatology.

Objective: We aimed to assess the use of framework and corresponding methodology to document syndemics and its impact in rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMDs).

Methods: Using a mixed-methods systematic review, studies using the syndemic framework approach for RMDs were identified and published from January 2003 to January 2021. The Joanna Briggs Institute, Cochrane Collaboration, and PRISMA guidelines were followed to search, retrieve, revise, and analyze.

Perception of risk and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on patients with rheumatic diseases: a case-control study.

Objectives: Risk perception of the COVID-19 pandemic may affect chronic disease outcomes among patients with rheumatic diseases (RD). To describe and compare the perception of risk and effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on patients with RD from two health care centers compared with a control group.

Methods: A retrospective case-control study was conducted.

Factors associated to COVID-19 vaccine acceptance in Mexican patients with rheumatic diseases: A cross-sectional and multicenter study.

COVID-19 vaccination is recommended in patients with rheumatic diseases (RDs) to prevent hospitalized COVID-19 and worse outcomes. However, patients' willingness to receive a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine and the associated factors vary across populations, vaccines, and time. The objective was to identify factors associated with COVID-19 vaccine acceptance (VA) in Mexican outpatients with RDs.

Digital Narratives of Living With Lupus: Lived Experiences and Meanings for Latin American and Latino Patients and Their Families.

Objective: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) disproportionately affects Latin American and Latino populations, with worse outcomes compared to nonminority populations. Understanding patients' views is critical to provide culturally competent care. The objective of this research is to analyze lived experiences with SLE from comments made by Latin American and Latino patients, and their relatives and friends, on the public Facebook group "Hablemos de Lupus" (in English: "Let's Talk about Lupus").

Heterogeneity of COVID-19 Risk Perception: A Socio-Mathematical Model.

The perception of risk has been a key element in the experiences, containment and differential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. The complexity of this phenomenon requires the interdisciplinary integration of theoretical and methodological aspects, as this integration informs the objective of developing a mathematical proposal based on a conceptual model located within the social theory of risk at the micro-social level. The mathematical risk model used here was developed from a secondary analysis of a study of 12,649 individuals on the experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic in a population in which the quantity and quality of the information made it possible to define a risk factor and its relationship to emotions and the sources of information used.

Syndemics & syndemogenesis in COVID-19 and rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases: old challenges, new era.

People with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMDs) are facing several challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as poor access to regular health services and drug shortages, particularly in developing countries. COVID-19 represents a syndemic, synergistic condition that interacts with and exacerbates pre-existing diseases such as RMDs, other co-morbidities and social conditions. The emerging evidence on both biological and non-biological factors implicated in worse outcomes in people with RMDs affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, whether infected by the virus or not, calls for the need to use more novel and holistic frameworks for studying disease.

The basics of data, big data, and machine learning in clinical practice.

Health informatics and biomedical computing have introduced the use of computer methods to analyze clinical information and provide tools to assist clinicians during the diagnosis and treatment of diverse clinical conditions. With the amount of information that can be obtained in the healthcare setting, new methods to acquire, organize, and analyze the data are being developed each day, including new applications in the world of big data and machine learning. In this review, first we present the most basic concepts in data science, including the structural hierarchy of information and how it is managed.

Syndemic and syndemogenesis of low back pain in Latin-American population: a network and cluster analysis.

Introduction: Although low back pain (LBP) is a high-impact health condition, its burden has not been examined from the syndemic perspective.

Objective: To compare and assess clinical, socioeconomic, and geographic factors associated with LBP prevalence in low-income and upper-middle-income countries using syndemic and syndemogenesis frameworks based on network and cluster analyses.

Methods: Analyses were performed by adopting network and cluster design, whereby interrelations among the individual and social variables and their combinations were established.

A novel voxel-based method to estimate cortical sulci width and its application to compare patients with Alzheimer's disease to controls.

A voxel-based method for measuring sulcal width was developed, validated and applied to a database. This method (EDT-based LM) employs the 3D Euclidean Distance Transform (EDT) of the pial surface and a Local Maxima labeling algorithm. A computational phantom was designed to test method performance; results revealed the method's inaccuracy δ, to range between 0.

Epidemiology and socioeconomic impact of the rheumatic diseases on indigenous people: an invisible syndemic public health problem.

Unlabelled: Epidemiological studies in Latin America suggest indigenous people lack proper healthcare for musculoskeletal (MSK) and rheumatic diseases.

Objectives: This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of MSK disorders and rheumatic diseases in eight Latin American indigenous communities, and to identify which factors influence such prevalence using network analysis and syndemic approach.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional, community-based census study according to Community-Oriented Program for the Control of Rheumatic Diseases methodology.

Improved Surface-Based Registration of CT and Intraoperative 3D Ultrasound of Bones.

The intraoperative registration of preoperative CT volumes is a key process of most computer-assisted orthopedic surgery (CAOS) systems. In this work, is reported a new method for automatic registration of long bones, based on the segmentation of the bone cortical in intraoperative 3D ultrasound images. A bone classifier was developed based on features, obtained from the principal component analysis of the Hessian matrix, of every voxel in an intraoperative ultrasound volume.

Young adult binge drinkers have immunophenotypic changes in peripheral polymorphonuclear cells and monocytes.

Background: High alcohol intake on weekends (binge drinking) is more frequent in young adults, who could undergo early liver damage. Alcohol-induced liver damage is characterized by polymorphonuclear cell (PMN) infiltration, which can be represented in the peripheral blood by altered trafficking and activation profiles.

Objective: To evaluate the PMN trafficking and activation immunophenotypic profiles in people with a binge drinking pattern.