A Sequential Calibration Approach to Address Challenges of Repeated Calibration of a COVID-19 Model.

Background: Mathematical models served a critical role in COVID-19 decision making throughout the pandemic. Model calibration is an essential, but often computationally burdensome, step in model development that provides estimates for difficult-to-measure parameters and establishes an up-to-date modeling platform for scenario analysis. In the evolving COVID-19 pandemic, frequent recalibration was necessary to provide ongoing support to decision makers.

Adaptive COVID-19 Mitigation Strategies: Tradeoffs between Trigger Thresholds, Response Timing, and Effectiveness.

Unlabelled: To support proactive decision making during the COVID-19 pandemic, mathematical models have been leveraged to identify surveillance indicator thresholds at which strengthening nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) is necessary to protect health care capacity. Understanding tradeoffs between different adaptive COVID-19 response components is important when designing strategies that balance public preference and public health goals. We considered 3 components of an adaptive COVID-19 response: 1) the threshold at which to implement the NPI, 2) the time needed to implement the NPI, and 3) the effectiveness of the NPI.

Health insurance literacy: How best to measure and does it matter to health care access and affordability?

Background: Health insurance is complex, cost are continuously rising, and people are assuming more of these costs. Health insurance literacy (HIL) is related to healthcare access, yet there is no agreement about how best to measure HIL.

Objectives: Contrast two HIL measures.

Coverage Gains After the Affordable Care Act Among the Uninsured in Minnesota.

Objectives: We determined whether and how Minnesotans who were uninsured in 2013 gained health insurance coverage in 2014, 1 year after the Affordable Care Act (ACA) expanded Medicaid coverage and enrollment.

Methods: Insurance status and enrollment experiences came from the Minnesota Health Insurance Transitions Study (MH-HITS), a follow-up telephone survey of children and adults in Minnesota who had no health insurance in the fall of 2013.

Results: ACA had a tempered success in Minnesota.

Reports of insurance-based discrimination in health care and its association with access to care.

Objectives: We examined reports of insurance-based discrimination and its association with insurance type and access to care in the early years of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Methods: We used data from the 2013 Minnesota Health Access Survey to identify 4123 Minnesota adults aged 18 to 64 years who reported about their experiences of insurance-based discrimination. We modeled the association between discrimination and insurance type and predicted odds of having reduced access to care among those reporting discrimination, controlling for sociodemographic factors.

Impact of different privacy conditions and incentives on survey response rate, participant representativeness, and disclosure of sensitive information: a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Anonymous survey methods appear to promote greater disclosure of sensitive or stigmatizing information compared to non-anonymous methods. Higher disclosure rates have traditionally been interpreted as being more accurate than lower rates. We examined the impact of 3 increasingly private mailed survey conditions-ranging from potentially identifiable to completely anonymous-on survey response and on respondents' representativeness of the underlying sampling frame, completeness in answering sensitive survey items, and disclosure of sensitive information.

Rewarding early abstinence in Veterans Health Administration addiction clinics.

This study investigates the addition of a contingency management (CM) intervention to Veterans Health Administration substance use disorders treatment on during- and post-treatment outcomes for Veterans diagnosed with alcohol dependence only (n=191) or stimulant dependence (n=139). Participants were randomly assigned to 8weeks of usual care or usual care plus CM. Follow-up assessments occurred at 2, 6 and 12months.

Caregiver reports of subsequent injuries among veterans with traumatic brain injury after discharge from inpatient polytrauma rehabilitation programs.

Objective: : We examined prevalence of, and potential risk factors for, nonfatal injuries among Veterans with traumatic brain injury (TBI) postdischarge from Veterans Affairs inpatient polytrauma rehabilitation programs.

Methods: : We surveyed caregivers of patients who had military service anytime from 2001 to 2009, sustained polytrauma including TBI, received Veterans Affairs inpatient care from 2001 to 2009, were discharged at least 3 months before the study, and were alive when the study was fielded about caregiver and patient health, including patients' medically treated "accidents/new injuries" since discharge. We examined prevalence and source(s) of subsequent injuries and estimated patients' injury risk in reference to hypothesized risk factors.

The invisible side of war: families caring for US service members with traumatic brain injuries and polytrauma.

Objectives: : To (1) identify informal caregivers to injured US service members following acute rehabilitation for polytraumatic injuries, principally traumatic brain injury (TBI), and (2) describe the prevalence and variation of care recipient and caregiver experiences.

Design: : Cross-sectional survey of caregivers.

Participants: : Caregivers (N = 564) of service members with TBI who received inpatient rehabilitation care in a Veterans Affairs' Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center between 2001 and 2009.

A comparison of small monetary incentives to convert survey non-respondents: a randomized control trial.

Background: Maximizing response rates is critically important in order to provide the most generalizable and unbiased research results. High response rates reduce the chance of respondents being systematically different from non-respondents, and thus, reduce the risk of results not truly reflecting the study population. Monetary incentives are often used to improve response rates, but little is known about whether larger incentives improve response rates in those who previously have been unenthusiastic about participating in research.

Post-deployment injury among new combat veterans enrolled in Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare.

The purpose of this study was to examine prevalence and potential risk factors for post-deployment injury among Iraq and Afghanistan combat veterans enrolled in Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare. A national, stratified sample of Iraq/Afghanistan combat Veteran VA users was surveyed in 2008. Mental and physical health, including medically-treated injuries sustained since deployment, were self-reported.

Improving endoscopy completion: effectiveness of an interactive voice response system.

Objective: To test whether an interactive voice response (IVR) system phone call was equally effective as a nurse-delivered phone call at educating and preparing patients for flexible sigmoidoscopy (FS) and colonoscopy examinations.

Study Design: Three-arm randomized controlled trial.

Methods: The trial included patients with upcoming FS or colonoscopy appointments to test the equivalence of an IVR system to nurse-delivered phone calls in reducing appointment nonattendance and inadequate preparation for an examination.

Variation in estimates of limited health literacy by assessment instruments and non-response bias.

Objectives: This paper compares estimates of poor health literacy using two widely used assessment tools and assesses the effect of non-response on these estimates.

Study Design And Setting: A total of 4,868 veterans receiving care at four VA medical facilities between 2004 and 2005 were stratified by age and facility and randomly selected for recruitment. Interviewers collected demographic information and conducted assessments of health literacy (both REALM and S-TOFHLA) from 1,796 participants.