Characterizing Social Insecurity in a Rural North Carolina Emergency Department.

Introduction: Social insecurity, a form of deprivation of social amenities, if present among patients presenting in a rural emergency department (ED) can be a source of medical burden and poor health outcomes. Although knowledge and understanding of the insecurity profile of such patients is necessary for targeted care that improves their health outcomes, the concept has not been comprehensively quantified. In this study we explored, characterized, and quantified the social insecurity profile of ED patients at a rural teaching hospital in southeastern North Carolina with a large Native American population.

Effect of Postmortem Interval and Years in Storage on RNA Quality of Tissue at a Repository of the NIH NeuroBioBank.

Brain tissue from 1068 donors was analyzed for RNA quality as a function of postmortem interval (PMI) and years in storage. Approximately 83% of the cortical and cerebellar samples had an RNA integrity number (RIN) of 6 or greater, indicating their likely suitability for real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction research. The average RIN value was independent of the PMI, up to at least 36 hours.