"It gets you high as a kite but not unsick": Characterizations of and responses to a changing local drug supply by people who use drugs in Rhode Island.

Background: The North American overdose crisis has continued at unprecedented rates with more than 100,000 overdose deaths occurring in the United States (US) in 2022. Overdose deaths have increasingly been polysubstance-involved, with novel substances (e.g.

Thirty-day Treatment Continuation After Audio-only Buprenorphine Telehealth Initiation.

Objectives: Before the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, federal law required in-person evaluation before buprenorphine initiation. Regulatory changes during the pandemic allow for buprenorphine initiation by audio-only or audiovisual telehealth. Little is known about treatment engagement after buprenorphine initiation conducted via audio-only telehealth.

Towards an Improved Substance Use Disorder Treatment Landscape in Rhode Island - Barriers, Current Progress, and Next Steps.

Expanding addiction treatment services in Rhode Island has never been more urgent. Today, we face colliding syndemics of COVID-19, preventable drug overdoses, and HIV, with another year of record overdoses. While the treatment of substance use disorder (SUD) is an essential component of general medical care, numerous barriers prevent broader treatment access for patients in Rhode Island.

Using telehealth to improve buprenorphine access during and after COVID-19: A rapid response initiative in Rhode Island.

Despite its proven efficacy, buprenorphine remains dramatically underutilized for management of opioid use disorder largely due to onerous barriers to treatment initiation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many substance use disorder treatment facilities have reduced their hours and services, exacerbating existing barriers. To this end, the U.

Innovation During COVID-19: Improving Addiction Treatment Access.

: During the COVID-19 pandemic, many addiction treatment and harm reduction organizations have had to reduce their hours and services for people with substance use disorders, placing these individuals at increased risk of death. In order to address restricted treatment access during COVID-19, guidance from the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration, the US Drug Enforcement Administration, and the US Department of Health and Human Services has allowed for use of audio-only telehealth encounters for buprenorphine induction without requiring an in-person evaluation or video interface. This has enabled innovations in order to try to meet the needs of the most vulnerable among us during the current pandemic.

Identification of Racial Inequities in Access to Specialized Inpatient Heart Failure Care at an Academic Medical Center.

Background: Racial inequities for patients with heart failure (HF) have been widely documented. HF patients who receive cardiology care during a hospital admission have better outcomes. It is unknown whether there are differences in admission to a cardiology or general medicine service by race.

Using the hospital as a venue for reproductive health interventions: a survey of hospitalized adolescents.

Background And Objectives: Less than one-half of sexually active adolescents have received counseling regarding contraception and sexually transmitted disease (STD) from their health care provider. We hypothesized that hospitalized adolescents would be interested in receiving reproductive health education and/or STD testing. In addition, we assessed the opinion of female adolescents on initiation of contraception during hospitalization.

Greater Food-Related Stroop Interference Following Behavioral Weight Loss Intervention.

Objective: Individuals who have successfully lost and maintained weight have slower reaction times on food-related Stroop tasks, indicating greater cognitive interference to food stimuli compared to obese and normal weight individuals. It remains unclear whether this interference is a preexisting characteristic of weight loss maintainers or if food-interference changes in obese individuals as they lose weight.

Method: To examine potential changes in food-related interference, a food-Stroop paradigm was used to measure responses to food versus non-food words in 13 obese women before and after a 12-week behavioral weight loss program.