Publications by authors named "Cory Spencer"

Background: Sex and gender shape health. There is a growing body of evidence focused on comprehensively and systematically examining the magnitude, persistence, and nature of differences in health between females and males. Here, we aimed to quantify differences in the leading causes of disease burden between females and males across ages and geographies.

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The health impacts of intimate partner violence against women and childhood sexual abuse are not fully understood. Here we conducted a systematic review by comprehensively searching seven electronic databases for literature on intimate partner violence-associated and childhood sexual abuse-associated health effects. Following the burden of proof methodology, we evaluated the evidence strength linking intimate partner violence and/or childhood sexual abuse to health outcomes supported by at least three studies.

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The non-selective opioid receptor antagonist, naltrexone is one of the most prescribed medications for treating alcohol and opioid addiction. Despite decades of clinical use, the mechanism(s) by which naltrexone reduces addictive behavior remains unclear. Pharmaco-fMRI studies to date have largely focused on naltrexone's impact on brain and behavioral responses to drug or alcohol cues or on decision-making circuitry.

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Introduction: Exposure to gender-based violence (GBV) and violence against children (VAC) can result in substantial morbidity and mortality. Previous reviews of health outcomes associated with GBV and VAC have focused on limited definitions of exposure to violence (ie, intimate partner violence) and often investigate associations only with predefined health outcomes. In this protocol, we describe a systematic review and meta-analysis for a comprehensive assessment of the impact of violence exposure on health outcomes and health-related risk factors across the life-course.

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Background: Life expectancy (LE) differences within and between states by race/ethnicity have not been examined.

Objective: To estimate LE for selected race/ethnicity groups in states from 1990 to 2019.

Design: Cross-sectional time-series analysis.

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Background: Gender is emerging as a significant factor in the social, economic, and health effects of COVID-19. However, most existing studies have focused on its direct impact on health. Here, we aimed to explore the indirect effects of COVID-19 on gender disparities globally.

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Vaccine hesitancy is an increasing global health threat but much of the recent research has centred on the USA. European countries provide an interesting context due to increases in vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks as well as variability in vaccination laws. We investigated the spatiotemporal clustering of Measles, Mumps, and Rubella vaccination coverage in Germany, a country with a historic absence of compulsory vaccination laws.

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Background: Naltrexone, an opioid receptor antagonist that is Food and Drug Administration approved for treating alcohol use disorder (AUD), reduces alcohol craving and intake. Despite known pharmacological properties, little is known regarding the effects of naltrexone on neural circuit function. Thus, a data-driven examination of the neural effects of naltrexone in human subjects may offer novel insight into its treatment mechanisms.

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Background: Understanding the RNA processing of an organism's transcriptome is an essential but challenging step in understanding its biology. Here we investigate with unprecedented detail the transcriptome of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1, a medically important and innately multi-drug resistant bacterium. We systematically mapped RNA cleavage and dephosphorylation sites that result in 5'-monophosphate terminated RNA (pRNA) using monophosphate RNA-Seq (pRNA-Seq).

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The subcellular localization (SCL) of a microbial protein provides clues about its function, its suitability as a drug, vaccine or diagnostic target and aids experimental design. The first version of PSORTdb provided a valuable resource comprising a data set of proteins of known SCL (ePSORTdb) as well as pre-computed SCL predictions for proteomes derived from complete bacterial genomes (cPSORTdb). PSORTdb 2.

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Automated prediction of bacterial protein subcellular localization is an important tool for genome annotation and drug discovery. PSORT has been one of the most widely used computational methods for such bacterial protein analysis; however, it has not been updated since it was introduced in 1991. In addition, neither PSORT nor any of the other computational methods available make predictions for all five of the localization sites characteristic of Gram-negative bacteria.

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