Beyond the Nest: The Role of Financial Independence in Young Adult Health.

Background: This study aimed to examine the impact of neighborhood conditions and household material hardship experiences on young adult health outcomes, while also considering financial autonomy as a critical determinant of health.

Method: We employed a cross-sectional observational design with a diverse sample of young adults from a large urban university. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the relationships between neighborhood conditions and material hardship with health outcomes by financial autonomy.

The moderating role of neighborhood disadvantage on the link between functional limitations and self-rated health.

Background: Self-rated health is an important health outcome and determinant of health. Improvements to our understanding on self-rated health could help design plans and strategies to improve self-rated health and achieve other preferred health outcomes. This study examined whether the link between functional limitations and self-rated health varies by neighborhood socioeconomic status.

Frequent Low-Dose Δ-Tetrahydrocannabinol in Adolescence Disrupts Microglia Homeostasis and Disables Responses to Microbial Infection and Social Stress in Young Adulthood.

Background: During adolescence, microglia are actively involved in neocortical maturation while concomitantly undergoing profound phenotypic changes. Because the teenage years are also a time of experimentation with cannabis, we evaluated whether adolescent exposure to the drug's psychotropic constituent, Δ-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), might persistently alter microglia function.

Methods: We administered THC (5 mg/kg, intraperitoneal) once daily to male and female mice from postnatal day (PND) 30 to PND44 and examined the transcriptome of purified microglia in adult animals (PND70 and PND120) under baseline conditions or following either of two interventions known to recruit microglia: lipopolysaccharide injection and repeated social defeat.

Outcomes of Medicaid home- and community-based long-term services relative to nursing home care among dual eligibles.

Objective: To provide the first plausibly causal national estimates of health outcomes for older dual-eligible recipients of Medicaid HCBS relative to nursing home care and to explore possible mechanisms for the effect.

Data Sources: We use 2005 and 2012 Medicaid Analytic eXtract (MAX), a national compilation of Medicaid claims, merged with Medicare claims to identify hospital admissions, our main outcome variable.

Study Design: We model the effects of HCBS using a longitudinal instrumental variables framework.

Likelihood of hospital readmission in Medicare Advantage and Fee-For-Service within same hospital.

Objective: To assess the extent to which all-cause 30-day readmission rate varies by Medicare program within the same hospitals.

Study Design: We used conditional logistic regression clustered by hospital and generalized estimating equations to compare the odds of unplanned all-cause 30-day readmission between Medicare Fee-for-Service (FFS) and Medicare Advantage (MA).

Data Collection: Wisconsin Health Information Organization collects claims data from various payers including private insurance, Medicare, and Medicaid, twice a year.

Differences in Receipt of Three Preventive Health Care Services by Race/Ethnicity in Medicare Advantage Plans: Tracking the Impact of Pay for Performance, 2010 and 2013.

Introduction: In 2012, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) introduced the Quality Bonus Payment Demonstration, a pay-for-performance (P4P) program, into Medicare Advantage plans. Previous studies documented racial/ethnic disparities in receipt of care among participants in these plans. The objective of this study was to determine whether P4P incentives have affected these disparities in Medicare Advantage plans.