Healthy Communities for Youth: A Cost Analysis of a Community-Level Program to Prevent Youth Violence.

Youth violence is a national public health concern in USA, especially in resource-constrained urban communities. Between 2018 and 2021, the Healthy Communities for Youth (HCFY) program addressed youth violence prevention in select economically marginalized urban communities, with the HCFY program reducing the likelihood of youth-involved violent crime. Leveraging costs from program expense reports, this study analyzes the costs of the HCFY program in order to inform policymaking and the program's future ongoing implementation.

Extent and socioeconomic correlates of small area variations in life expectancy in Canada and the United States.

Background: An extensive literature documents substantial variations in life expectancy (LE) between countries and at various levels of subnational geography. These variations in LE are significantly correlated with socioeconomic covariates, though no analyses have been produced at the finest feasible census tract (CT) level of geographic disaggregation in Canada or designed to compare Canada with the United States.

Data And Methods: Abridged life tables for each CT where robust estimates were feasible were estimated comparably with U.

Racial and Ethnic Disparities in All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality Among US Youth.

Importance: Mortality rates in US youth have increased in recent years. An understanding of the role of racial and ethnic disparities in these increases is lacking.

Objective: To compare all-cause and cause-specific mortality trends and rates among youth with Hispanic ethnicity and non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian or Pacific Islander, Black, and White race.

Association Between Partisan Affiliation of State Governments and State Mortality Rates Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Unlabelled: Policy Points The increasing political polarization of states reached new heights during the COVID-19 pandemic, when response plans differed sharply across party lines. This study found that states with Republican governors and larger Republican majorities in legislatures experienced higher death rates during the COVID-19 pandemic-and in preceding years-but these associations often lost statistical significance after adjusting for the average income and health status of state populations and for the policy orientations of the states. Future research may help clarify whether the higher death rates in these states result from policy choices or have other explanations, such as the tendency of voters with lower incomes or poorer health to elect Republican candidates.

The Lives Lost to Inequities: Avertable Deaths From Neurologic Diseases in the Past Decade.

Background And Objectives: Mortality rates for neurologic diseases are increasing in the United States, with large disparities across geographical areas and populations. Racial and ethnic populations, notably the non-Hispanic (NH) Black population, experience higher mortality rates for many causes of death, but the magnitude of the disparities for neurologic diseases is unclear. The objectives of this study were to calculate mortality rates for neurologic diseases by race and ethnicity and-to place this disparity in perspective-to estimate how many US deaths would have been averted in the past decade if the NH Black population experienced the same mortality rates as other groups.

Comparing forms of neighborhood instability as predictors of violence in Richmond, VA.

Violence events tend to cluster together geospatially. Various features of communities and their residents have been highlighted as explanations for such clustering in the literature. One reliable correlate of violence is neighborhood instability.

Identifying bright spot communities: Socioecological, workforce, and healthcare delivery factors influencing opioid mortality.

Context: There were 50,000 U.S. opioid overdose deaths in 2019.

Changes in the Relationship Between Income and Life Expectancy Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic, California, 2015-2021.

Importance: The COVID-19 pandemic caused a large decrease in US life expectancy in 2020, but whether a similar decrease occurred in 2021 and whether the relationship between income and life expectancy intensified during the pandemic are unclear.

Objective: To measure changes in life expectancy in 2020 and 2021 and the relationship between income and life expectancy by race and ethnicity.

Design, Setting, And Participants: Retrospective ecological analysis of deaths in California in 2015 to 2021 to calculate state- and census tract-level life expectancy.

The Mediating Effect of Sleep Duration on the Association between Food Insecurity and Childhood Obesity.

Childhood obesity has increased globally during the past four decades. Food insecurity could heighten the risk of obesity. However, little is known about the underlying mechanism.

Disparities by Sex in COVID-19 Risk and Related Harms Among People with Opioid Use Disorder.

(1) Report sex-specific prevalence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) test positivity among an opioid use disorder (OUD) cohort (2) Assess sex-specific rates of opioid overdose and mortality. A retrospective cohort study was performed on all adult patients with OUD who received a COVID-19 test in calendar year 2020 at a large academic medical center in Richmond, Virginia. Our study outcomes were positive COVID-19 test, opioid overdose, and all-cause in-hospital mortality.

Excess Deaths From COVID-19 and Other Causes in the US, March 1, 2020, to January 2, 2021.

This study updates an analysis of US mortality in 2020, including deaths due to COVID-19 as well as all other causes.

Measuring psychosocial stress during pregnancy: a multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis across race/ethnicity among Medicaid-covered pregnant women in the United States.

Background: Differential experiences of psychosocial stress during pregnancy may contribute to racial inequities in adverse pregnancy outcomes in the US. Valid and unbiased measurement scales are needed to assess the effect of psychosocial stress on pregnancy outcomes, however, the numerous modified scales implemented to measure stress are not always validated.

Methods: The construct validity and measurement invariance of maternal stress among Medicaid-covered pregnant women ( = 1,632) were examined.

Excess Deaths From COVID-19 and Other Causes, March-July 2020.

This study updates a previous report of the estimated number of excess deaths in the US during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic through August 1, 2020, and describes causes of those deaths and temporal relationships with state lifting of coronavirus restrictions.

Excess Deaths From COVID-19 and Other Causes, March-April 2020.

This study uses data from the National Center for Health Statistics to estimate excess deaths (ie, the difference between observed and expected deaths) in the US and the District of Columbia in the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic.

California Healthy Places Index: Frames Matter.

Introduction: We describe the California Healthy Places Index (HPI) and its performance relative to other indexes for measuring community well-being at the census-tract level. The HPI arose from a need identified by health departments and community organizations for an index rooted in the social determinants of health for place-based policy making and program targeting. The index was geographically granular, validated against life expectancy at birth, and linked to policy actions.

An Analysis of Risk Factors in Unilateral Versus Bilateral Hearing Loss.

A retrospective review of children with confirmed hearing loss identified through universal newborn hearing screening (UNHS) in Virginia from 2010 to 2014 was conducted in order to compare the incidence of Joint Committee on Infant Hearing (JCIH) risk factors in children with unilateral hearing loss (UHL) to bilateral hearing loss (BHL). Over the 5-year study period, 1004 children (0.20% of all births) developed a confirmed hearing loss, with 544 (51%) children having at least one JCIH risk factor.

Perioperative interdisciplinary approach for reduction of opioid use in pediatric tonsillectomy: Protocol using dexmedetomidine and bupivicaine as adjunct agents.

Importance: Pediatric tonsillectomy is a common procedure now being performed most often for patients with obstructive sleep apnea, which has been associated with increased sensitivity to the respiratory side effects of opioid medications. This study investigates a strategy to decrease the use of opiate medications in a particularly vulnerable population.

Objective: Describe an interdisciplinary approach between Otolaryngologists and Anesthesiologists to decrease opiate use in tonsillectomy patients.