Distilling the Fundamentals of Evidence-Based Public Health Policy.

Public health policy interventions are associated with many important public health achievements. To provide public health practitioners and decision makers with practical approaches for examining and employing evidence-based public health (EBPH) policy interventions, we describe the characteristics and benefits that distinguish EBPH policy interventions from programmatic interventions. These characteristics include focusing on health at a population level, focusing on upstream drivers of health, and involving less individual action than programmatic interventions.

Advancing Evidence-Based Public Health Policy: How Core Component Thinking Can Illuminate the Multilevel Nature of Public Health Policy.

A growing body of literature uses the concept of core components to better understand small-scale programmatic interventions. Instead of interventions being viewed as unitary "black boxes," interventions are viewed as configurations of core components, which are the parts of interventions that carry their causal potential and therefore need to be reproduced with fidelity to produce the intended effect. To date, the concept of core components has not been as widely applied to public health policy interventions as it has to programmatic interventions.

A programmatic update on COVID-19 vaccination in rural communities in the United States.

When public health experts think of rural barriers to vaccines, they often initially focus on access, which makes sense with a new vaccine during a pandemic. This commentary highlights that there can be more complexity to vaccine uptake in rural communities. What follows are some examples of CDC's efforts to better understand rural health and learnings to inform ongoing vaccination efforts in rural communities.

Efficacy, safety, and tolerability of adjunctive eslicarbazepine acetate in patients with focal to bilateral tonic-clonic seizures.

Objective: To report the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of adjunctive eslicarbazepine acetate (ESL) treatment in reducing focal to bilateral tonic-clonic seizures (FBTCS).

Methods: Data were pooled from 3 randomized clinical trials (RCTs) of adjunctive ESL in patients with focal seizures. Patients treated with 800 or 1200 mg/day ESL and who experienced ≥ 1 FBTCS during baseline were included.

Time to sustained responder status in patients with focal seizures treated with adjunctive eslicarbazepine acetate.

Rapid and sustained clinical responses are critical in improving long-term outcomes in epilepsy. While a 50 % reduction from baseline in standardized seizure frequency (SSF) is often cited as a measure of clinically meaningful efficacy, sustained response (SR) is an alternative method that allows the assessment of onset and durability of the response. Time to sustained response in SSF of ≥ 50 %, ≥ 75 %, ≥ 90 %, and 100 % was assessed for pooled data from 3 similar randomized clinical trials of adjunctive eslicarbazepine acetate (ESL).

Long-term quality of life in patients with focal seizures treated with adjunctive eslicarbazepine acetate.

By controlling seizures, anti-seizure medications can improve health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Data from a post-hoc pooled analysis of adjunctive eslicarbazepine acetate (ESL) was used to describe HRQOL measures, including overall quality of life, seizure worry, emotional well-being, energy/fatigue, cognitive functioning, medication effects, social function, and overall score over a period of up to one year. Patients who completed a double-blind treatment phase (Part 1) of these trials were eligible to enter the open label extension (OLE; Part 2).

Impact of rural hospital closures on hospitalizations and associated outcomes for ambulatory and emergency care sensitive conditions.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of rural hospital closures on age-adjusted hospitalization rates for ambulatory care sensitive condition (ACSC) and emergency care sensitive condition (ECSC) and associated outcomes, such as length of stay and in-hospital mortality in hospital service areas (HSAs) that utilized the closed hospital.

Methods: We used the State Inpatient Data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project for 9 states from 2010 to 2017 and classified admissions as ACSC or ECSC. We compared age-adjusted admission rates and length of stay (LOS) for ACSC and ECSC rates and age adjusted in-hospital mortality rate for ECSC among rural ZIP codes in HSAs with a closure to rural ZIP codes in HSAs without closures.

Nonmetropolitan COVID-19 Incidence and Mortality Rates Surpassed Metropolitan Rates Within the First 24 Weeks of the Pandemic Declaration: United States, March 1-October 18, 2020.

Purpose: This report compares COVID-19 incidence and mortality rates in the nonmetropolitan areas of the United States with the metropolitan areas across three 11-week periods from March 1 to October 18, 2020.

Methods: County-level COVID-19 case, death, and population counts were downloaded from USAFacts.org.

Lymphomas of the head and neck region: an update.

The field of haematopathology is rapidly evolving and for the non-specialized pathologist receiving a specimen with the possibility of a lymphoid malignancy may be a daunting experience. The coincidence of the publication, in 2017, of the WHO monographies on head and neck and haematopoietic and lymphoid tumours prompted us to write this review. Although not substantially different from lymphomas elsewhere, lymphomas presenting in this region pose some specific problems and these are central to the review.

Intramammary schwannoma: a palpable breast mass.

Schwannomas are benign tumors arising from the peripheral nerve sheath, commonly occurring in the head, neck, and extensor surfaces of the extremities. They can be associated with neurofibromatosis type II. Our case describes a 48-year-old woman with a 2-week history of a left-sided palpable breast mass.

Beyond correlates: a review of risk and protective factors for adolescent dating violence perpetration.

Dating violence is a serious public health problem. In recent years, the U.S.

Moving knowledge into action: developing the rapid synthesis and translation process within the interactive systems framework.

The Interactive Systems Framework (ISF) for Dissemination and Implementation presents an overall framework for translating knowledge into action. Each of its three systems requires further clarification and explanation to truly understand how to conduct this work. This article describes the development and initial application of the Rapid Synthesis and Translation Process (RSTP) using the exchange model of knowledge transfer in the context of one of the ISF systems: the Prevention Synthesis and Translation System (see [special issue "introduction" article] for a translation of the Wandersman et al.

Dating Matters™: strategies to promote healthy teen relationships.

Teen dating violence (TDV) is a preventable public health problem that has negative consequences for youth. Despite evidence that youth in urban communities with high crime and economic disadvantage may be at particularly high risk for TDV, little work has specifically addressed TDV in these communities. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has developed a comprehensive approach to prevent TDV-Dating Matters™: Strategies to Promote Healthy Teen Relationships-that addresses gaps in research and practice.

Perpetration of physical assault against dating partners, peers, and siblings among a locally representative sample of high school students in Boston, Massachusetts.

Objectives: To assess the co-occurrence of past-month physical assault of a dating partner and violence against peers and siblings among a locally representative sample of high school students and to explore correlates of dating violence (DV) perpetration.

Design: Cross-sectional survey design.

Setting: Twenty-two public high schools in Boston, Massachusetts.

The relative influence of different domains of social connectedness on self-directed violence in adolescence.

Previous research has linked greater social connectedness with a lowered risk of self-directed violence among adolescents. However, few studies have analyzed the comparative strength of different domains of connectedness (e.g.

Sexuality education and adolescents with developmental disabilities: assessment, policy, and advocacy.

People with disabilities are sexual beings who, like all of us, benefit from sexuality education that examines relationship skills and knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and values that promote healthy sexuality within those relationships. This article provides an overview of landmark policies relevant to persons with disabilities, defines the strengths perspective in the context of curriculum development, and describes a survey built on this perspective that evaluates sexuality education curricula on the strengths rather than the deficits of people.

Diagnosis of foregut and tailgut cysts by endosonographically guided fine-needle aspiration.

Foregut, hindgut, and tailgut cysts are uncommon developmental anomalies. Clinical and radiological diagnosis can present many challenges, especially in adult patients or when the lesions are in unique locations. Thus, diagnosis has traditionally been provided upon surgical resection.