A Community-Academic Approach to Preventing Substance Use Disorders.

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic and activism against structural racism heightened awareness of racial-ethnic disparities and disproportionate burden among the underserved. The opioid crisis further compounds these phenomena, increasing vulnerability for substance use disorders (SUD). Community-based participatory research can facilitate multidisciplinary collaboration, yet literature on these approaches to prevent and reduce SUD and associated stigma remains limited.

Rapid response is predictive of treatment outcomes in a transdiagnostic intensive outpatient eating disorder sample: a replication of prior research in a real-world setting.

Objective: There is a growing call to identify specific outcome predictors in real-world eating disorder (ED) treatment settings. Studies have implicated several ED treatment outcome predictors [rapid response (RR), weight suppression, illness duration, ED diagnosis, and psychiatric comorbidity] in inpatient settings or randomized controlled trials of individual outpatient therapy. However, research has not yet examined outcome predictors in intensive outpatient programs (IOP).

Engagement in health and wellness: An online incentive-based program.

Increasingly, corporate health promotion programs are implementing wellness programs integrating principles of behavioral economics. Employees of a large firm were provided a customized online incentive program to design their own commitments to meet health goals. This study examines patterns of program participation and engagement in health promotion activities.

An Examination of Hospital Nurse Staffing and Patient Experience with Care: Differences between Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Estimates.

Objective: To study the association between hospital nurse staffing and Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) scores.

Data Sources: State hospital financial and utilization reports, Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project State Inpatient Databases, HCAHPS survey, and American Hospital Association Annual Survey of Hospitals.

Study Design: Retrospective study using cross-sectional and longitudinal models to estimate the effect of nurse staffing levels and skill mix on seven HCAHPS measures.

Use of quality measures for Medicaid behavioral health services by state agencies: implications for health care reform.

Objective: The structure-process-outcome quality framework espoused by Donabedian provides a conceptual way to examine and prioritize behavioral health quality measures used by states. This report presents an environmental scan of the quality measures and satisfaction surveys that state Medicaid managed care and behavioral health agencies used prior to Medicaid expansion in 2014.

Methods: Data were collected by reviewing online documents related to Medicaid managed care contracts for behavioral health, quality strategies, quality improvement plans, quality and performance indicators data, annual outcomes reports, performance measure specification manuals, legislative reports, and Medicaid waiver requests for proposals.

Examining the value of inpatient nurse staffing: an assessment of quality and patient care costs.

Background: Inpatient quality deficits have important implications for the health and well-being of patients. They also have important financial implications for payers and hospitals by leading to longer lengths of stay and higher intensity of treatment. Many of these costly quality deficits are particularly sensitive to nursing care.

Real-world impact of comparative effectiveness research findings on clinical practice.

Objectives: Unprecedented funding for comparative effectiveness research (CER) to help provide better evidence for decision making as a way to lower costs and improve quality is under way. Yet how research findings are adopted and applied will impact the nation's return on this investment. We examine the relationship between the publication of findings from 4 seminal CER trials, the release of subsequent clinical practice guidelines (CPGs), and utilization trends for associated surgical interventions, diagnostic interventions, or medications.

Proportion of dermatitis attributed to work exposures in the working population, United States, 2011 behavioral risk factor surveillance system.

Background: The US employer-based surveillance system for work-related health conditions underestimates the prevalence of work-related dermatitis.

Objective: The authors sought to utilize information from workers to improve the accuracy of prevalence estimates for work-related dermatitis.

Methods: Three state health departments included questions in the 2011 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey designed to ascertain the prevalence of dermatitis in the working population, as well as healthcare experiences, personal perceptions of work-relatedness, and job changes associated with dermatitis.

Inherited and somatic mitochondrial DNA mutations in Guam amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and parkinsonism-dementia.

There is increasing evidence for mitochondrial dysfunction in neurodegenerative disorders, although the exact role of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations in this process is unresolved. We investigated inherited and somatic mtDNA substitutions and deletions in Guam amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and parkinsonism-dementia (PD). Hypervariable segment 1 sequences of Chamorro mtDNA revealed that the odds ratio of a PD or ALS diagnosis was increased for individuals in the E1 haplogroup while individuals in the E2 haplogroup had decreased odds of an ALS or PD diagnosis.