Is the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion in the USA associated with reductions in intimate partner violence victimisation?

Objective: Intimate partner violence (IPV) affects an estimated 47% of women living in the USA in their lifetime and is associated with increased risk of physical and mental health concerns. Current prevention efforts focus on individual and family-level interventions rather than macrosystem-level policies. Thus, we sought to test the effects of Medicaid expansion on the rates of IPV and violence more broadly.

Protocol: A mixed-methods study to evaluate implementation and outcomes of U.S. state telemental health policy expansion during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: Until the COVID-19 pandemic, it had not been possible to examine the effect of rapid policy changes surrounding telemental health on patient-reported mental health care access, costs, symptoms, and functioning. Sizable variation in telemental health use by patient race-ethnicity, age, and rurality, and in its adoption across healthcare settings, underscores the need to study equitable dissemination and implementation of high-quality telemental health services in the real world. This protocol describes an explanatory sequential mixed-methods study that aims to examine the effects of state telemental health policy expansion on patient-reported mental health outcomes, as well as the policy-to-practice pathway from the perspectives of state leaders, clinicians, and staff who care for underserved patients.

The social determinants of resilience: A conceptual framework to integrate psychological and policy research.

The psychological study of resilience has increasingly underscored the need for children and families to access material and psychological resources to positively adapt to significant stress. Redistributive policies-policies that downwardly reallocate society's social and economic resources-can offer economically disadvantaged families sustained access to these resources and mitigate the harmful impacts of adversity. This conceptual article builds upon and integrates insights from psychological and policy research to develop a unifying multilevel resilience framework, which we call the Social Determinants of Resilience.

The Translational Science Benefits Model, a new training tool for demonstrating implementation science impact: A pilot study.

Introduction: Demonstrating the impact of implementation science presents a new frontier for the field, and operationalizing downstream impact is challenging. The Translational Science Benefits Model (TSBM) offers a new approach for assessing and demonstrating research impact. Here we describe integration of the TSBM into a mentored training network.

Understanding the factors that impact federal rulemaking: a survey of former EPA regulators.

While federal rulemaking is an essential part of American governance, it is not well understood by researchers and advocates. We surveyed 115 former regulators at the Environmental Protection Agency to understand their views on the kinds of information they valued most and their communication preferences (June-August 2023). Respondents highly valued information about the scope of a problem (96%), legal analysis (97%), technology assessments (96%), and impacts of a proposed rule (99%).

Target Trial Emulation for Evaluating Health Policy.

Target trial emulation is an approach to designing rigorous nonexperimental studies by "emulating" key features of a clinical trial. Most commonly used outside of policy contexts, this approach is also valuable for policy evaluation as policies typically are not randomly assigned. In this article, we discuss the application of the target trial emulation framework in a policy evaluation context.

Effects of Texas State Agency Integration on Mental Health Service Use Among Individuals with Co-occurring Cognitive Disabilities and Mental Health Conditions.

This study uses Texas's 2017 integration of the state disability and mental health agencies as a case study, combining interviews with Texas agency and advocacy organization leaders to examine perceptions of agency integration and augmented synthetic control analyses of 2014-2020 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey to examine impacts on mental health service use among individuals with co-occurring cognitive disabilities (including intellectual and developmental disabilities) and mental health conditions. Interviewees described the intensive process of agency integration and identified primarily positive (e.g.

State Driving Under the Influence of Drugs Laws.

Drug-impaired driving is a growing problem in the U.S. States regulate drug-impaired driving in different ways.

Acquisitions of behavioral health treatment facilities from 2010 to 2021.

Private equity (PE) and other for-profit ownership of behavioral health (mental health and substance use) treatment facilities have become increasingly prevalent, but data on these acquisitions are not readily available. In this study, we describe a novel database that contains information on the universe of behavioral health acquisitions that occurred between 2010 and 2021. We found that the frequency of behavioral health facilities involved in acquisitions increased substantially, from 32 facilities in 2010 to 1330 in 2021.

Access to care for patients with chronic pain receiving prescription opioids, cannabis, or other treatments.

Changes in chronic noncancer pain treatment have led to decreases in prescribing of opioids and increases in the availability of medical cannabis, despite its federal prohibition. Patients may face barriers to establishing new care with a physician based on use of these treatments. We compared physician willingness to accept patients based on prescription opioid, cannabis, or other pain treatment use.

Preharvest Sprouting in Quinoa: A New Screening Method Adapted to Panicles and GWAS Components.

The introduction of quinoa into new growing regions and environments is of interest to farmers, consumers, and stakeholders around the world. Many plant breeding programs have already started to adapt quinoa to the environmental and agronomic conditions of their local fields. Formal quinoa breeding efforts in Washington State started in 2010, led by Professor Kevin Murphy out of Washington State University.

Interagency Coordination to Manage Co-Occurring Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and Mental Health Conditions.

Objective: The authors aimed to identify barriers to and strategies for supporting coordination between state agencies for intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) or mental health to meet the mental health needs of people with co-occurring IDD and mental health conditions.

Methods: Forty-nine employees of state agencies as well as advocacy and service delivery organizations across 11 U.S.

US payment policy for medications to treat opioid use disorder: landscape and opportunities.

Offering patients medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) is the standard of care for opioid use disorder (OUD), but an estimated 75%-90% of people with OUD who could benefit from MOUD do not receive medication. Payment policy, defined as public and private payers' approaches to covering and reimbursing providers for MOUD, is 1 contributor to this treatment gap. We conducted a policy analysis and qualitative interviews ( = 21) and surveys ( = 31) with US MOUD payment policy experts to characterize MOUD insurance coverage across major categories of US insurers and identify opportunities for reform and innovation.

Effects of state opioid prescribing laws on rates of fatal crashes in the USA.

Background: State opioid prescribing cap laws, mandatory prescription drug monitoring programme query or enrolment laws and pill mill laws have been implemented across US states to curb high-risk opioid prescribing. Previous studies have measured the impact of these laws on opioid use and overdose death, but no prior work has measured the impact of these laws on fatal crashes in a multistate analysis.

Methods: To study the association between state opioid prescribing laws and fatal crashes, 13 treatment states that implemented a single law of interest in a 4-year period were identified, together with unique groups of control states for each treatment state.

Impact of U.S. Federal Loan Repayment Programs on the Behavioral Health Workforce: Scoping Review.

Objective: Federal loan repayment programs (LRPs) are one strategy to address the shortage of behavioral health providers. This scoping review aimed to identify and characterize the federal LRPs' impact on the U.S.

Navigating addiction treatment during COVID-19: policy insights from state health leaders.

To mitigate pandemic-related disruptions to addiction treatment, US federal and state governments made significant changes to policies regulating treatment delivery. State health agencies played a key role in implementing these policies, giving agency leaders a distinct vantage point on the feasibility and implications of post-pandemic policy sustainment. We interviewed 46 state health agency and other leaders responsible for implementing COVID-19 addiction treatment policies across 8 states with the highest COVID-19 death rate in their census region.

Recreational and Medical Cannabis Legalization and Opioid Prescriptions and Mortality.

Importance: While some have argued that cannabis legalization has helped to reduce opioid-related morbidity and mortality in the US, evidence has been mixed. Moreover, existing studies did not account for biases that could arise when policy effects vary over time or across states or when multiple policies are assessed at the same time, as in the case of recreational and medical cannabis legalization.

Objective: To quantify changes in opioid prescriptions and opioid overdose deaths associated with recreational and medical cannabis legalization in the US.

British Columbia's Safer Opioid Supply Policy and Opioid Outcomes.

Importance: In March 2020, British Columbia, Canada, became the first jurisdiction globally to launch a large-scale provincewide safer supply policy. The policy allowed individuals with opioid use disorder at high risk of overdose or poisoning to receive pharmaceutical-grade opioids prescribed by a physician or nurse practitioner, but to date, opioid-related outcomes after policy implementation have not been explored.

Objective: To investigate the association of British Columbia's Safer Opioid Supply policy with opioid prescribing and opioid-related health outcomes.

Experiences of health care services among people with cognitive disabilities and mental health conditions.

Background: People with cognitive disabilities such as intellectual and developmental disabilities face significant barriers to accessing high-quality health care services. Barriers may be exacerbated for those with co-occurring mental health conditions.

Objective: This study compares patient experiences of health care services between adults with and without cognitive disabilities and, among people with a cognitive disability, those with and without co-occurring mental health conditions.