Publications by authors named "Erin Connelly"

Introduction Gender and sexually diverse (GSD) individuals disproportionately experience worse outcomes, bias, discrimination, and inequities in their care. Many avoid seeking healthcare due to fear of discrimination and mistreatment. One method for improvement focuses on specific GSD medical care training for undergraduate medical education (UME) learners.

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Leprosy was one of the most outwardly visible diseases in the European Middle Ages, a period during which leprosaria were founded to provide space for the sick. The extant documentary evidence for leprosy hospitals, especially in relation to diet, therapeutic, and medical care, is limited. However, human dental calculus stands to be an important source of information as it provides insight into the substances people were exposed to and accumulated in their bodies during their lives.

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Article Synopsis
  • Intervention fidelity is crucial in randomized controlled trials as it can impact the effectiveness and outcomes of the intervention being tested, especially for attention control groups where reporting has been inadequate.
  • The study aims to enhance fidelity in the attention control arm of a pediatric palliative care trial that evaluates a communication intervention for parents of children with cancer, contrasting it with structured educational discussions on cancer topics.
  • Researchers implemented NIH guidelines to design the attention control arm, train care team dyads, and monitor quality to ensure consistency in the conduct of both intervention groups.
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This rapid review examined facilitators and barriers affecting oral healthcare access and utilization among women and children with a low socioeconomic status (SES) in the United States from 2019 to the present. A comprehensive search was conducted across multiple electronic databases, yielding a total of 30 relevant studies for inclusion. The findings highlight various facilitators that positively impact oral healthcare outcomes, including targeted educational programs, access to non-dental care healthcare services, community-based initiatives, and increased access to affordable oral health services.

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, a combination of honey and vinegar, has been used as a remedy for wounds and infections in historical and traditional medical settings. While honey is now clinically used to treat infected wounds, this use of a complex, raw natural product (NP) mixture is unusual in modern western medicine. Research into the antimicrobial activity of NPs more usually focuses on finding a single active compound.

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On January 31, 2020, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) declared, under Section 319 of the Public Health Service Act, a U.

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Interdisciplinary collaboration is regarded as a desirable way of researching and, in some instances, even a requirement for academic teams and funding proposals. This paper explores the possibilities, but also the problems, of collaboration between different disciplines through a case study of the Ancientbiotics team. This team explores the potential of natural products contained in historical medical recipes.

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Stinging nettles ( spp.) have been used in a diverse range of traditional and historical medicines from around the world for the treatment of skin diseases, wounds, urinary disorders, respiratory diseases, bone and joint pain, anaemia and other circulatory problems, as well as in cosmetic preparations for skin and haircare. As part of an interdisciplinary exploration of nettle-based remedies, we performed a systematic review of published evidence for the antimicrobial activity of spp.

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The definition of adolescents and young adults (AYAs) in oncology varies with upper limits up to age 39. Younger AYAs, ages 12-24 years, are often cared for within pediatrics. In caring for AYAs with cancer, there are unique considerations that become even more important to recognize, acknowledge, and address in AYAs with life-threatening cancer receiving palliative care.

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The pharmacopeia used by physicians and laypeople in medieval Europe has largely been dismissed as placebo or superstition. While we now recognize that some of the used by medieval physicians could have had useful biological properties, research in this area is limited by the labor-intensive process of searching and interpreting historical medical texts. Here, we demonstrate the potential power of turning medieval medical texts into contextualized electronic databases amenable to exploration by the use of an algorithm.

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Background: With no cure or effective treatments for osteoarthritis (OA), the need to identify modifiable factors to decrease pain and increase physical function is well recognized.

Objective: To examine factors that characterize OA patients at different levels of pain, and to investigate the relationships among these factors and pain.

Methods: Details of OA characteristics and lifestyle factors were collected from interviews with healthy adults with knee OA (n=197).

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Unlabelled: Individuals with medically diagnosed knee osteoarthritis (OA) participated in a randomized, double-blind study to investigate the effects of a high-rosmarinic acid (rosA) spearmint tea. Sixty-two participants were randomized by sex and screening pain score to consume tea brewed from a high-rosA spearmint variety or a commercially available spearmint twice daily for 16 weeks. Pain, quality of life (QoL), and physical function at baseline and week 16 were assessed using the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC), Short-Form 36-item Health Survey (SF-36), 6-minute walk test (6MWT), and stair climb test (SCT).

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This study examined the role of expectancy in the placebo effect of a sham dietary supplement for weight loss in 114 obese adults with metabolic syndrome. All participants received lifestyle education and were randomized to 1 of 3 conditions: (1) a daily placebo capsule and told that they were taking an active weight loss supplement, (2) daily placebo and told they had a 50% random chance of receiving either the active or placebo, or (3) no capsules. At 12 weeks, weight loss and metabolic outcomes were similar among the 3 groups.

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Background: Community acupuncture is a recent innovation in acupuncture service delivery in the U.S. that aims to improve access to care through low-cost treatments in group-based settings.

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Objectives: Acupuncture utilization in the United States has increased in recent years, but is less common among racial/ethnic minorities and those of low socioeconomic status. Group-based, community acupuncture is a delivery model gaining in popularity around the United States, due in part to low-cost treatments provided on a sliding-fee scale. Affordable, community-based acupuncture may increase access to health care at a time when increasing numbers of people are uninsured.

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Background: Public interest in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has grown over the past decade, accompanied by increased demand for evidence-based approaches to CAM practice. In order to define the role evidence-based decision making has in CAM practice, CAM professionals must have a full understanding of evidence-based medicine (EBM) concepts.

Objective: This paper describes the design, implementation, and evaluation of a week-long intensive EBM short course for CAM faculty at a naturopathic and classical Chinese medicine institution.

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Background: The increasing use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) treatment is paralleled by a growing demand for an evidence-based approach to CAM practice. In 2007, the Helfgott Research Institute at the National College of Natural Medicine (NCNM), in partnership with Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), both in Portland, OR, began a National Institutes of Health-funded initiative to increase the quality and quantity of evidence-based medicine (EBM) content in the curricula at NCNM.

Design: One key strategy of the Research in Complementary and Alternative Medicine Program (R-CAMP) initiative was to create a faculty development program that included four components: intensive training in EBM; professional skills enhancement; peer and mentored support; and, ultimately, utilization of these skills to incorporate EBM into the curricula.

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Static magnetic field (SMF) therapy, applied via a permanent magnet attached to the skin, is used by people worldwide for self-care. Despite a lack of established SMF dosage and treatment regimens, multiple studies are conducted to evaluate SMF therapy effectiveness. Our objectives in conducting this review are to:(i) summarize SMF research conducted in humans; (ii) critically evaluate reporting quality of SMF dosages and treatment parameters and (iii) propose a set of criteria for reporting SMF treatment parameters in future clinical trials.

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This phase 0, double-blind, repeated within subject, randomized pilot study examined CD25 expression on T cells after ingestion of three commonly used herbs: Echinacea purpurea, Astragalus membranaceus and Glycyrrhiza glabra, administered singly and in combination. CD25 expression on T cells was significantly increased for subjects ingesting Echinacea at 24 h with notable increases in activation from Astragalus and Glycyrrhiza. CD25 expression remains elevated with daily use of Echinacea for at least 7 days.

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The increasing use of medicinal herbs among the general public has piqued the need for scientific-based research to determine the mechanism of action of herbs administered orally in human subjects. The ability of three herbs, Echinacea purpurea, Astragalus membranaceus and Glycyrrhiza glabra, to activate immune cells in human subjects was assessed in this pilot study. The effect of these herbs when ingested for 7 days was measured both when administered singly, and in combination, using flow cytometry.

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