In the 50 years since its establishment, the National Institute on Drug Abuse has made significant investment and strides toward improving individual and public health. Epidemiology serves as the foundation for understanding the how many, why, how, where, and who of drug use and its consequences, and effective epidemiology research and training are geared toward actionable findings that can inform real-world responses. Epidemiologic findings enhance clinicians' ability to provide ongoing care by incorporating information about the patterns and outcomes of drug use that their patients may experience.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Public Health Manag Pract
February 2024
Context: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a long history of using high-quality science to drive public health action that has improved the health, safety, and well-being of people in the United States and globally. To ensure scientific quality, manuscripts authored by CDC staff are required to undergo an internal review and approval process known as clearance. During 2022, CDC launched a scientific clearance transformation initiative to improve the efficiency of the clearance process while ensuring scientific quality.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Objectives: Falls are a leading cause of injuries and injury deaths for older adults. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Stopping Elderly Accidents Deaths and Injuries (STEADI) initiative, a multifactorial approach to fall prevention, was adapted for implementation within the primary care setting of a health system in upstate New York. The purpose of this article is to: (a) report process evaluation results for this implementation using the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance (RE-AIM) framework and (b) examine the utility of RE-AIM for assessing barriers and facilitators.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe United States drug overdose epidemic has reached an all-time high, with 2020 provisional mortality data indicating that over 90,000 lives were lost to drug overdose in the 12-months ending in December 2020. The overdose epidemic has evolved over time with respect to the substances involved in overdose deaths and also with respect to the geographic distribution and epidemiology of deaths involving specific substances. Thus, a nimble approach to addressing the epidemic and preventing future overdoses is needed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNative Hawaiian and Pacific Islander populations have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 (1-3). Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and Asian populations vary in language; cultural practices; and social, economic, and environmental experiences, which can affect health outcomes (4). However, data from these populations are often aggregated in analyses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe examined disparities in cumulative incidence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 by race/ethnicity, age, and sex in the United States during January 1-October 1, 2020. Hispanic/Latino and non-Hispanic Black, American Indian/Alaskan Native, and Native Hawaiian/other Pacific Islander persons had a substantially higher incidence of infection than non-Hispanic White persons.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected racial and ethnic minority groups in the United States. Whereas racial and ethnic disparities in severe COVID-19-associated outcomes, including mortality, have been documented (1-3), less is known about population-based disparities in infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. In addition, although persons aged <30 years account for approximately one third of reported infections, there is limited information on racial and ethnic disparities in infection among young persons over time and by sex and age.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Drowning death rates in the African region are estimated to be the highest in the world. Data collection and surveillance for drowning in African countries are limited. We aimed to establish the availability of drowning data in multiple existing administrative data sources in Uganda and to describe the characteristics of drowning based on available data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the United States, approximately 1.4 million persons access emergency shelter or transitional housing each year (1). These settings can pose risks for communicable disease spread.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe objective of this study was to evaluate and injury surveillance (IS) system's ability to monitor road traffic deaths and the coverage of road traffic injury and death surveillance in Phuket, Thailand. U.S.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Objectives: Older adult falls pose a growing burden on the U.S. health care system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Objectives: Falls are the leading cause of injury-related deaths in older adults. Objectives include describing implementation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Stopping Elderly Accidents, Deaths, and Injuries (STEADI) initiative to help primary care providers (PCPs) identify and manage fall risk, and comparing a 12-item and a 3-item fall screening questionnaire.
Design And Methods: We systematically incorporated STEADI into routine patient care via team training, electronic health record tools, and tailored clinic workflow.
Falls are the leading cause of fatal and non-fatal injuries among older adults. The American and British Geriatric Societies recommend a fall risk assessment to identify risk factors and guide interventions to prevent these falls. This study describes the self-reported discussion of fall prevention approaches used by primary care providers (PCPs)-family practitioners, internists and nurse practitioners-who treat older adults.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMotorcyclists account for 23% of global road traffic deaths and over half of fatalities in countries where motorcycles are the dominant means of transport. Wearing a helmet can reduce the risk of head injury by as much as 69% and death by 42%; however, both child and adult helmet use are low in many countries where motorcycles are a primary mode of transportation. In response to the need to increase helmet use by all drivers and their passengers, the Global Helmet Vaccine Initiative (GHVI) was established to increase helmet use in three countries where a substantial portion of road users are motorcyclists and where helmet use is low.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: This study presents child helmet use before, during and after implementing the Vietnamese National Child Helmet Action Plan (NCHAP) and evaluates its effect on child helmet use. The NCHAP, an integrated multisector campaign, incorporated a wide-scale public awareness campaign, school-based interventions, increased police patrolling and enforcement, and capacity building and support to relevant government departments in target provinces.
Methods: In Vietnam's three largest cities, 100 schools in 20 districts were selected to monitor motorcycle helmet use behaviour.
. Among people aged 65 and older, falls are the leading cause of both fatal and nonfatal injuries. The burden of falls is expected to increase as the US population ages.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Falls lead to a disproportionate burden of death and disability among older adults despite evidence-based recommendations to screen regularly for fall risk and clinical trials demonstrating the effectiveness of multifactorial interventions to reduce falls. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention developed STEADI (Stopping Elderly Accidents, Deaths, and Injuries) to assist primary care teams to screen for fall risk and reduce risk of falling in older adults.
Purpose Of The Study: This paper describes a practical application of STEADI in a large academic internal medicine clinic utilizing the Kotter framework, a tool used to guide clinical practice change.
Objective: This paper analyses helmet use before and after implementing Helmets for Kids, a school-based helmet distribution and road safety programme in Cambodia.
Methods: Nine intervention schools (with a total of 6721 students) and four control schools (with a total of 3031 students) were selected using purposive sampling to target schools where students were at high risk of road traffic injury. Eligible schools included those where at least 50% of students commute to school on bicycles or motorcycles, were located on a national road (high traffic density), had few or no street signs nearby, were located in an area with a history of crash injuries and were in a province where other Cambodia Helmet Vaccine Initiative activities occur.
Objectives: To describe the reach of the Heads Up "Concussion in Sports: What You Need to Know," online course and to assess knowledge change.
Setting: Online.
Participants: Individuals who have taken the free online course since its inception in May 2010 to July 2013.
Background: In the U.S., almost 4,000 persons die from drowning annually.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep
May 2014
In the United States, almost 4,000 persons die from drowning each year. Drowning is responsible for more deaths among children aged 1-4 years than any other cause except congenital anomalies. For persons aged ≤29 years, drowning is one of the top three causes of unintentional injury death (2).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Inj Contr Saf Promot
April 2016
This study examines the risk characteristics of fatal motorcycle crashes in Cambodia over a 5-year period (2007-2011). Secondary data analyses were conducted using the Cambodia Road Crash and Victim Information System, the only comprehensive and integrated road crash surveillance system in the country. Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Handicap International found that (1) males are dying in motorcycle crashes roughly seven times more frequently than females; (2) motorcyclist fatalities increased by about 30% from 2007 to 2011; (3) the motorcyclist death rates per 100,000 population increased from 7.
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