Pipe Distribution as a Harm Reduction Service for People Who Use Methamphetamine.

Background: Methamphetamine use is disproportionately high in rural settings, with rates increasing during the COVID-19 pandemic. While syringe service programs reduce disease transmission among people who inject drugs, limited research exists around the value of smoking equipment, specifically pipes, in minimizing harms associated with rural methamphetamine use.

Methods: We conducted semi-structured interviews with people who use methamphetamine in rural southern Illinois.

Developing a mobile application for gender-affirming voice training: A community-engaged approach.

Objectives: To date, there has yet to be a rigorous exploration of voice and communication modification training (VCMT) among transgender and gender-nonconforming (TGNC) individuals using digital technology. We sought to evaluate and describe the iterative process of app development using a community-based approach.

Methods: An interprofessional team of voice health care professionals, application developers, designers, and TGNC community members was assembled to conceive the functionality, content, and design of a mobile app to support VCMT for TGNC people.

Buprenorphine Prescribing Characteristics Following Relaxation of X-Waiver Training Requirements.

Importance: Local-level data are needed to understand whether the relaxation of X-waiver training requirements for prescribing buprenorphine in April 2021 translated to increased buprenorphine treatment.

Objective: To assess whether relaxation of X-waiver training requirements was associated with changes in the number of clinicians waivered to and who prescribe buprenorphine for opioid use disorder and the number of patients receiving treatment.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This serial cross-sectional study uses an interrupted time series analysis of 2020-2022 data from the HEALing Communities Study (HCS), a cluster-randomized, wait-list-controlled trial.

Chemically Synthesized 1,2,3,4,6-Pentakis-O-Galloyl-β-D-Glucopyranoside Blocks SARS-CoV-2 Spike Interaction with Host ACE-2 Receptor.

Background: In the search for anti-COVID-19 therapy, 1,2,3,4,6-pentakis-O-galloyl-β- D-glucopyranoside, a natural polyphenolic compound isolated from many traditional medicinal herbs, has been reported as an RBD-ACE2 binding inhibitor and as a broad-spectrum anticoronaviral inhibitor targeting the main protease and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase of SARSCoV- 2. To facilitate the structure-activity relationship studies of 1,2,3,4,6-pentakis-O-galloyl-β-Dglucopyranoside, we describe its chemical synthesis and characterization, as well as its activity towards the SARS-CoV-2 spike interaction with host ACE2 receptor.

Methods: 1,2,3,4,6-Pentakis-O-galloyl-β-D-glucopyranoside was synthesized in two quantitative steps from 3,4,5-tribenzyloxybenzoic acid and β-D-glucopyranoside: DCC-mediated esterification and palladium-catalyzed per-debenzylation.

Opioid use, prescribing and fatal overdose patterns among racial/ethnic minorities in the United States: A scoping review and conceptual risk environment model.

Issues: To date, there has been no synthesis of research addressing the scale and nuances of the opioid epidemic in racial/ethnic minority populations in the United States that considers the independent and joint impacts of dynamics such as structural disadvantage, provider bias, health literacy, cultural norms and various other risk factors.

Approach: Using the "risk environment" framework, we conducted a scoping review on PubMed, Embase and Google Scholar of peer-reviewed literature and governmental reports published between January 2000 and February 2024 on the nature and scale of opioid use, opioid prescribing patterns, and fatal overdoses among racial/ethnic minorities in the United States, while also examining macro, meso and individual-level risk factors.

Key Findings: Results from this review illuminate a growing, but fragmented, literature lacking standardisation in racial/ethnic classification and case reporting, specifically in regards to Indigenous and Asian subpopulations.

How do people who use opioids express their qualities and capacities? An assessment of attitudes, behaviors, and opportunities.

People who nonmedically use drugs (PWUD) face intricate social issues that suppress self-actualization, communal integration, and overall health and wellness. "Strengths-based" approaches, an under-used pedagogy and practice in addiction medicine, underscore the significance of identifying and recognizing the inherent and acquired skills, attributes, and capacities of PWUD. A strengths-based approach engenders client affirmation and improves their capacity to reduce drug use-related harms by leveraging existing capabilities.

Motivation and context of concurrent stimulant and opioid use among persons who use drugs in the rural United States: a multi-site qualitative inquiry.

Background: In recent years, stimulant use has increased among persons who use opioids in the rural U.S., leading to high rates of overdose and death.

Lack of Informed and Affirming Healthcare for Sexual Minority Men: A Call for Patient-Centered Care.

Background: Sexual minority men (SMM) face severe health inequities alongside negative experiences that drive avoidance of medical care. Understanding how SMM experience healthcare is paramount to improving this population's health. Patient-centered care, which emphasizes mutual respect and collaboration between patients and providers, may alleviate the disparaging effects of the homophobia that SMM face in healthcare settings.

The Health Disparities Research Industrial Complex.

Research focused on health disparities-whether relating to one's race/ethnicity, gender expression, sexual orientation, citizenship status, income level, etc.-constitutes a large, generative, and highly profitable portion of scholarship in academic, clinical, and government settings. Health disparities research is expressed as a means of bringing greater attention to, and ultimately addressing via evidence-based implementation science, acts of devaluation and oppression that have continually contributed to these inequities.

Climate Change and the Opioid Epidemic.

Ongoing assessments by climate scientists, including a recent report from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, punctuate the pronounced effect that climate change is poised to have in the near future on the health and well-being of humans-particularly those with low socioeconomic status-throughout the world. To this end, to date, very limited scholarly attention has been placed on the effects that climate change may have on people who use drugs (PWUDs), in particular those with opioid use disorder, and assessed their structural and social determinants of climate change vulnerability. Since COVID-19, which has key lessons to offer on climate change's potential effects on PWUDs, the opioid epidemic has been rapidly accelerating in terms of its socioeconomic, racial, and geographic reach.

Attitudes toward harm reduction and low-threshold healthcare during the COVID-19 pandemic: qualitative interviews with people who use drugs in rural southern Illinois.

Background: Chronic health conditions associated with long-term drug use may pose additional risks to people who use drugs (PWUD) when coupled with COVID-19 infection. Despite this, PWUD, especially those living in rural areas, may be less likely to seek out health services. Previous research has highlighted the increased disease burden of COVID-19 among PWUD.

Theorizing on neo public assistance: How do race and class impact resource uptake and behavior following disaster?

The consequences of environmental disasters and other ecologic and communal crises are frequently worst in racially/ethnically minoritized and low-income populations relative to other groups. This disproportionality may create or deepen patterns of governmental distrust and stoke health promotion disengagement in these groups. To date, there has been limited contextualization of how historically disenfranchised populations utilize government-administered or facilitated resources following such disasters.

Forming a Critical Race Theory of Environmental Disaster: Understanding social meanings and health threat perception in the Flint Water Crisis.

A Critical Race Theory of Environmental Disaster can aid researchers in better contextualizing racially disproportionate environmental disasters and their intricate social meanings to survivors. Such a theory, as proposed and operationalized here, incorporates interpretations of the causes and consequences of environmental disaster. In so doing, this theory weighs the racial and economic stratification often preceding environmental disaster and that which reflexively becomes more embedded in the aftermath.

Toward a Theory of the Underpinnings and Vulnerabilities of Structural Racism: Looking Upstream from Disease Inequities among People Who Use Drugs.

Structural racism is increasingly recognized as a key driver of health inequities and other adverse outcomes. This paper focuses on structural racism as an "upstream" institutionalized process, how it creates health inequities and how structural racism persists in spite of generations of efforts to end it. So far, "downstream" efforts to reduce these health inequities have had little success in eliminating them.

Contraception and Healthcare Utilization by Reproductive-Age Women Who Use Drugs in Rural Communities: a Cross-Sectional Survey.

Background: Women who use drugs (WWUD) have low rates of contraceptive use and high rates of unintended pregnancy. Drug use is common among women in rural U.S.

The racial and cultural ecology of home and community-based services for diverse older adults.

As the overall U.S. population grows older and increasingly diverse, greater focus is needed on the various Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS), such as home health care, case management, meal delivery and preparation, and personal care, required to address the unique social and medical complexities of diverse older adults.

Cardiac Startle Response and Clinical Outcomes in Preschool Children With Fragile X Syndrome and Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Poor physiological regulation in response to threat is linked to multiple negative developmental outcomes including anxiety, which is highly prevalent and impairing in young children with neurodevelopmental disabilities like fragile X syndrome (FXS) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The present study contrasted cardiac startle response in pre-school-aged children with FXS, with and without ASD, to children with non-syndromic ASD (nsASD) and neurotypical controls (NT). The relationship of cardiac startle to non-verbal mental age (NVMA), ASD severity, and parent-reported anxiety was also examined.

Child Lead Screening Behaviors and Health Outcomes Following the Flint Water Crisis.

Background: There is little research on lead (Pb) screening behaviors and outcomes and possible health sequelae of children in Flint, Michigan in the years following the city's 2014 water crisis, which included widespread tap water contamination with elevated levels of heavy metals and other environmental contaminants.

Methods: Between June and November 2019, we collected and analyzed cross-sectional data on Flint children's demographics and self-report of screenings of blood lead levels (BLLs) and results and various potential water contamination-related health symptoms and outcomes. We calculated descriptive statistics to summarize the prevalence of health outcomes and screenings in children, and fit multivariable models using generalized estimating equations to characterize the association between baseline traits and health symptoms and outcomes in children.

Approaches to Addressing Nonmedical Services and Care Coordination Needs for Older Adults.

Objective: Non-medical services care coordination for daily activities of living is crucial in improving older adults' health and enabling them to age in place, but little is known about specific practices and barriers in this space.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 41 professionals serving older adults in greater Chicago, Illinois-which consists of diverse urban, suburban, and semi-rural communities-to contextualize non-medical services needs and care coordination processes.

Results: In-home care, home-delivered meals, non-emergency transportation, and housing support were cited as the most commonly needed services, all requiring complex coordination support.