Impact of Early Admission Surveys on Physicians' Communication Skills on Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) Scores: A Quality Improvement Initiative.

Introduction Effective communication between doctors and patients is one of the 19 core questions on the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey. Positive patient experiences, as reflected in HCAHPS scores, are associated with higher quality of care, reduced mortality, and fewer readmissions. These scores also influence a hospital's financial bonuses or penalties from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Sex-specific associations of asthma acquisition with changes in DNA methylation during adolescence.

Background: Underlying biological mechanisms involved in sex differences in asthma status changes from pre- to post-adolescence are unclear. DNA methylation (DNAm) has been shown to be associated with the risk of asthma.

Objective: We hypothesized that asthma acquisition from pre- to post-adolescence was associated with changes in DNAm during this period at asthma-associated cytosine-phosphate-guanine (CpG) sites and such an association was sex-specific.

Age at onset of different pubertal signs in boys and girls and differential DNA methylation at age 10 and 18 years: an epigenome-wide follow-up study.

Study Question: Is the age of onset of pubertal markers related to subsequent changes in DNA methylation (DNAm)?

Summary Answer: We identified 273 cytosine-phosphate-guanine (CpG) dinucleotides in girls and 67 CpGs in boys that were related to puberty and that were replicable in two other investigations.

What Is Known Already: Previously, 457 CpGs (not gender-specific) and 347 (in girls) and 50 (in boys), respectively, were found to be associated with puberty, according to investigations of studies from Denmark (20 girls and 31 boys) and North America (30 girls and 25 boys).

Study Design Size Duration: The study was based on a birth cohort of 1456 participants born in 1989/90, with follow-up at age 10 and 18 years.