Social media recruitment of participants in a female stress urinary incontinence trial: A feasibility study.

Objective: This study explores the opportunities of social media advertisements as a recruitment strategy in women with stress urinary incontinence (SUI).

Study Design: This feasibility study was part of a larger clinical trial on the effects of a patient decision aid for SUI treatment. We started a 61-day social media advertisement campaign to recruit women for the trial.

Avoiding double counting: the effect of bundling hospital events in administrative datasets for the interpretation of rural-urban differences in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Background And Objectives: All publicly funded hospital discharges in Aotearoa New Zealand are recorded in the National Minimum Dataset (NMDS). Movement of patients between hospitals (and occasionally within the same hospital) results in separate records (discharge events) within the NMDS and if these consecutive health records are not accounted for hospitalization (encounters) rates might be overestimated. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of four different methods to bundle multiple discharge events in the NMDS into encounters on the relative comparison of rural and urban Ambulatory Sensitive Hospitalization (ASH) rates.

Expression of the Arabidopsis redox-related LEA protein, SAG21 is regulated by ERF, NAC and WRKY transcription factors.

SAG21/LEA5 is an unusual late embryogenesis abundant protein in Arabidopsis thaliana, that is primarily mitochondrially located and may be important in regulating translation in both chloroplasts and mitochondria. SAG21 expression is regulated by a plethora of abiotic and biotic stresses and plant growth regulators indicating a complex regulatory network. To identify key transcription factors regulating SAG21 expression, yeast-1-hybrid screens were used to identify transcription factors that bind the 1685 bp upstream of the SAG21 translational start site.

Rural-urban variation in the utilisation of publicly funded healthcare services: an age-stratified population-level observational study.

Aim: To compare age-stratified public health service utilisation in Aotearoa New Zealand across the rural-urban spectrum.

Methods: Routinely collected hospitalisation, allied health, emergency department and specialist outpatient data (2014-2018), along with Census denominators, were used to calculate utilisation rates for residents in the two urban and three rural categories in the Geographic Classification for Health.

Results: Relative to their urban peers, rural Māori and rural non-Māori had lower all-cause, cardiovascular, mental health and ambulatory sensitive (ASH) hospitalisation rates.

Rural-urban variation in COVID-19 vaccination uptake in Aotearoa New Zealand: Examining the national roll-out.

This study aimed to understand rural-urban differences in the uptake of COVID-19 vaccinations during the peak period of the national vaccination roll-out in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ). Using a linked national dataset of health service users aged 12+ years and COVID-19 immunization records, age-standardized rates of vaccination uptake were calculated at fortnightly intervals, between June and December 2021, by rurality, ethnicity, and region. Rate ratios were calculated for each rurality category with the most urban areas (U1) used as the reference.

ATP5PO levels regulate enteric nervous system development in zebrafish, linking Hirschsprung disease to Down Syndrome.

Hirschsprung disease (HSCR) is a complex genetic disorder characterized by the absence of enteric nervous system (ENS) in the distal region of the intestine. Down Syndrome (DS) patients have a >50-fold higher risk of developing HSCR than the general population, suggesting that overexpression of human chromosome 21 (Hsa21) genes contribute to HSCR etiology. However, identification of responsible genes remains challenging.

Into the Dark Serum Proteome: Personalized Features of IgG1 and IgA1 Repertoires in Severe COVID-19 Patients.

Serum proteomics has matured and is now able to monitor hundreds of proteins quantitatively in large cohorts of patients. However, the fine characteristics of some of the most dominant proteins in serum, the immunoglobulins, are in these studies often ignored, due to their vast, and highly personalized, diversity in sequences. Here, we focus exclusively on these personalized features in the serum proteome and distinctively chose to study individual samples from a low diversity population: elderly donors infected by severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

Acetylation of inorganic pyrophosphatase by S-RNase signaling induces pollen tube tip swelling by repressing pectin methylesterase.

Self-incompatibility (SI) is a widespread genetically determined system in flowering plants that prevents self-fertilization to promote gene flow and limit inbreeding. S-RNase-based SI is characterized by the arrest of pollen tube growth through the pistil. Arrested pollen tubes show disrupted polarized growth and swollen tips, but the underlying molecular mechanism is largely unknown.

Comparison of urban and rural mortality rates across the lifespan in Aotearoa/New Zealand: a population-level study.

Background: Previous studies undertaken in New Zealand using generic rurality classifications have concluded that life expectancy and age-standardised mortality rates are similar for urban and rural populations.

Methods: Administrative mortality (2014-2018) and census data (2013 and 2018) were used to estimate age-stratified sex-adjusted mortality rate ratios (aMRRs) for a range of mortality outcomes across the rural-urban spectrum (using major urban centres as the reference) for the total population and separately for Māori and non-Māori. Rural was defined according to the recently developed Geographic Classification for Health.

Unmasking hidden disparities: a comparative observational study examining the impact of different rurality classifications for health research in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Objectives: Examine the impact of two generic-urban-rural experimental profile (UREP) and urban accessibility (UA)-and one purposely built-geographic classification for health (GCH)-rurality classification systems on the identification of rural-urban health disparities in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ).

Design: A comparative observational study.

Setting: NZ; the most recent 5 years of available data on mortality events (2013-2017), hospitalisations and non-admitted hospital patient events (both 2015-2019).

Non-invasive biomechanical assessment of the prolapsed vaginal wall: an explorative pilot study on cutometry and indentometry.

The clinical assessment of pelvic organ prolapse (POP) and associated treatment strategies is currently limited to anatomical and subjective outcome measures, which have limited reproducibility and do not include functional properties of vaginal tissue. The objective of our study was to evaluate the feasibility of using cutometry and indentometry for non-invasive biomechanical assessment of the vaginal wall in women with POP. Both techniques were applied on the vaginal wall of 20 women indicated for surgical correction of POP stage two or higher.

Mortality outcomes and inequities experienced by rural Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Background: Previous research identified inequities in all-cause mortality between Māori and non-Māori populations. Unlike comparable jurisdictions, mortality rates in rural areas have not been shown to be higher than those in urban areas for either population. This paper uses contemporary mortality data to examine Māori and non-Māori mortality rates in rural and urban areas.

Defining rural in Aotearoa New Zealand: a novel geographic classification for health purposes.

Aim: Describe the first specifically designed and validated five-level rurality classification for health purposes in New Zealand that is both data-driven and incorporates heuristic understandings of rurality.

Method: Our approach involved: (1) defining the purpose and parameters of a proposed five-level Geographic Classification for Health (GCH); (2) developing a quantitative framework; (3) undertaking co-design with the National Rural Health Advisory Group (NRHAG), and extensive consultation with key stakeholders; (4) testing the validity of the five-level GCH and comparing it to previous Statistics New Zealand (Stats NZ) rurality classifications; and (5) describing rural populations and identifying differences in all-cause mortality using the GCH and previous Stats NZ rurality classifications.

Results: The GCH is a technically robust and heuristically valid rurality classification for health purposes.

The long Filamin-A isoform is required for intestinal development and motility: implications for chronic intestinal pseudo-obstruction.

Filamin A (FLNA) is a cytoplasmic actin binding protein, recently shown to be expressed as a long and short isoform. Mutations in FLNA are associated with a wide spectrum of disorders, including an X-linked form of chronic intestinal pseudo-obstruction (CIPO). However, the role of FLNA in intestinal development and function is largely unknown.

Unfairness in Society and Over Time: Understanding Possible Radicalization of People Protesting on Matters of Climate Change.

In this manuscript, we introduce a theoretical model of climate radicalization that integrates social psychological theories of perceived unfairness with historical insights on radicalization to contribute to the knowledge of individuals' processes of radicalization and non-radicalization in relation to climate change. We define climate radicalization as a process of growing willingness to pursue and/or support radical changes in society that are in conflict with or could pose a threat to the status quo or democratic legal order to reach climate goals. We describe how perceptions of unfairness can play a pivotal role in processes of climate change related radicalization.

Factors associated with self-reported health among New Zealand military veterans: a cross-sectional study.

Objective: To identify factors associated with better or poorer self-reported health status in New Zealand military Veterans.

Design: A cross-sectional survey.

Participants: The participants of interest were the 3874 currently serving Veterans who had been deployed to a conflict zone, but all Veterans were eligible to participate.

Intrinsic Cellular Susceptibility to Barrett's Esophagus in Adults Born with Esophageal Atresia.

The prevalence of Barrett's esophagus (BE) in adults born with esophageal atresia (EA) is four times higher than in the general population and presents at a younger age (34 vs. 60 years). This is (partly) a consequence of chronic gastroesophageal reflux.

Access to advanced-level hospital care: differences in prehospital times calculated using incident locations compared with patients' usual residence.

Studies estimate that 84% of the USA and New Zealand's (NZ) resident populations have timely access (within 60 min) to advanced-level hospital care. Our aim was to assess whether usual residence (ie, home address) is a suitable proxy for location of injury incidence. In this observational study, injury fatalities registered in NZ's Mortality Collection during 2008-2012 were linked to Coronial files.

The Somatic Mutation Paradigm in Congenital Malformations: Hirschsprung Disease as a Model.

Patients with Hirschsprung disease (HSCR) do not always receive a genetic diagnosis after routine screening in clinical practice. One of the reasons for this could be that the causal mutation is not present in the cell types that are usually tested-whole blood, dermal fibroblasts or saliva-but is only in the affected tissue. Such mutations are called somatic, and can occur in a given cell at any stage of development after conception.

Human plasma IgG1 repertoires are simple, unique, and dynamic.

Although humans can produce billions of IgG1 variants through recombination and hypermutation, the diversity of IgG1 clones circulating in human blood plasma has largely eluded direct characterization. Here, we combined several mass-spectrometry-based approaches to reveal that the circulating IgG1 repertoire in human plasma is dominated by a limited number of clones in healthy donors and septic patients. We observe that each individual donor exhibits a unique serological IgG1 repertoire, which remains stable over time but can adapt rapidly to changes in physiology.

Developing the geographic classification for health, a rural-urban classification for New Zealand health research and policy: A research protocol.

Introduction: Rural-urban health inequities, exacerbated by deprivation and ethnicity, have been clearly described in the international literature. To date, the same inequities have not been as clearly demonstrated in Aotearoa New Zealand despite the lower socioeconomic status and higher proportion of Māori living in rural towns. This is ascribed by many health practitioners, academics and other informed stakeholders to be the result of the definitions of 'rural' used to produce statistics.

The WOMEN-UP Solution, a Patient-Centered Innovative e-Health Tool for Pelvic Floor Muscle Training: Qualitative and Usability Study during Early-Stage Development.

e-Health may enhance self-management of pelvic floor muscle training (PFMT) to treat stress urinary incontinence (SUI). It is crucial to involve patients in planning, developing and monitoring the optimal e-Health solution. This research aims to describe patient-centered innovation in an early developmental stage of the WOMEN-UP solution.

Size matters: Large copy number losses in Hirschsprung disease patients reveal genes involved in enteric nervous system development.

Hirschsprung disease (HSCR) is a complex genetic disease characterized by absence of ganglia in the intestine. HSCR etiology can be explained by a unique combination of genetic alterations: rare coding variants, predisposing haplotypes and Copy Number Variation (CNV). Approximately 18% of patients have additional anatomical malformations or neurological symptoms (HSCR-AAM).

Optimising base locations for New Zealand's Helicopter Emergency Medical Services.

Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) in New Zealand (NZ) are located at hospitals or airports near the communities they serve. This may result in suboptimal response times. Timely access to advanced hospital care improves critically injured patients' chances of survival.