Assessing Behavioral Risk Factors Driving Zoonotic Spillover Among High-risk Populations in Myanmar.

The increasing global emergence of zoonoses warrants improved awareness of activities that predispose vulnerable communities to greater risk of disease. Zoonotic disease outbreaks regularly occur within Myanmar and at its borders partly due to insufficient knowledge of behavioral risks, hindering participatory surveillance and reporting. This study employed a behavioral surveillance strategy among high-risk populations to understand the behavioral risks for zoonotic disease transmission in an effort to identify risk factors for pathogen spillover.

Living Safely With Bats: Lessons in Developing and Sharing a Global One Health Educational Resource.

As part of a public health behavior change and communication strategy related to the identification of a novel ebolavirus in bats in Sierra Leone in 2016, a consortium of experts launched an effort to create a widely accessible resource for community awareness and education on reducing disease risk. The resulting picture book, , includes technical content developed by a consortium of experts in public health, animal health, conservation, bats, and disease ecology from 30 countries. The book has now been adapted, translated, and used in more than 20 countries in Africa and Asia.

A quantitative assessment of the frequency and magnitude of heterogeneous treatment effects in studies of the health effects of social policies.

Substantial heterogeneity in effects of social policies on health across subgroups may be common, but has not been systematically characterized. Using a sample of 55 contemporary studies on health effects of social policies, we recorded how often heterogeneous treatment effects (HTEs) were assessed, for what subgroups (e.g.

Characterization and epidemiology of antimicrobial resistance patterns of spp. and spp. in free-ranging rhesus macaque () at high-risk interfaces with people and livestock in Bangladesh.

Introduction: Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a growing global health threat for humans and animals. Environmental contamination of antimicrobials from human and domestic animal feces has been linked to AMR in wildlife populations, including rhesus macaques. This study aimed to describe the eco-epidemiology of AMR within and species isolated from rhesus macaques.

Dyke-Davidoff-Masson syndrome: Imaging diagnosis in an asymptomatic adult.

Dyke-Davidoff-Masson syndrome (DDMS) was first described in 1933 as a cerebral condition of hemispheric atrophy characterized clinically by contralateral hemiparesis, facial-asymmetry, seizures, and mental retardation. Neuroimaging findings include asymmetric thickening of the calvarium and enlargement of frontal and ethmoid sinuses. There have been 21 reported cases described in the literature with the syndrome undiagnosed until adult age, likely due to less severe or absent clinical findings or symptoms as described in the case presented in this report.

Behavioral-biological surveillance of emerging infectious diseases among a dynamic cohort in Thailand.

Background: Interactions between humans and animals are the key elements of zoonotic spillover leading to zoonotic disease emergence. Research to understand the high-risk behaviors associated with disease transmission at the human-animal interface is limited, and few consider regional and local contexts.

Objective: This study employed an integrated behavioral-biological surveillance approach for the early detection of novel and known zoonotic viruses in potentially high-risk populations, in an effort to identify risk factors for spillover and to determine potential foci for risk-mitigation measures.

Heterogeneous treatment effects in social policy studies: An assessment of contemporary articles in the health and social sciences.

Purpose: Social policies are important determinants of population health but may have varying effects on subgroups of people. Evaluating heterogeneous treatment effects (HTEs) of social policies is critical to determine how social policies will affect health inequities. Methods for evaluating HTEs are not standardized.

Environmental Change and Zoonotic Disease Risk at Human-Macaque Interfaces in Bangladesh.

Anthropogenic land-use changes increase the frequency of interactions and habitat overlap between humans and macaques which play an important role in zoonotic disease transmission. This exploratory qualitative study aimed to examine connections between land-use change and macaque-human interactions and assess the chance of zoonotic disease transmission. We conducted ethnographic interviews and focus group discussions in Old Dhaka, Madaripur, and Chandpur, Bangladesh.

The Revolution Will Be Hard to Evaluate: How Co-Occurring Policy Changes Affect Research on the Health Effects of Social Policies.

Extensive empirical health research leverages variation in the timing and location of policy changes as quasi-experiments. Multiple social policies may be adopted simultaneously in the same locations, creating co-occurrence that must be addressed analytically for valid inferences. The pervasiveness and consequences of co-occurring policies have received limited attention.

Powering population health research: Considerations for plausible and actionable effect sizes.

Evidence for Action (E4A), a signature program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, funds investigator-initiated research on the impacts of social programs and policies on population health and health inequities. Across thousands of letters of intent and full proposals E4A has received since 2015, one of the most common methodological challenges faced by applicants is selecting realistic effect sizes to inform calculations of power, sample size, and minimum detectable effect (MDE). E4A prioritizes health studies that are both (1) adequately powered to detect effect sizes that may reasonably be expected for the given intervention and (2) likely to achieve intervention effects sizes that, if demonstrated, correspond to actionable evidence for population health stakeholders.

Protocol of a randomized controlled trial to test the effects of client-centered Representative Payee Services on antiretroviral therapy adherence among marginalized people living with HIV.

Background: Client-Centered Representative Payee (CCRP) is an intervention modifying implementation of a current policy of the US Social Security Administration, which appoints organizations to serve as financial payees on behalf of vulnerable individuals receiving Social Security benefits. By ensuring beneficiaries' bills are paid while supporting their self-determination, this structural intervention may mitigate the effects of economic disadvantage to improve housing and financial stability, enabling self-efficacy for health outcomes and improved antiretroviral therapy adherence. This randomized controlled trial will test the impact of CCRP on marginalized people living with HIV (PLWH).

Human-animal interactions and bat coronavirus spillover potential among rural residents in Southern China.

Human interaction with animals has been implicated as a primary risk factor for several high impact zoonoses, including many bat-origin viral diseases. However the animal-to-human spillover events that lead to emerging diseases are rarely observed or clinically examined, and the link between specific interactions and spillover risk is poorly understood. To investigate this phenomenon, we conducted biological-behavioral surveillance among rural residents in Yunnan, Guangxi, and Guangdong districts of Southern China, where we have identified a number of SARS-related coronaviruses in bats.

Effects of chronic stress on reinstatement of palatable food seeking: Sex differences and relationship to trait anxiety.

Previous research in our lab has established a causal role for chronic stress exposure in subsequent increases in relapse-like behaviors in male rats with a history of palatable food self-administration. Given that many of the neurobehavioral consequences of stress are sex dependent, we aimed to determine whether sex differences exist with regard to the effects of chronic stress on relapse. Additionally, because high trait anxiety confers vulnerability to stress-related disorders, we examined whether individual differences in trait anxiety were related to differences in relapse-like behavior after chronic stress exposure.

Alternative causal inference methods in population health research: Evaluating tradeoffs and triangulating evidence.

Population health researchers from different fields often address similar substantive questions but rely on different study designs, reflecting their home disciplines. This is especially true in studies involving causal inference, for which semantic and substantive differences inhibit interdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration. In this paper, we group nonrandomized study designs into two categories: those that use confounder-control (such as regression adjustment or propensity score matching) and those that rely on an instrument (such as instrumental variables, regression discontinuity, or differences-in-differences approaches).

Functional Isolation: Understanding Isolation in Trafficking Survivors.

The study of sexual exploitation of trafficked victims cannot be done without understanding their enforced isolation. To better understand the dynamics of isolation, this study examined how traffickers used different elements of isolation and how such tactics may have contributed to the traffickers' success in maintaining control over the victim(s). We examined in-depth narratives from 14 women between the ages of 20 to 53, primarily immigrants, who were recruited from an agency serving victims of sex trafficking in a large metropolitan city.

Building the evidence on Making Health a Shared Value: Insights and considerations for research.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF)'s Culture of Health Action Framework guides a movement to improve health and advance health equity across the nation. Action Area One of the Framework, Making Health a Shared Value, highlights the role of individual and community factors in achieving a societal commitment to health and health equity, centered around three drivers: Mindset and Expectations, Sense of Community, and Civic Engagement. To stimulate research about how Action Area One and its drivers may impact health, Evidence for Action (E4A), a signature research funding program of RWJF, developed and released a national Call for Proposals (CFP).

A precision oncology approach to the pharmacological targeting of mechanistic dependencies in neuroendocrine tumors.

We introduce and validate a new precision oncology framework for the systematic prioritization of drugs targeting mechanistic tumor dependencies in individual patients. Compounds are prioritized on the basis of their ability to invert the concerted activity of master regulator proteins that mechanistically regulate tumor cell state, as assessed from systematic drug perturbation assays. We validated the approach on a cohort of 212 gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NETs), a rare malignancy originating in the pancreas and gastrointestinal tract.