From Spreadsheets to Script: Experiences From Converting a Scottish Cardiovascular Disease Policy Model into R.

Given the advantages in transparency, reproducibility, adaptability and computational efficiency in R, there is a growing interest in converting existing spreadsheet-based models into an R script for model re-use and upskilling training among health economic modellers. The objective of this exercise was to convert the Scottish Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) Policy Model from Excel to R and discuss the lessons learnt throughout this process. The CVD model is a competing risk state transition cohort model.

Real-World Estimates of Adrenal Insufficiency-Related Adverse Events in Children With Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia.

Background: Although congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) is known to be associated with adrenal crises (AC), its association with patient- or clinician-reported sick day episodes (SDE) is less clear.

Methods: Data on children with classic 21-hydroxylase deficiency CAH from 34 centers in 18 countries, of which 7 were Low or Middle Income Countries (LMIC) and 11 were High Income (HIC), were collected from the International CAH Registry and analyzed to examine the clinical factors associated with SDE and AC.

Results: A total of 518 children-with a median of 11 children (range 1, 53) per center-had 5388 visits evaluated over a total of 2300 patient-years.

The impact of financial inclusion on mental health.

This paper examines the impact of financial inclusion on the mental health of heads of household in Nigeria. The study employed data from the 2015/2016 Nigerian General Household Survey (GHS), matched with georeferenced data concerning financial services obtained from the Insight2Impact (i2i) GIS interface. The results indicate that financial inclusion has a strong positive impact on mental health.

An evaluation of the effects of lowering blood alcohol concentration limits for drivers on the rates of road traffic accidents and alcohol consumption: a natural experiment.

Background: Drink driving is an important risk factor for road traffic accidents (RTAs), which cause high levels of morbidity and mortality globally. Lowering the permitted blood alcohol concentration (BAC) for drivers is a common public health intervention that is enacted in countries and jurisdictions across the world. In Scotland, on Dec 5, 2014, the BAC limit for drivers was reduced from 0·08 g/dL to 0·05 g/dL.

The impact of TV mass media campaigns on calls to a National Quitline and the use of prescribed nicotine replacement therapy: a structural vector autoregression analysis.

Aims: To estimate (1) the immediate impact; (2) the cumulative impact; and (3) the duration of impact of Scottish tobacco control TV mass media campaigns (MMCs) on smoking cessation activity, as measured by calls to Smokeline and the volume of prescribed nicotine replacement therapy (NRT).

Design: Multivariate time-series analysis using secondary data on population level measures of exposure to TV MMCs broadcast and smoking cessation activity between 2003 and 2012.

Setting And Participants: Population of Scotland.