Discharges against medical advice: time to take another look. A retrospective review of discharges against medical advice focused on prevention.

Background: Discharges against medical advice (DAMA) increase the risk of death.

Methods: We retrieved DAMA from five hospitals within a large health system and reviewed 10% of DAMA from the academic site between 2016 and 2021.

Results: DAMA increased at the onset of the pandemic.

Epidemics, pandemics, and social conflict: Lessons from the past and possible scenarios for COVID-19.

Since COVID-19 broke out, there has been renewed interest in understanding the economic and social dynamics of historical and more recent epidemics and pandemics, from the plagues of Antiquity to modern-day outbreaks like Ebola. These events can have significant impacts on the interplay between poverty and social cohesion, i.e.

Rainfall anomalies are a significant driver of cropland expansion.

Rainfall anomalies have long occupied center stage in policy discussions, and understanding their impacts on agricultural production has become more important as climate change intensifies. However, the global scale of rainfall-induced productivity shocks on changes in cropland is yet to be quantified. Here we identify how rainfall anomalies impact observed patterns of cropped areas at a global scale by leveraging locally determined unexpected variations in rainfall.