Publications by authors named "Jennifer W Thompson"
Importance: Prenatal experiences can influence fetal brain development.
Objective: To examine associations of maternal prenatal body mass index (BMI) with cognition and behavior of offspring born full-term.
Design, Setting, And Participants: This cohort study examined follow-up data from a breastfeeding promotion intervention at 31 hospitals and affiliated polyclinics in the Republic of Belarus.
Embedding Mobile Health Technology into the Nurses' Health Study 3 to Study Behavioral Risk Factors for Cancer.
Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev
April 2020
Background: Physical activity and sleep are behavioral risk factors for cancer that may be influenced by environmental exposures, including built and natural environments. However, many studies in this area are limited by residence-based exposure assessment and/or self-reported, time-aggregated measures of behavior.
Methods: The Nurses' Health Study 3 (NHS3) Mobile Health Substudy is a pilot study of 500 participants in the prospective NHS3 cohort who use a smartphone application and a Fitbit for seven-day periods, four times over a year, to measure minute-level location, physical activity, heart rate, and sleep.
Study Objectives: Maternal antenatal stress may influence offspring development and behavior, but any association with child sleep is unknown.
Methods: From 2007 to 2011, we recruited pregnant women in Mexico City to the Programming Research in Obesity, Growth, Environment, and Social Stressors prebirth cohort. Mothers completed the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS, a 4-item questionnaire assessing past-month stress) and the Crisis in Family Systems measure assessing negative life events (NLEs; how many domains among the 11 assessed in which the mother experienced a stressful event in the prior 6 months)-with higher scores reflecting higher stress-and provided 5 timed salivary samples per day on 2 consecutive days, from which we derived cortisol area under the curve, slope, and awakening response.
Background: Decentralization through the establishment of hospital governing boards has been touted as an effective way to improve the quality and efficiency of hospitals in low-income countries. Although several studies have examined the process of decentralization, few have quantitatively assessed the implementation of hospital governing boards and their impact on hospital performance. Therefore, we sought to describe the functioning of governing boards and to determine the association between governing board functioning and hospital performance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMain Objective: Few studies have examined the long-term, impact of large-scale interventions to strengthen primary care services for women and children in rural, low-income settings. We evaluated the impact of the Ethiopian Millennium Rural Initiative (EMRI), an 18-month systems-based intervention to improve the performance of 30 primary health care units in rural areas of Ethiopia.
Methods: We assessed the impact of EMRI on maternal and child survival using The Lives Saved Tool (LiST), Demography (DemProj) and AIDS Impact Model (AIM) tools in Spectrum software, inputting monthly data on 6 indicators 1) antenatal coverage (ANC), 2) skilled birth attendance coverage (SBA), 3) post-natal coverage (PNC), 4) HIV testing during ANC, 5) measles vaccination coverage, and 6) pentavalent 3 vaccination coverages.
Background: Hospital discharge planning is required as a Medicare Condition of Participation (CoP), and is essential to the health and safety for all patients. However, there have been no studies examining specific hospital discharge processes, such as patient education and communication with primary care providers, in relation to hospital 30-day risk standardized mortality rates (RSMRs) for patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI).
Objective: To identify hospital discharge processes that may be associated with better performance in hospital AMI care as measured by RSMR.
Objectives: This study sought to determine the range and prevalence of practices being implemented by hospitals to reduce 30-day readmissions of patients with heart failure or acute myocardial infarction (AMI).
Background: Readmissions of patients with heart failure or AMI are both common and costly; however, evidence on strategies adopted by hospitals to reduce readmission rates is limited.
Methods: We used a Web-based survey to conduct a cross-sectional study of hospitals' reported use of specific practices to reduce readmissions for patients with heart failure or AMI.
The US hospice industry, which provides palliative and supportive care to patients with terminal illness, has undergone substantial changes during the last decade. The magnitude of these changes has not been fully captured in previous studies or reports. In this longitudinal study of hospices active in Medicare during 1999-2009, we analyzed Provider of Services files to understand key shifts in the industry.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Multiple interventions have been launched to improve the quality, access, and utilization of primary health care in rural, low-income settings; however, the success of these interventions varies substantially, even within single studies where the measured impact of interventions differs across sites, centers, and regions. Accordingly, we sought to examine the variation in impact of a health systems strengthening intervention and understand factors that might explain the variation in impact across primary health care units.
Methodology/principal Findings: We conducted a mixed methods positive deviance study of 20 Primary Health Care Units (PHCUs) in rural Ethiopia.
Background: Despite recent improvements in survival after acute myocardial infarction (AMI), U.S. hospitals vary 2-fold in their 30-day risk-standardized mortality rates (RSMRs).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: A founding principle of hospice is that the patient and family is the unit of care; however, we lack national information on services to family members. Although Medicare certification requires bereavement services be provided, reimbursement rates are not tied to the level or quality of care; therefore, limited financial incentives exist for hospice to provide more than a minimal benefit.
Objectives: To assess the scope and intensity of services provided to family members by hospice.
Objective: More than half the world's population lives in rural areas; however, we have limited evidence about how to strengthen rural healthcare services. We sought to determine the impact of a systems-based approach to improving rural care, the Ethiopian Millennium Rural Initiative, on key healthcare services indicators.
Design: We conducted an 18-month longitudinal mixed methods study of the 10 primary healthcare units (PHCUs) serving ~400,000 people, using monthly indicator tracking and focus groups.
Background: Mortality rates for patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) vary substantially across hospitals, even when adjusted for patient severity; however, little is known about hospital factors that may influence this variation.
Objective: To identify factors that may be related to better performance in AMI care, as measured by risk-standardized mortality rates.
Design: Qualitative study that used site visits and in-depth interviews.