Association between Food Deserts and Gestational Diabetes Mellitus in a Large Metropolitan Area.

Objective: The aim of this study is to determine the relationship between urban food deserts and frequency and obstetric outcomes related to gestational diabetes.

Study Design: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of singleton births in Chicago from 2010 to 2014. Birth certificate data were analyzed and geomapped by census tract.

Examining Time to Treatment and the Role of School-Based Health Centers in a School-Based Sexually Transmitted Infection Program.

Background: Barriers to health care service utilization contribute to the spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among teens. School-based STI screening programs reach adolescents outside of the clinic-based health care model and schools with school-based health centers (SBHCs) may expedite treatment because of their proximity to the population. This study examined whether students who tested positive for STIs in a school-based screening program had differing times to treatment based on treatment location.

Regional infection control assessment of antibiotic resistance knowledge and practice.

Objective: Multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs) are an increasing burden among healthcare facilities. We assessed facility-level perceived importance of and responses to various MDROs.

Design: A pilot survey to assess staffing, knowledge, and the perceived importance of and response to various multidrug resistant organisms (MDROs)

Setting: Acute care and long-term healthcare facilities

Methods: In 2012, a survey was distributed to infection preventionists at ~300 healthcare facilities.

Use of the vector index and geographic information system to prospectively inform West Nile virus interventions.

We sought to estimate West Nile virus (WNV) activity in mosquito populations weekly at the census tract level in Chicago, IL, and to provide this information graphically. Each week we calculated a vector index (VI) for each mosquito trap then generated tract estimates using geographic information systems. During June 29-September 13, 2008, a median of 527 (60%) of 874 possible tracts per week had a VI value.

Clostridium difficile outbreak strain BI is highly endemic in Chicago area hospitals.

Objective: Describe the clinical and molecular epidemiology of incident Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) cases in Chicago area acute healthcare facilities (HCFs).

Design And Setting: Laboratory, clinical, and epidemiologic information was collected for patients with incident CDI who were admitted to acute HCFs in February 2009. Stool cultures and restriction endonuclease analysis typing of the recovered C.

Acute emergence of Elizabethkingia meningoseptica infection among mechanically ventilated patients in a long-term acute care facility.

Objective: To describe an outbreak of infection associated with an infrequently implicated pathogen, Elizabethkingia meningoseptica, in an increasingly prominent setting for health care of severely ill patients, the long-term acute care hospital.

Design: Outbreak investigation.

Setting: Long-term acute care hospital with 55 patients, most of whom were mechanically ventilated.