Building capacity in patient-oriented research: reflections on cultivating relationships within a high-secure forensic mental health hospital.

Building trusting relationships is critical to the success of patient-oriented research. However, in high-secure forensic mental health settings, distrust, discrimination, and restrictive practices pose unique barriers to building relationships. This commentary explores the challenges, strategies, and lessons learned in fostering meaningful connections with forensic patients at a high-secure hospital.

Association between ethnicity and emergency department visits in the last three months of life in England: a retrospective population-based study using electronic health records.

Introduction: Emergency department (ED) visits are distressing yet common in the last months of life and many could be avoided. The association between ethnicity and ED visits in the last months of life has rarely been studied in detail and the intersection with area-based deprivation and other risk factors is not known.

Methods: Population-based, retrospective cohort study, using electronic health records for adults who died from all causes in 2019 and 2020 in England.

Modified Jarzynski equality in a microcanonical ensemble.

We show that the conventional Jarzynski equality does not hold for a system prepared in a microcanonical ensemble. We derive a modified equality that connects microcanonical work fluctuations to entropy production, in an analogous way to the Jarzynski equality, but with reference to an inverse temperature that depends on the path of the work protocol. For close to isothermal processes the modified equality can improve on the bound 〈W〉≥ΔF.

The ecological model of communication in medical encounters: A scoping review.

Objective: The ecological model of communication in medical encounters (EMCME) could provide a framework for examining issues related to health equity in healthcare interactions. This study seeks to understand how scholarship has engaged with the model and the extent of its use in health equity work.

Methods: A scoping review of the EMCME was conducted using three major databases: Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar in September 2023.

Breast milk delivery of an engineered dimeric IgA protects neonates against rotavirus.

Dimeric IgA (dIgA) is the dominant antibody in many mucosal tissues. It is actively transported onto mucosal surfaces as secretory IgA (sIgA) which plays an integral role in protection against enteric pathogens, particularly in young children. Therapeutic strategies that deliver engineered, potently neutralizing antibodies directly into the infant intestine through breast milk could provide enhanced antimicrobial protection for neonates.