The impact of dentition status and barriers to dental care services on perceived oral health of medicare beneficiaries.

Objective: To examine the association among barriers to dental care services, dentition groups, and self-reported oral health status for Medicare beneficiaries.

Methods: We used data from the 2017 to 2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which included participants aged ≥65 years who were enrolled in Medicare and had completed the oral health exam. We created a dentition group variable using the detailed dental examination data to account for the presence of natural, replaced, removable, or missing teeth.

A Latent Class Approach to Modeling Trajectories of Health Care Cost in Pediatric Cystic Fibrosis.

Estimating costs of medical care attributable to treatments over time is difficult due to costs that cannot be explained solely by observed risk factors. Unobserved risk factors cannot be accounted for using standard econometric techniques, potentially leading to imprecise prediction. The goal of this work is to describe methodology to account for latent variables in the prediction of longitudinal costs.

Innovative assessment of inpatient and pulmonary drug costs for children with cystic fibrosis.

Background: Previous estimates of the cost of care for pediatric Cystic fibrosis (CF) showed wide variation, without specific summary of pulmonary drug costs.

Methods: Enrolled CF children from the Wisconsin newborn screening trial were evaluated quarterly per protocol. Assessments systematically included all treatments, hospitalizations, and nutritional and pulmonary outcomes.

US-Based Drug Cost Parameter Estimation for Economic Evaluations.

Introduction: In the United States, more than 10% of national health expenditures are for prescription drugs. Assessing drug costs in US economic evaluation studies is not consistent, as the true acquisition cost of a drug is not known by decision modelers. Current US practice focuses on identifying one reasonable drug cost and imposing some distributional assumption to assess uncertainty.

Rapid increase in breast magnetic resonance imaging use: trends from 2000 to 2011.

Importance: Breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is highly sensitive for detecting breast cancer. Low specificity, cost, and little evidence regarding mortality benefits, however, limit recommendations for its use to high-risk women. How breast MRI is actually used in community settings is unknown.

Variation in tumor natural history contributes to racial disparities in breast cancer stage at diagnosis.

Black women tend to be diagnosed with breast cancer at a more advanced stage than whites and subsequently experience elevated breast cancer mortality. We sought to determine whether there are racial differences in tumor natural history that contribute to these disparities. We used the University of Wisconsin Breast Cancer Simulation Model, a validated member of the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network, to evaluate the contribution of racial differences in tumor natural history to observed disparities in breast cancer incidence.

Derivation of background mortality by smoking and obesity in cancer simulation models.

Background: Simulation models designed to evaluate cancer prevention strategies make assumptions on background mortality-the competing risk of death from causes other than the cancer being studied. Researchers often use the U.S.

Chapter 3: Cohort life tables by smoking status, removing lung cancer as a cause of death.

The purpose of this study was to develop life tables by smoking status removing lung cancer as a cause of death. These life tables are inputs to studies that compare the effectiveness of lung cancer treatments or interventions, and provide a way to quantify time until death from causes other than lung cancer. The study combined actuarial and statistical smoothing methods, as well as data from multiple sources, to develop separate life tables by smoking status, birth cohort, by single year of age, and by sex.

Radiology faculty compliance with recommended health guidelines: comparison with residents.

Rationale And Objectives: The aims of this study were to determine diagnostic radiology faculty members' compliance with recommended health guidelines for physical activity, body weight, diet, and related health indicators and to compare faculty members' compliance with that of radiology residents.

Materials And Methods: A request to complete an online health survey was electronically sent to members of the Association of University Radiologists in September 2008. Results were compared to those from a similar survey completed by radiology residents in May and June 2007.

Use and employer costs of a pharmacotherapy smoking-cessation treatment benefit.

Background: Employers cite a lack of information on the cost of insurance coverage for smoking-cessation treatment as a barrier to its provision. This study describes the use of a new insurance benefit for smoking-cessation pharmacotherapy, and its pharmaceutical costs to a large public employer between 2001 and 2003.

Methods: Annual enrollment and pharmaceutical claims data were collected from the health plans that contracted with the Wisconsin Department of Employee Trust Funds (ETF).

The Wisconsin Breast Cancer Epidemiology Simulation Model.

The Wisconsin Breast Cancer Epidemiology Simulation Model is a discrete-event, stochastic simulation model using a systems-science modeling approach to replicate breast cancer incidence and mortality in the U.S. population from 1975 to 2000.

Competing risks to breast cancer mortality.

Background: Simulation models analyzing the impact of treatment interventions and screening on the level of breast cancer mortality require an input of mortality from causes other than breast cancer, or competing risks.

Methods: This chapter presents an actuarial method of creating cohort life tables using published data that removes breast cancer as a cause of death.

Results: Mortality from causes other than breast cancer as a percentage of all-cause mortality is smallest for women in their forties and fifties, as small as 85% of the all-cause rate, although the level and percentage of the impact varies by birth cohort.

Retrospective cost-effectiveness analysis of screening mammography.

Background: Many guidelines recommend screening mammography every 1-2 years for women older than 40 years; more than 70% of women now participate in routine screening. No studies have examined the societal impact of screening practices over the past decade in the United States on costs and quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs). We performed a retrospective cost-effectiveness analysis comparing actual and alternative screening mammography scenarios.

Cystic fibrosis mutations and genotype-pulmonary phenotype analysis.

Background: Although there are more than 1000 mutations in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene, most of them are uncommon and only limited information exists regarding genotype-pulmonary phenotype relationships.

Methods: We determined and classified the CFTR mutations using denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography and developed new, quantitative methods to categorize pulmonary phenotypes.

Results: Two novel alleles were discovered, namely G1047R and 1525-2A-->G, which were accompanied by F508del and G551D mutations, respectively.

Assessing the cost of cystic fibrosis diagnosis and treatment.

Objectives: To extend previous evaluations of costs of cystic fibrosis (CF) diagnosis and examine key issues in assessing the CF cost of care.

Study Design: Costs for CF newborn screening (NBS) including CF multi-mutation testing are analyzed by using data from the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene. Electronic data from 2 Wisconsin CF centers are used to illustrate the complexity of analyzing CF health care utilization and costs.

Use of a new comprehensive insurance benefit for smoking-cessation treatment.

Introduction: Uncertainty about levels of employee use of an insurance benefit for smoking-cessation treatment has presented a barrier to employers considering the adoption of such coverage. This study examined self-reported awareness and use of a new insurance benefit for smoking-cessation treatment among a sample of Wisconsin state employees, retirees, and adult dependents.

Methods: We evaluated the self-reported use of insurance coverage for smoking-cessation treatment during the first 2 years of its availability to the Wisconsin state employee, retiree, and adult dependent population.

Analysis of the costs of diagnosing cystic fibrosis with a newborn screening program.

Objectives: To compare the cost of diagnosing cystic fibrosis (CF) through a newborn screening program with the traditional method and to estimate the cost of CF diagnosis if a national newborn screening program is implemented.

Study Design: Surveys were conducted to determine the annual number of sweat tests in 1991 and in 2000 after implementation of statewide screening. A national survey of sweat test costs was used to estimate the annual expense for diagnosing CF in the United States through newborn screening.