Publications by authors named "Megan Cole"

Kirsten rat sarcoma virus (KRAS)-G12C inhibition causes remodeling of the lung tumor immune microenvironment and synergistic responses to anti-PD-1 treatment, but only in T cell infiltrated tumors. To investigate mechanisms that restrain combination immunotherapy sensitivity in immune-excluded tumors, we used imaging mass cytometry to explore cellular distribution in an immune-evasive KRAS mutant lung cancer model. Cellular spatial pattern characterization revealed a community where CD4 and CD8 T cells and dendritic cells were gathered, suggesting localized T cell activation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study investigated how social risk factors (SRFs) affect access to healthcare among low-income adults, using data from the 2022 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey.
  • Results showed that nearly half of the participants had at least one SRF, and those with four or more SRFs faced significantly greater challenges in affording care and accessing a personal doctor or routine checkups.
  • The disparities in access to care were particularly pronounced among those with private insurance and the uninsured, suggesting that addressing these SRFs and reducing costs could improve healthcare access for these individuals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background And Objectives: Lifestyle has widespread effects on human health and aging. Prior results from chimpanzees (), one of humans' closest evolutionary relatives, indicate that these lifestyle effects may also be shared with other species, as semi-free-ranging chimpanzees fed a naturalistic diet show healthier values in several specific health biomarkers, compared with their sedentary, captive counterparts. Here, we examined how lifestyle factors associated with different environments affect rates of physiological aging in closely related chimpanzees.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Value-based care models, such as Medicaid accountable care organizations (ACOs), have the potential to improve access to and quality of care for pregnant and postpartum Medicaid enrollees. We leveraged a natural experiment in Massachusetts to evaluate the effects of Medicaid ACOs on quality-of-care-sensitive measures and care use across the prenatal, delivery, and postpartum periods. Using all-payer claims data on Medicaid-covered live deliveries in Massachusetts, we used a difference-in-differences approach to compare measures before (the first quarter of 2016 through the fourth quarter of 2017) and after (the third quarter of 2018 through the fourth quarter of 2020) Medicaid ACO implementation among ACO and non-ACO patients.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Using novel national data, we examined the association between 2020 federal COVID-related funding targeted to health centers (i.e., H8 funding) and health center workforce and operational capacity measures that may be important for preserving patient access to care and staff safety.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In 2020 and 2021, health centers received federal funding to support their COVID-19 pandemic response, yet little is known about how the funds were distributed. This study identified ten sources of funding distributed to 1,352 centers, ranging from $19 to $1.22 billion per center.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: States use Medicaid 1915(c) waiver programs to enable access to home- and community-based services for people with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (I/DD). However, enrollment rates and potential inequities are not well documented, impeding efforts to improve care access and quality for waiver program enrollees, especially for racially minoritized beneficiaries experiencing compounded barriers to services and supports.

Objective: To characterize year-by-year 1915(c) waiver program enrollment among Medicaid-enrolled adults with I/DD from 2016 to 2019 and to analyze population-level inequities by type of I/DD and racial/ethnic group.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Humans can flexibly use metacognition to monitor their own knowledge and strategically acquire new information when needed. While humans can deploy these skills across a variety of contexts, most evidence for metacognition in animals has focused on simple situations, such as seeking out information about the location of food. Here, we examine the flexibility, breadth, and limits of this skill in chimpanzees.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Numerous US patients seek the hospital emergency department (ED) for behavioral health care. Community Health Centers (CHCs) offer a potential channel for redirecting many to a more patient-centered, lower cost setting.

Objective: The aim of this study was to identify unique market areas serviced by CHCs and to examine whether CHCs are effective in offsetting behavioral health ED visits.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Doula services support maternal and child health, but few Medicaid programs reimburse for them. Through qualitative interviews with key policy informants ( = 20), this study explored facilitators and barriers to Medicaid reimbursement through perceptions of doula-related policies in 2 states: Oregon, where doula care is reimbursed, and Massachusetts, where reimbursement is pending. Five themes characterize the inclusion of doula services in Medicaid.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

We explored the association between the use of a hospital-based food pantry and subsequent emergency department (ED) utilization among Medicaid patients with diabetes in a large safety-net health system. Leveraging 2015-2019 electronic health record data, we used a staggered difference-in-differences approach to measure changes in ED use before vs after food pantry use. Food pantry use was associated with a 7.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Though common among humans, social play by adults is an uncommon occurrence in most animals, even between parents and offspring. The most common explanation for why adult play is so rare is that its function and benefits are largely limited to development, so that social play has little value later in life. Here, we draw from 10 years of behavioral data collected by the Kibale Chimpanzee Project to consider an alternative hypothesis: that despite its benefits, adult play in non-humans is ecologically constrained by energy shortage or time limitations.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To determine how aging impacts healthcare utilization in persons with HIV (PWH) compared with persons without HIV (PWoH).

Design: Matched case-control study.

Methods: We studied Medicaid recipients in the United States, aged 18-64 years, from 2001 to 2012.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: This study aimed to examine changes in emergency department (ED) visits for ambulatory care sensitive conditions (ACSCs) among uninsured or Medicaid-covered Black, Hispanic, and White adults aged 26-64 in the first 5 years of the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion.

Methods: Using 2010-2018 inpatient and ED discharge data from nine expansion and five nonexpansion states, an event study difference-in-differences regression model was used to estimate changes in number of annual ACSC ED visits per 100 adults ("ACSC ED rate") associated with the 2014 Medicaid expansion, overall and by race/ethnicity. A secondary outcome was the proportion of ACSC ED visits out of all ED visits ("ACSC ED share").

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The 340B Drug Pricing Program significantly impacts the US healthcare system, accounting for about 1% of total spending, and decisions made about it affect safety net services nationwide.
  • A scoping review of existing literature reveals that nonprofit hospitals involved in the program may prioritize financial margins, though evidence of increased community engagement is weak and varies by hospital type.
  • The review encompasses 44 peer-reviewed studies, highlighting common research questions and categorizing the literature based on the motivation behind 340B use and the types of healthcare entities involved.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: To examine whether community health centers (CHCs) are effective in offsetting mental health emergency department (ED) visits.

Data Sources And Study Setting: The HRSA Uniform Data System and the HCUP State ED Databases for Florida patients during 2012-2019.

Study Design: We identified CHC-year-specific service areas using patient origin zip codes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • * A scoping review of literature from 2012-2022 identified 53 relevant reports that mainly focus on promoting access to doula care and identifying barriers to its integration into Medicaid plans.
  • * A key takeaway for policymakers is the importance of collaborating with doulas and their advocates to develop fair and effective policies that support the doula profession.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Compared to intramuscular vaccines, nasally administered vaccines have the advantage of inducing local mucosal immune responses that may block infection and interrupt transmission of respiratory pathogens. Live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) is effective in preventing influenza in children, but a correlate of protection for LAIV remains unclear. Studying young adult volunteers, we observe that LAIV induces distinct, compartmentalized, antibody responses in the mucosa and blood.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: A disproportionate share of Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) users have a behavioral health condition, but there exists limited research examining changes in behavioral health provision in FQHCs. The objectives of this study were to describe how the provision of behavioral health services by FQHCs to the population of people with behavioral health conditions has changed over time in the US, how these trends varied across states, and whether the proportion of total delivered services that are behavioral health services has changed within FQHCs over time.

Methods: Descriptive analysis using the Uniform Data System and Global Burden of Disease Datasets from years 2012 to 2019.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Undergraduate research and laboratory experiences provide a wide range of benefits to student learning in science and are integral to imbed authentic research experiences in biology labs. While the benefit of courses with research experience is widely accepted, it can be challenging to measure conceptual research skills in a quick and easily scalable manner. We developed a card-sorting task to differentiate between novice and expert conceptualization of research principles.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To describe the national rate of social risk factor screening adoption among federally qualified health centers (FQHCs), examine organizational factors associated with social risk screening adoption, and identify barriers to utilizing a standardized screening tool in 2020.

Data Source: 2020 Uniform Data System, a 100% sample of all US FQHCs (N = 1375).

Study Design: We used multivariable linear probability models to assess the association between social risk screening adoption and key FQHC characteristics.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Warning

Message: fopen(/var/lib/php/sessions/ci_sessionf1pjg4bfgquee0qvjqhkipsueatgte9p): Failed to open stream: No space left on device

Filename: drivers/Session_files_driver.php

Line Number: 177

Backtrace:

File: /var/www/html/index.php
Line: 316
Function: require_once

A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Warning

Message: session_start(): Failed to read session data: user (path: /var/lib/php/sessions)

Filename: Session/Session.php

Line Number: 137

Backtrace:

File: /var/www/html/index.php
Line: 316
Function: require_once