Self-reported determinants of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance among persons with and without autoimmune disease.

Objective: Patients with autoimmune disease (AD) are at increased risk for complications from COVID-19 infection, so, optimizing vaccine utilization in this population is of particular importance. We compared COVID-19 vaccination perspectives among persons with and without AD.

Methods: 471 patients in the MetroHealth System and Cleveland Veteran Affairs Medical Center completed a 38-item questionnaire between August 2021 and February 2022.

Characterization of highly active mutational signatures in tumors from a large Chinese population.

The majority of mutational signatures have been characterized in tumors from Western countries and the degree to which mutational signatures are similar or different in Eastern populations has not been fully explored. We leveraged a large-scale clinical sequencing cohort of tumors from a Chinese population containing 25 tumor types and found that the highly active mutational signatures were similar to those previously characterized. The aristolochic acid signature SBS22 was observed in four soft tissue sarcomas and the POLE-associated signature SBS10 was observed in a gallbladder carcinoma.

Rheumatoid arthritis and older age are associated with lower humoral and cellular immune response to primary series COVID-19 mRNA vaccine.

Objective: People with autoimmune disease have worse COVID-19 infection-related outcomes, lower antibody responses to COVID-19 vaccine, and higher rates of breakthrough infection. Immunosuppressive medications used to treat rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are associated with lower COVID-19 vaccine responses, though independent contributions of comorbidities, T-cell immunity, and age are less clear. We sought to test the hypothesis that RA, immunosuppressive medications used to treat RA, and older age, contribute to reduced B and T cell response to COVID-19 vaccine.

Financial Incentives Are Associated with Lower Likelihood of COVID-19 Vaccination in Northeast Ohio.

Background: Declining COVID-19 vaccination rates have led to implementation of monetary incentives to increase vaccine uptake. The Ohio Vax-a-Million lottery and subsequent $100 incentives were created to encourage individuals to become vaccinated. The purpose of this survey was to determine the efficacy of these monetary incentives on vaccination rates.

Positional asymmetries in consonant production and intelligibility in dysarthric speech.

Consonant production errors are common in dysarthric speech, but not all consonants are affected to the same extent. Currently, only limited knowledge exists regarding whether different positional allophones are affected to varying degrees in dysarthric speech. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of consonants' position-in-words on consonant production accuracy and their relevance to speech intelligibility.