The Southern Center for Maternal Health Equity (SCMHE): a multisector multifaceted community-based approach to reduce disparities in maternal morbidity and mortality in the Gulf South.

Introduction: The maternal mortality crisis in the United States disproportionately affects women who are Black, especially those living in the Gulf South. These disparities result from a confluence of healthcare, policy, and social factors that systematically place Black women at greater risk of maternal morbidities and mortality. This study protocol describes the Southern Center for Maternal Health Equity (SCMHE), a research center funded by the National Institutes of Health in 2023 to reduce preventable causes of maternal morbidity and mortality while improving health equity.

Cardiorespiratory fitness, hippocampal subfield morphology, and episodic memory in older adults.

Objective: Age-related hippocampal atrophy is associated with memory loss in older adults, and certain hippocampal subfields are more vulnerable to age-related atrophy than others. Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) may be an important protective factor for preserving hippocampal volume, but little is known about how CRF relates to the volume of specific hippocampal subfields, and whether associations between CRF and hippocampal subfield volumes are related to episodic memory performance. To address these gaps, the current study evaluates the associations among baseline CRF, hippocampal subfield volumes, and episodic memory performance in cognitively unimpaired older adults from the Investigating Gains in Neurocognition Trial of Exercise (IGNITE) (NCT02875301).

Comparative effectiveness of olodaterol/tiotropium and vilanterol/umeclidinium among COPD patients: a high-dimensional propensity score matched new user cohort study in a US medicare population.

Background: Two long-acting muscarinic antagonist inhaler fixed dose combinations (olodaterol/tiotropium (OLO/TIO) and vilanterol/umeclidinium (VI/UMEC)) have once-a-day dosing for managing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This study aimed to compare clinical effectiveness of these inhalers in terms of ability to prevent severe COPD exacerbations in a United States Medicare population.

Research Design And Methods: Using nationally representative Medicare data (2013-2019), we employed a new user, active comparator design among beneficiaries aged 65 years and older with COPD.

Rethinking Biomedical Titanium Alloy Design: A Review of Challenges from Biological and Manufacturing Perspectives.

Current biomedical titanium alloys have been repurposed from other industries, which has contributed to several biologically driven implant failure mechanisms. This review highlights the added value that may be gained by building an appreciation of implant biological responses at the onset of alloy design. Specifically, the fundamental mechanisms associated with immune response, angiogenesis, osseointegration and the potential threat of infection are discussed, including how elemental selection can modulate these pivotal systems.

Assessing the Quality of Biomedical Boolean Search Strings Generated by Prompted and Unprompted Models Using ChatGPT: A Pilot Study.

This pilot study investigated the use of Generative AI using ChatGPT to produce Boolean search strings to query PubMed. The goals were to determine if ChatGPT could be used in search string formation and if so, which approach was most effective. Research outputs from published systematic reviews were compared to outputs from AI generated search strings.