Publications by authors named "Sandi Pruitt"

Purpose: Studies of healthcare encounters leading to cancer diagnosis have increased over recent years. While some studies examine healthcare utilization before the cancer registry date of diagnosis, relevant pre-diagnosis interactions are not always immediately prior to this date due to date abstraction guidelines. We evaluated agreement of a registry date with a claims-based index and examined Emergency Department (ED) involvement in cancer diagnosis as an example of possible pre-diagnostic healthcare misclassification that could arise from improper date choice.

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Introduction: Linking patients living with chronic, diet-related diseases and food insecurity to charitable food assistance, medically tailored groceries (MTGs) and food resource coaching may empower patients to better manage their health in a way that is economically sustainable. This protocol paper describes the implementation of a study evaluating MTGs and food resource coaching in a food pantry setting.

Methods And Analysis: A randomised controlled trial whereby patients of a safety-net health centre will be screened for The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) and study eligibility.

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  • A study analyzed childbirth outcomes in male adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with cancer, identifying a sample of nearly 43,000 cases over a 20-year period.
  • The research found that 18% of these AYAs had live births within ten years post-diagnosis, with higher rates observed in those with thyroid cancer compared to gastrointestinal cancer.
  • Results indicated increased chances of preterm birth and low birth weight among offspring of male AYAs with cancer, emphasizing the need for reproductive counseling for this group.
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Background: Methotrexate is an important component of curative therapy in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), but the role of genetic variation influencing methotrexate clearance and transport in toxicity susceptibility in children with ALL is not well established. Therefore, we evaluated the association between suspected methotrexate pharmacogenomic variants and methotrexate-related neurotoxicity.

Methods: This study included children (aged 2-20 years) diagnosed with ALL (2005-2019) at six treatment centers in the southwest United States.

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Introduction: To examine the associations of neighborhood socioeconomic status (nSES), ethnic enclaves, residential Black segregation with screening for breast, cervical and colorectal (CRC) cancers across the state of Texas (TX).

Methods: Using an ecologic study design, spatial clustering of low breast, cervical and CRC screening rates were identified across TX census tracts using local Moran's I statistics. Binomial spatial probit regression was used to estimate the associations between nSES, Hispanic/Latino and Asian American (AA) ethnic enclave neighborhoods and residential Black segregation with geospatial clusters of low screening, adjusting for behavioral characteristics.

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Background: Racial and ethnic disparities have been reported for HCC prognosis, although few studies fully account for clinically important factors and social determinants of health, including neighborhood socioeconomic status.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective multicenter cohort study of patients newly diagnosed with HCC from January 2010 through August 2018 at 4 large health systems in the United States. We used multivariable logistic regression and cause-specific Cox proportional hazard models to identify factors associated with early-stage HCC presentation and overall survival.

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  • A study explored the presence of implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) in older cancer patients and how they impact end-of-life care, revealing that 6% of cancer decedents had an ICD.
  • Among patients with ICDs, a higher percentage died in hospitals and experienced aggressive medical interventions, indicating a potential lack of alignment between treatment and patient goals.
  • The findings emphasize the need for healthcare discussions about ICDs and patient care preferences to ensure better end-of-life experiences for individuals with cancer.
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Objective: Nutrition interventions delivered through food pantries could reduce health disparities for people experiencing food insecurity. We identified clients' preferences for cuisines, nutrition interventions, and outcomes and whether preferences differ for subpopulations.

Methods: Cross-sectional study at a large pantry in Dallas, Texas (N = 200).

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  • Latino populations in the U.S. are growing rapidly and face significant health inequities, especially in neighborhoods known as Latino enclaves where healthcare access is often limited.
  • The study analyzed around 20,000 neighborhoods across five states to understand the social and physical environment of these enclaves and their accessibility to primary healthcare.
  • Findings indicate that about 30% of neighborhoods are Latino enclaves, which tend to have higher poverty and other disadvantages that correlate with lower access to healthcare, particularly in areas with high poverty rates.
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Background: Despite increased recognition that structural racism contributes to poorer health outcomes for racial and ethnic minorities, there are knowledge gaps about how current patterns of racial residential segregation are associated with cancer screening uptake. The authors examined associations between Black residential segregation and screening for colorectal cancer (CRC) and cervical cancer among non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic White adults.

Methods: This was a retrospective study of CRC and cervical cancer screening-eligible adults from five health care systems within the Population-Based Research to Optimize the Screening Process (PROSPR II) Consortium (cohort entry, 2010-2012).

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  • Nationwide datasets like the SEER Program and NCDB are crucial for studying cancer trends, specifically colorectal cancer outcomes in this case study.
  • SEER includes a more diverse population and detailed socioeconomic factors, while NCDB offers unique insights into tumor characteristics and treatment options.
  • Despite differences in data, the five-year survival rates for colorectal cancer patients are similar between SEER (55.6%) and NCDB (57.5%).
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Evidence suggests neighborhood-level factors contribute to cancer outcomes, although most research focuses on pediatric and adult populations. Using population-based data from the Texas Cancer Registry, we examined neighborhood-level social vulnerability, a composite measure of 14 census tract-level social risk factors, and survival among 112 142 adolescents and young adults with cancer (AYAs, age 15-39 years). We estimated 1-, 5-, and 10-year overall survival by quintile of social vulnerability and used Cox proportional hazards models (2-sided significance testing) to estimate the association between social vulnerability and all-cause mortality.

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Background: Internationally, 20% to 50% of cancer is diagnosed through emergency presentation, which is associated with lower survival, poor patient experience, and socioeconomic disparities, but population-based evidence about emergency diagnosis in the United States is limited. We estimated emergency department (ED) involvement in the diagnosis of cancer in a nationally representative population of older US adults, and its association with sociodemographic, clinical, and tumor characteristics.

Methods: We analyzed Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program-Medicare data for Medicare beneficiaries (≥66 years old) with a diagnosis of female breast, colorectal, lung, and prostate cancers (2008-2017), defining their earliest cancer-related claim as their index date, and patients who visited the ED 0 to 30 days before their index date to have "ED involvement" in their diagnosis, with stratification as 0 to 7 or 8 to 30 days.

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Background: Mis- and disinformation on social media have become widespread, which can lead to a lack of trust in health information sources and, in turn, lead to negative health outcomes. Moreover, the effect of mis- and disinformation on trust in information sources may vary by racial and ethnic minoritized populations.

Objective: We evaluated how trust in multiple sources of cancer information varied by perceptions of health mis- and disinformation on social media and by race and ethnicity.

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Introduction: Fertility after cancer is a top concern for adolescents and young adults with cancer (AYAs) (15-39 years old at diagnosis). The authors characterized live births after cancer by race and ethnicity ("race/ethnicity") in a population-based sample of female AYAs.

Methods: This study used Texas Cancer Registry data linked to birth certificates (1995-2016) to estimate cumulative incidence of live birth, based on first live birth after cancer, and compared differences by race/ethnicity.

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We examined characteristics of clinicians caring for transgender men and nonbinary (TMNB) individuals and guideline concordance of clinicians' cervical cancer screening recommendations. Using a survey of clinicians who performed ≥10 cervical cancer screenings in 2019, we studied characteristics of clinicians who do versus do not report caring for TMNB individuals and guideline concordance of screening recommendations for TMNB individuals with a cervix versus cisgender women. In our sample ( = 492), 49.

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Involving diverse populations in early-phase (phase I and II) cancer clinical trials is critical to informed therapeutic development. However, given the growing costs and complexities of early-phase trials, trial activation and enrollment barriers may be greatest for these studies at healthcare facilities that provide care to the most diverse patient groups, including those in historically underserved communities (e.g.

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Background And Aims: The two most common interventions used to treat painless jaundice from pancreatic cancer are endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) and percutaneous transhepatic biliary drainage (PTBD). Our study aimed to characterize the geographic distribution of ERCP-performing hospitals among patients with pancreatic cancer in the United States and the association between geographic accessibility to ERCP-performing hospitals and biliary interventions patients receive.

Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare database for pancreatic cancer from 2005 to 2013.

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Introduction: The focus on social determinants of health (SDOH) and their impact on health outcomes is evident in U.S. federal actions by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and Office of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.

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Background: Food pantry clients have high rates of food insecurity and greater risk for and prevalence of diet-related diseases. Many clients face time, resource, and physical constraints that limit their ability to prepare healthy meals using foods typically provided by pantries. We compared two novel approaches to alleviate those barriers and encourage healthier eating: meal kits, which bundle ingredients with a recipe on how to prepare a healthy meal, and nutritious no-prep meals, which can be eaten after thawing or microwaving.

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Background: Food pantry clients have high rates of food insecurity and greater risk for and prevalence of diet-related diseases. Many clients face time, resource, and physical constraints that limit their ability to prepare healthy meals using foods typically provided by pantries. We compared two novel approaches to alleviate those barriers and encourage healthier eating: meal kits, which bundle ingredients with a recipe on how to prepare a healthy meal, and nutritious no-prep meals, which can be eaten after thawing or microwaving.

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In-person culinary medicine (CM) can improve health behaviors, but its translation to virtual platforms and impact on diabetes outcomes are not well described. We designed a pragmatic trial comparing the effectiveness of virtual CM (eCM) to Medical Nutrition Therapy on diabetes outcomes among patients with uncontrolled diabetes within a safety-net healthcare system. All participants were provided cooking equipment and food from a food pantry.

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Background: We examined birth defects in offspring of adolescent and young adult (AYA) women with a history of cancer (age 15-39 years at diagnosis).

Methods: We identified AYA women diagnosed with cancer between January 1, 1999, and December 31, 2015 using population-based data from the Texas Cancer Registry; data were linked with live birth and fetal death certificates through December 31, 2016 to identify singleton births to AYA women after diagnosis. Birth defects in offspring through age 12 months were ascertained from the Texas Birth Defects Registry.

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