Comparative Effectiveness of Buprenorphine Adherence with Telemedicine versus In-person for Rural and Urban Patients.

Background: Policy changes during the COVID-19 pandemic allowed buprenorphine to be prescribed for opioid use disorder (OUD) via telemedicine without an in-person visit. A recently proposed change will limit buprenorphine access to 30 days without an in-person visit. Given that people living in rural areas may be disproportionally impacted by this change, we sought to better understand how buprenorphine adherence may be impacted by requiring in-person visits.

Sex and Gender Variables in Data Set Creation and Data Cleaning for Inclusive and Accurate Reproductive Health Research and Quality Improvement.

Introduction: Existing data is often used for reproductive research and quality improvement. Electronic health records (EHRs) with a single data field for sex and gender conflate sex assigned at birth, genotype, gender identity, and the presence of anatomic tissue and organs. This is problematic for inclusion of transgender and gender-diverse populations in research.

Association of Opioid Disposal Practices with Parental Education and a Home Opioid Disposal Kit Following Pediatric Ambulatory Surgery.

Background: The majority of opioid analgesics prescribed for pain after ambulatory pediatric surgery remain unused. Most parents do not dispose of these leftover opioids or dispose of them in an unsafe manner. We aimed to evaluate the association of optimal opioid disposal with a multidisciplinary quality improvement (QI) initiative that proactively educated parents about the importance of optimal opioid disposal practices and provided a home opioid disposal kit before discharge after pediatric ambulatory surgery.

Improved tumour delivery of iron oxide nanoparticles for magnetic hyperthermia therapy of melanoma ultrasound guidance and In SPECT quantification.

Magnetic field hyperthermia relies on the intra-tumoural delivery of magnetic nanoparticles by interstitial injection, followed by their heating on exposure to a remotely-applied alternating magnetic field (AMF). This offers a potential sole or adjuvant route to treating drug-resistant tumours for which no alternatives are currently available. However, two challenges in nanoparticle delivery currently hinder the effective clinical translation of this technology: obtaining enough magnetic material within the tumour to enable sufficient heating; and doing this accurately to limit or avoid damage to surrounding healthy tissue.

High-angular-sensitivity X-ray phase-contrast microtomography of soft tissue through a two-directional beam-tracking synchrotron set-up.

Two-directional beam-tracking (2DBT) is a method for phase-contrast imaging and tomography that uses an intensity modulator to structure the X-ray beam into an array of independent circular beamlets that are resolved by a high-resolution detector. It features isotropic spatial resolution, provides two-dimensional phase sensitivity, and enables the three-dimensional reconstructions of the refractive index decrement, δ, and the attenuation coefficient, μ. In this work, the angular sensitivity and the spatial resolution of 2DBT images in a synchrotron-based implementation is reported.

Hospital Quality Indicators for Opioid-Exposed Infants: Results From an Expert Consensus Panel.

Objective: To elicit expert consensus on quality indicators for the hospital-based care of opioid-exposed infants.

Methods: We used the ExpertLens online platform to conduct a 3-round modified Delphi panel. Expert panelists included health care providers, parents in recovery, quality experts, and public health experts.

Performance of Phenotype Algorithms for the Identification of Opioid-Exposed Infants.

Objective: Observational studies examining outcomes among opioid-exposed infants are limited by phenotype algorithms that may under identify opioid-exposed infants without neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome (NOWS). We developed and validated the performance of different phenotype algorithms to identify opioid-exposed infants using electronic health record data.

Methods: We developed phenotype algorithms for the identification of opioid-exposed infants among a population of birthing person-infant dyads from an academic health care system (2010-2022).

County-Level Atrazine Use and Gastroschisis.

Importance: The incidence of gastroschisis, a birth defect involving the herniation of the small bowel through the abdominal wall, has increased in the US since the 1960s. The pesticide atrazine is a hypothesized cause of gastroschisis; however, examination of the association between atrazine and gastroschisis has been limited.

Objective: To evaluate national trends in gastroschisis incidence, maternal and infant characteristics associated with gastroschisis, and whether county-level atrazine use is associated with gastroschisis.

Participants' perspectives of "NeuroSask: Active and Connect"-a virtual chronic disease management program for individuals with a neurological condition.

Introduction: Neurological conditions account from more than half of Canadians requiring chronic care. Both physical activity and the development of a self-management skillset are critical components supporting individuals with chronic health conditions. "NeuroSask: Active and Connected" is a virtual chronic disease management program offering twice weekly neuro-physiotherapist directed "active" exercise sessions, followed by weekly knowledge-exchange "connect" sessions with invited guest experts.

X-Ray Visible Protein Scaffolds by Bulk Iodination.

Protein-based biomaterial use is expanding within medicine, together with the demand to visualize their placement and behavior in vivo. However, current medical imaging techniques struggle to differentiate between protein-based implants and surrounding tissue. Here a fast, simple, and translational solution for tracking transplanted protein-based scaffolds is presented using X-ray CT-facilitating long-term, non-invasive, and high-resolution imaging.

Antipsychotic Medications and Mortality in Children and Young Adults.

Importance: Dose-related effects of antipsychotic medications may increase mortality in children and young adults.

Objective: To compare mortality for patients aged 5 to 24 years beginning treatment with antipsychotic vs control psychiatric medications.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This was a US national retrospective cohort study of Medicaid patients with no severe somatic illness or schizophrenia or related psychoses who initiated study medication treatment.

Consistency and Adequacy of Public and Commercial Health Insurance for US Children, 2016 to 2021.

Importance: Before and during the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE), commercially and publicly insured children may have faced different challenges in obtaining consistent and adequate health insurance.

Objective: To compare overall rates, COVID-19 PHE-related changes, and child and family characteristics associated with inconsistent and inadequate coverage for publicly and commercially insured children.

Design, Settings, And Participants: This was a cross-sectional study using nationally representative data from the 2016 to 2021 National Survey of Children's Health of children from age 0 to 17 years living in noninstitutional settings.

Identifying Optimal Methods for Addressing Confounding Bias When Estimating the Effects of State-level Policies.

Background: Policy evaluation studies that assess how state-level policies affect health-related outcomes are foundational to health and social policy research. The relative ability of newer analytic methods to address confounding, a key source of bias in observational studies, has not been closely examined.

Methods: We conducted a simulation study to examine how differing magnitudes of confounding affected the performance of 4 methods used for policy evaluations: (1) the two-way fixed effects difference-in-differences model; (2) a 1-period lagged autoregressive model; (3) augmented synthetic control method; and (4) the doubly robust difference-in-differences approach with multiple time periods from Callaway-Sant'Anna.

Patient and Community Factors Affecting Treatment Access for Opioid Use Disorder.

Objective: To examine whether access to treatment for women with opioid use disorder (OUD) varied by race and ethnicity, community characteristics, and pregnancy status.

Methods: We conducted a secondary data analysis of a simulated patient caller study of buprenorphine-waivered prescribers and opioid-treatment programs in 10 U.S.

Methodological considerations for estimating policy effects in the context of co-occurring policies.

Understanding how best to estimate state-level policy effects is important, and several unanswered questions remain, particularly about the ability of statistical models to disentangle the effects of concurrently enacted policies. In practice, many policy evaluation studies do not attempt to control for effects of co-occurring policies, and this issue has not received extensive attention in the methodological literature to date. In this study, we utilized Monte Carlo simulations to assess the impact of co-occurring policies on the performance of commonly-used statistical models in state policy evaluations.

County-level Factors and Treatment Access Among Insured Women With Opioid Use Disorder.

Background: An over 40% increase in overdose deaths within the past 2 years and low levels of engagement in treatment call for a better understanding of factors that influence access to medication for opioid use disorder (OUD).

Objective: To examine whether county-level characteristics influence a caller's ability to secure an appointment with an OUD treatment practitioner, either a buprenorphine-waivered prescriber or an opioid treatment program (OTP).

Research Design And Subjects: We leveraged data from a randomized field experiment comprised of simulated pregnant and nonpregnant women of reproductive age seeking treatment for OUD among 10 states in the US.

Maternal Opioid Use Disorder and the Risk of Postneonatal Infant Mortality.

Importance: The risk of serious long-term outcomes for infants born to individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD) is not fully characterized, nor is it well understood whether risks are modified by infant diagnosis of neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome (NOWS).

Objective: To characterize the risk of postneonatal infant mortality among infants with a NOWS diagnosis or born to individuals with OUD.

Design, Setting, And Participants: The study team conducted a retrospective cohort study of 390 075 infants born from 2007 through 2018 to mothers who were enrolled in Tennessee Medicaid from 183 days prior to delivery through 28 days post partum (baseline).