Publications by authors named "Susan Brown"

Background: More than half of pregnant patients with overweight or obesity exceed national gestational weight gain (GWG) guidelines, increasing their risk of adverse outcomes. There is an urgent need to develop effective and scalable interventions to improve GWG.

Objective: To describe the protocol of Lifestyle, Eating, and Activity in Pregnancy (LEAP), a cluster randomized controlled trial evaluating a mobile health (mHealth) intervention promoting appropriate GWG in an integrated healthcare system.

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Background: Diaphorina citri is an insect vector of "Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus" (CLas), the gram-negative bacterial pathogen associated with citrus greening disease. Control measures rely on pesticides with negative impacts on the environment, natural ecosystems, and human and animal health. In contrast, gene-targeting methods have the potential to specifically target the vector species and/or reduce pathogen transmission.

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Objectives: Mounting evidence signals that cohabitation operates as an alternative to remarriage in later life. However, others have maintained that cohabitation is an incomplete institution marked by less favorable outcomes than remarriage. We appraise these two frameworks by examining the well-being of remarried and previously married cohabiting older adults.

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Introduction: The use of theories, models and/or frameworks (TMFs) in implementation research and practice is essential for developing useful and testable implementation strategies. Recommendations and tools exist to aid implementation groups in selecting TMFs, but they do not explicitly outline a systematic method for identifying and selecting TMFs. This paper aimed to (1) propose a systematic consensus-based method to select TMFs to support implementation processes, and to (2) demonstrate the use of this novel method in the context of researching the implementation of hip protectors for fracture prevention in long-term care (LTC).

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Article Synopsis
  • Keratinocyte carcinomas, like basal and squamous cell carcinomas, are common and serious issues for solid organ transplant recipients, necessitating early detection and effective treatment strategies.
  • A Phase III clinical trial, called the SiroSkin trial, will assess the effectiveness of topical sirolimus in reducing skin cancer incidence among these patients compared to a placebo, involving 146 participants over 24 weeks of treatment and 18 months of follow-up.
  • The trial's results aim to enhance management approaches for skin cancers in solid organ transplant recipients and gather evidence on the cost-effectiveness of using topical sirolimus.
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Background: It is estimated that there are >18 million cancer survivors in the United States, and there is a growing number of survivorship programs across the country to care for these individuals. There is a clear need for survivorship care; however, evidence is still emerging on how to best operationalize the guidance from nationally recognized organizations and clinical practice guidelines.

Methods: The NCCN Best Practices Committee (BPC) recently conducted a survey to better understand survivorship clinics at NCCN Member Institutions.

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Background: Postpartum depression (PPD) is associated with significant health consequences for the parent and child. Current recommendations for PPD prevention require intense health care system resources. Evidence-based interventions for PPD prevention that do not further burden the health care system are needed.

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Guided by the perspective that intimate relationship types represent a continuum of social attachment, we assessed how living apart together (LAT) relationships are related to psychological well-being in later life. Using data from the 2011 Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS), we assessed levels of depressive symptoms by comparing LAT respondents (2.5%) with never married (2.

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Background: Transfer of a healthy C7 spinal nerve is a tool for upper extremity reanimation in patients with severe brachial plexus injury (BPI). Its use remains controversial owing to concern for neurological injury to the donor arm. Utilizing wearable motion-sensor technology, we aimed to quantify donor arm morbidity after C7 spinal nerve harvest in patients with pan-BPI, reporting both the time and magnitude of donor arm movement in a real-world setting compared to healthy controls.

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Background: Hand function is reduced with aging which can lead to impairments in the performance of daily activities and eventually loss of independence. The ability to perceive the forces being applied to an object is an important component of hand control that also declines with age. However, the extent to which force perception can be improved through training remains largely unknown.

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Background: The development of disability related to activities of daily living (ADL) is of great concern in the aging population, particularly for Hispanic and Non-Hispanic (NH) Black older adults, where disability prevalence is greater compared to NH Whites. ADL-disability is typically measured across many functional tasks without differentiating upper- versus lower-limb limitations, hindering our understanding of disability burden. Despite the importance of the upper limbs for completing ADL and known age-related declines in function, racial/ethnic differences in upper limb function remain largely unknown.

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Background: A RCT of a novel intervention to detect antidepressant medication response (the PReDicT Test) took place in five European countries, accompanied by a nested study of its acceptability and implementation presented here. The RCT results indicated no effect of the intervention on depression at 8 weeks (primary outcome), although effects on anxiety at 8 weeks and functioning at 24 weeks were found.

Methods: The nested study used mixed methods.

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The move toward early detection and treatment of cancer presents challenges for value assessment using traditional endpoints. Current cancer management rarely considers the full economic and societal benefits of therapies. Our study used a modified Delphi process to develop principles for defining and assessing value of cancer therapies that aligns with the current trajectory of oncology research and reflects broader notions of value.

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Background: Many intensive care unit (ICU) staff experience intrusive memories following work-related traumatic events, which can lead to long-term mental health outcomes and impact work functioning. There is a need for interventions that target intrusive memories in this population; however, factors such as mental health stigma and difficulty in fitting interventions into busy schedules can pose barriers. The Brief Gameplay Intervention For National Health Service Intensive Care Unit Staff Affected By COVID-19 Trauma (GAINS) study tested a brief, digital imagery-competing task intervention (including computer gameplay) with the aim of reducing the recurrence of intrusive memories, which holds promise for overcoming some of these barriers.

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Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is largely preventable, and the leading cause of death for men and women. Though women have increased life expectancy compared to men, there are marked sex disparities in prevalence and risk of CVD-associated mortality and dementia. Yet, the basis for these and female-male differences is not completely understood.

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Article Synopsis
  • * The scientific statement reviews preventive strategies using the American Heart Association's Life's Essential 8 framework, focusing on blood pressure management and lifestyle changes for better cardiovascular health.
  • * There is a need for future trials to improve screening and interventions during the fourth trimester (the 12 weeks after delivery) to enhance cardiovascular health in those affected by adverse pregnancy outcomes.
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Purpose: Peer review in the form of chart rounds is a critical component of quality assurance and safety in radiation therapy treatments. Radiation therapy departments have undergone significant changes that impose challenges to meaningful review, including institutional growth and increasing use of virtual environment. We discuss the implementation of a novel chart rounds (NCR) format and application adapted to modern peer review needs at a single high-volume multisite National Cancer Institute designated cancer center.

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Objective: We examined the acceptability and feasibility of a multi-component digital health outreach intervention to promote uptake of guideline-recommended postpartum screening for type 2 diabetes among patients with gestational diabetes (GDM).

Methods: We conducted a 2 randomized factorial experiment as part of the Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST) preparation phase for developing behavioral interventions. Participants with current or recent GDM in an integrated healthcare system were randomized to receive an outreach message with up to four intervention components, designed to be self-administered in about 10 min and efficiently delivered online via REDCap: a streamlined values affirmation, personalized information on diabetes risk, an interactive motivational interviewing-based component, and an interactive action planning component.

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Perceived confidence is an important dimension of an athlete's psychological readiness to return-to-play. However, there is no established and validated tool to evaluate confidence in professional football. This study aimed to provide preliminary evaluation of the internal structure of the Injury-Psychological Readiness to Return-to-Sport scale (I-PRRS) in a cohort of injured male professional footballers.

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Improvement in agronomic traits in crops through gene editing (GE) relies on efficient transformation protocols for delivering the CRISPR/Cas9-coded transgenes. Recently, a few embryogenesis-related genes have been described, the co-delivery of which significantly increases the transformation efficiency with reduced genotype-dependency. Here, we characterized the transgenic and GE events in wheat (cv.

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This visualization illustrates the multidimensionality of family life among U.S. children.

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Homebound older adults are at greater risk for functional impairments, social isolation, and loss of independence. Adequate hand function is needed to perform many daily activities, yet is understudied, particularly in the homebound population. The purpose of this study was to pilot test an intergenerational program in which pre-health college students were trained to deliver hand exercises to homebound older adults receiving Meals on Wheels (MOW) services.

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Canine infectious respiratory disease (CIRD) is a complicated respiratory syndrome in dogs [1], [2], [3]. A panel PCR was developed [4] to detect nine pathogens commonly associated with CIRD: canine adenovirus type 2, canine herpesvirus 1, canine parainfluenza virus, canine distemper virus, canine influenza virus and canine respiratory coronavirus [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16]. To evaluate diagnostic performance of the assay, 740 nasal swab and lung tissue samples were collected and tested with the new assay, and compared to an older version of the assay detecting the same pathogens except that it does not differentiate the two species.

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Objectives: Drawing on emerging evidence that the pandemic appears to have impeded both the divorce process and actual divorces, we examined whether the gray divorce rate (i.e., divorce among adults aged 50+) declined following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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In a typical G protein coupled receptor drug discovery campaign, an in vitro primary functional screening assay is often established in a recombinant system overexpressing the target of interest, which offers advantages with respect to overall throughput and robustness of compound testing. Subsequently, compounds are then progressed into more physiologically relevant but lower throughput ex vivo primary cell assays and finally in vivo studies. Here we describe a dynamic mass redistribution (DMR) assay that has been developed in a format suitable to support medium throughput drug screening in primary human neutrophils.

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