Patient Advocates for Low-Income Adults with Moderate to Severe Asthma: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Background: Few interventions have targeted low-income adults with moderate to severe asthma despite their high mortality.

Objective: To assess whether a patient advocate (PA) intervention improves asthma outcomes over usual care (UC).

Methods: This 2-armed randomized clinical trial recruited adults with moderate to severe asthma from primary care and asthma-specialty practices serving low-income neighborhoods.

Women's oral health: growing evidence for enhancing perspectives.

Women's health, including oral health, is an evolving science with foundation knowledge from many disciplines. Key milestones, particularly in the last decade, provide a roadmap towards the necessary inclusion of gender into dental practice. Such focus is especially important for the evolving role of oral health care providers as primary health care providers.

Impact of oral disease on quality of life in the US and Australian populations.

Unlabelled: The US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES 2003-2004) evaluated oral health quality of life for the first time using a previously untested subset of seven Oral Health Impact Profile (OHIP) questions, i.e. the NHANES-OHIP.

Work disability resulting from chronic health conditions.

Objectives: To describe current programs and policies for addressing work disability among adults with chronic health conditions, and to identify opportunities for new research aimed at reducing the problem.

Methods: The authors conducted secondary data analysis and a literature review.

Results: Millions of Americans with a chronic health condition have a work disability or are at risk of developing one.

Modifiable barriers to adherence to inhaled steroids among adults with asthma: it's not just black and white.

Background: Sociobehavioral factors influence adherence to inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) in adults with asthma and warrant exploration as explanations of apparent racial disparities in adherence.

Objective: The purposes of this study were to identify barriers to adherence, potentially modifiable by healthcare providers, in a group of African Americans and non-African Americans and to test modifiable barriers as explanations of racial-ethnic differences in adherence.

Methods: We conducted a cohort study of 85 adults (mean age, 47 +/- 15 years; 61 [72%] female; 55 [65%] African American) with moderate or severe persistent asthma to determine modifiable sociobehavioral predictors of adherence.

Retrospective evaluation and adjustment of dual energy X-ray absorptiometry measurements for bone mineral density research studies.

Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) is widely used for bone mineral density (BMD) measurements. Prospective daily quality control procedures such as cumulative sum (CUSUM) plots and Shewhart charts are very important and commonly used for routine monitoring of DXA measurements. These procedures are less suitable for post hoc adjustment of DXA measurements for clinical research studies, if and when that is needed.

Patient self-reported satisfaction with maxillary anterior dental implant treatment.

Purpose: Dental implants are accepted as a successful alternative to conventional fixed and removable prostheses for the treatment of partial or complete edentulism. However, there have been few studies of the success of implants from the patients' perspective. The purpose of this study was to assess patient overall satisfaction with the outcome of treatment with maxillary anterior implants.