The impact of COVID-19 vaccination rate on traffic recovery.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US, traffic sharply fell due to social distancing policies in many locations. Correspondingly, many regions observed an increase in traffic volume (traffic recovery) as the pandemic eased in 2022. We examine how vaccination rates influence traffic recovery in Los Angeles County (LAC), controlling for differences in case counts, demographics, and socioeconomic factors across areas with different vaccination rates.

Differential patterns of opioid misuse between younger and older adults - a retrospective observational study using data from South Carolina's prescription drug monitoring program.

Most research on opioid misuse focuses on younger adults, yet opioid-related mortality has risen fastest among older Americans over age 55. To assess whether there are differential patterns of opioid misuse over time between younger and older adults and whether South Carolina's mandatory Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) affected opioid misuse differentially between the two groups. We used South Carolina's Reporting and Identification Prescription Tracking System from 2010 to 2018 to calculate an opioid misuse score for 193,073 patients (sex unknown) using days' supply, morphine milligram equivalents (MME), and the numbers of unique prescribers and dispensaries.

Early transplantation maximizes survival in severe acute-on-chronic liver failure: Results of a Markov decision process model.

Background & Aims: Uncertainties exist surrounding the timing of liver transplantation (LT) among patients with acute-on-chronic liver failure grade 3 (ACLF-3), regarding whether to accept a marginal quality donor organ to allow for earlier LT or wait for either an optimal organ offer or improvement in the number of organ failures, in order to increase post-LT survival.

Methods: We created a Markov decision process model to determine the optimal timing of LT among patients with ACLF-3 within 7 days of listing, to maximize overall 1-year survival probability.

Results: We analyzed 6 groups of candidates with ACLF-3: patients age ≤60 or >60 years, patients with 3 organ failures alone or 4-6 organ failures, and hepatic or extrahepatic ACLF-3.