Effects of driving distance and transport time on mortality among Level I and II traumas occurring in a metropolitan area.

Background: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of ambulance driving distance and transport time on mortality among trauma incidents occurring in the City of Chicago, a large metropolitan area.

Methods: We studied individuals 16 years or older who suffered a Level I or II injury and were taken to a Level I trauma center. The outcome was in-hospital mortality, including those dead on arrival but excluding those deemed dead on scene.

Electronic Syndromic Surveillance for Influenza-Like Illness Across Treatment Settings.

OBJECTIVE Syndromic surveillance for influenza-like illness (ILI) is predominantly performed in the outpatient setting. The objective of this study was to compare patterns of ILI activity in outpatient, emergency department (ED), and inpatient settings using an electronic syndromic surveillance algorithm. DESIGN Retrospective cohort study over 7.

Antibiotic and Duration of Perioperative Prophylaxis Predicts Surgical Site Infection in Head and Neck Surgery.

Objective: To examine the effect of giving antibiotics on the day of surgery (DOS) vs DOS and first postoperative day (DOS+1) for prophylaxis against surgical site infection (SSI) in clean-contaminated head and neck surgery (CCHNS).

Study Design: Retrospective multi-institution analysis using University HealthSystem Consortium data.

Methods: A multivariate logistic regression model of 8836 discharge records from patients undergoing CCHNS was used to determine the odds of SSI for antibiotic agent/duration combinations.

Actigraphic sleep characteristics among older Americans.

Objectives: To date, there has been no evidence about objectively measured sleep characteristics from a representative national probability sample of adults in the United States. We used actigraphy to measure the sleep characteristics of older Americans.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Sleep duration and health among older adults: associations vary by how sleep is measured.

Background: Cohort studies have found that short and long sleep are both associated with worse outcomes, compared with intermediate sleep times. While demonstrated biological mechanisms could explain health effects for short sleep, long-sleep risk is puzzling. Most studies reporting the U shape use a single question about sleep duration, a measurement method that does not correlate highly with objectively measured sleep.

Predicting the EQ-5D-3L Preference Index from the SF-12 Health Survey in a National US Sample: A Finite Mixture Approach.

Background: . When data on preferences are not available, analysts rely on condition-specific or generic measures of health status like the SF-12 for predicting or mapping preferences. Such prediction is challenging because of the characteristics of preference data, which are bounded, have multiple modes, and have a large proportion of observations clustered at values of 1.

Assessment of sleep in the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project.

Objectives: The relationship of sleep to health has been an active area of research in recent years, and the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP) expanded sleep data collection in Wave 2 with enhanced core questions and a novel sleep module that included an objective measure of sleep duration and quality.

Method: A randomly selected one-third of Wave 2 participants and their spouses or coresident partners were invited to participate in the sleep module. Objective sleep data were collected using wrist actigraphy, an accelerometer that records an integrated measure of motion over short epochs (15 s each).

Insomnia symptoms and actigraph-estimated sleep characteristics in a nationally representative sample of older adults.

Background: Reports of insomnia symptoms are common among the elderly. However, little is known about the relationship between insomnia symptoms and objective assessments of sleep in the general population of older adults. We assessed concordance between insomnia symptoms and actigraphic sleep characteristics in a nationally representative sample of older Americans.

Hemicraniectomy and durotomy upon deterioration from infarction-related swelling trial: randomized pilot clinical trial.

Background And Purpose: Hemicraniectomy and Durotomy Upon Deterioration From Infarction-Related Swelling Trial (HeADDFIRST) was a randomized pilot study to obtain information necessary to design a Phase III trial to evaluate the benefit of surgical decompression for brain swelling from large supratentorial cerebral hemispheric infarction.

Methods: All patients with stroke were screened for eligibility (age 18-75 years, National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale≥18 with Item 1a<2 [responsive to minor stimulation], and CT demonstrating unilateral, complete middle cerebral artery territory infarction by specific imaging criteria). All enrolled patients were treated using a standardized medical treatment protocol.

Sleep duration and all-cause mortality: a critical review of measurement and associations.

Purpose: Variation in sleep duration has been linked with mortality risk. The purpose of this review is to provide an updated evaluation of the literature on sleep duration and mortality, including a critical examination of sleep duration measurement and an examination of correlates of self-reported sleep duration.

Methods: We conducted a systematic search of studies reporting associations between sleep duration and all-cause mortality and extracted the sleep duration measure and the measure(s) of association.

A systematic analysis of experimental immunotherapies on tumors differing in size and duration of growth.

We conducted a systematic analysis to determine the reason for the apparent disparity of success of immunotherapy between clinical and experimental cancers. To do this, we performed a search of PubMed using the keywords "immunotherapy" AND "cancer" for the years of 1980 and 2010. The midspread of experimental tumors used in all the relevant literature published in 2010 were between 0.

QTc prolongation is associated with impaired right ventricular function and predicts mortality in pulmonary hypertension.

Background: In rodent models of pulmonary hypertension (PH) and right ventricular hypertrophy (RVH), the QTc interval is prolonged, reflecting downregulation of repolarizing Kv channels in RV myocytes. The significance of QTc prolongation in human PH is unknown. We hypothesized that QTc prolongation occurs in human PH, is associated with RVH and decreased RV function, and predicts adverse prognosis.

Efficacy and safety of dextromethorphan/quinidine at two dosage levels for diabetic neuropathic pain: a double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter study.

Objective: To evaluate dextromethorphan coadministered with quinidine as treatment of diabetic peripheral neuropathic pain.

Design: In a 13-week, phase 3, randomized controlled trial, 379 adults with daily symmetric diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) leg pain for ≥3 months received double-blind placebo, dextromethorphan/quinidine (DMQ) 45/30 mg, or DMQ 30/30 mg, administered once daily for 7 days and twice daily thereafter. Efficacy measures included four pain rating scales applied daily using patient diaries, and another two applied at five clinic visits.

A marginal structural model analysis for loneliness: implications for intervention trials and clinical practice.

Objective: Clinical scientists, policymakers, and individuals must make decisions concerning effective interventions that address health-related issues. We use longitudinal data on loneliness and depressive symptoms and a new class of causal models to illustrate how empirical evidence can be used to inform intervention trial design and clinical practice.

Method: Data were obtained from a population-based study of non-Hispanic Caucasians, African Americans, and Latino Americans (N = 229) born between 1935 and 1952.

Dextromethorphan plus ultra low-dose quinidine reduces pseudobulbar affect.

Objective: To evaluate dextromethorphan combined with ultra low-dose quinidine (DMq) for treating pseudobulbar affect (PBA) in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or multiple sclerosis (MS).

Methods: In a 12-week randomized, double-blind trial, ALS and MS patients with clinically significant PBA (a baseline score ≥13 on the Center for Neurologic Studies-Lability Scale [CNS-LS]) were maintained, twice daily, on placebo, DMq at 30/10mg (DMq-30), or DMq at 20/10mg (DMq-20).

Results: In 326 randomized patients (of whom 283, or 86.

Heart rate response to exercise stress testing in asymptomatic women: the st. James women take heart project.

Background: The definition of a normal heart rate (HR) response to exercise stress testing in women is poorly understood, given that most studies describing a normative response were predominately based on male data. Measures of an attenuated HR response (chronotropic incompetence) and age-predicted HR have not been validated in asymptomatic women. We investigated the association between HR response to exercise testing and age with prognosis in 5437 asymptomatic women.

Perceived social isolation makes me sad: 5-year cross-lagged analyses of loneliness and depressive symptomatology in the Chicago Health, Aging, and Social Relations Study.

We present evidence from a 5-year longitudinal study for the prospective associations between loneliness and depressive symptoms in a population-based, ethnically diverse sample of 229 men and women who were 50-68 years old at study onset. Cross-lagged panel models were used in which the criterion variables were loneliness and depressive symptoms, considered simultaneously. We used variations on this model to evaluate the possible effects of gender, ethnicity, education, physical functioning, medications, social network size, neuroticism, stressful life events, perceived stress, and social support on the observed associations between loneliness and depressive symptoms.

Loneliness predicts increased blood pressure: 5-year cross-lagged analyses in middle-aged and older adults.

Loneliness is a prevalent social problem with serious physiological and health implications. However, much of the research to date is based on cross-sectional data, including our own earlier finding that loneliness was associated with elevated blood pressure (Hawkley, Masi, Berry & Cacioppo, 2006). In this study, we tested the hypothesis that the effect of loneliness accumulates to produce greater increases in systolic blood pressure (SBP) over a 4-year period than are observed in less lonely individuals.

Loneliness predicts reduced physical activity: cross-sectional & longitudinal analyses.

Objective: To determine cross-sectional and prospective associations between loneliness and physical activity, and to evaluate the roles of social control and emotion regulation as mediators of these associations.

Design: A population-based sample of 229 White, Black, and Hispanic men and women, age 50 to 68 years at study onset, were tested annually for each of 3 years.

Main Outcome Measures: Physical activity probability, and changes in physical activity probability over a 3-year period.

From social structural factors to perceptions of relationship quality and loneliness: the Chicago health, aging, and social relations study.

Objective: The objective of this study was to test a conceptual model of loneliness in which social structural factors are posited to operate through proximal factors to influence perceptions of relationship quality and loneliness.

Methods: We used a population-based sample of 225 White, Black, and Hispanic men and women aged 50 through 68 from the Chicago Health, Aging, and Social Relations Study to examine the extent to which associations between sociodemographic factors and loneliness were explained by socioeconomic status, physical health, social roles, stress exposure, and, ultimately, by network size and subjective relationship quality.

Result: Education and income were negatively associated with loneliness and explained racial/ethnic differences in loneliness.

VLDL best predicts aortic root atherosclerosis in LDL receptor deficient mice.

Hyperlipidemia is a major risk factor for developing atherosclerosis in humans, and epidemiological studies have correlated specific lipoprotein levels with cardiovascular disease risk. Murine models of atherosclerosis rely on the induction of hyperlipidemia for vascular lesions to form, but the pathogenic contributions attributed to different lipoprotein populations are not well defined. To address this issue, we analyzed over 300 LDL receptor (LDLR) deficient mice that have been fed a high-fat diet and for which a full lipoprotein profile and aortic root atherosclerosis values were assessed.

Dextromethorphan and quinidine in adult patients with uncontrolled painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy: a 29-day, multicenter, open-label, dose-escalation study.

Background: Pain associated with diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) has a substantial negative impact on patients' quality of life.

Objectives: The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the tolerability of capsules containing dextromethorphan (DM) and quinidine (Q) in patients with painful DPN. A secondary objective was to perform a preliminary assessment of the efficacy of DM/Q in this patient population.

Randomized, controlled trial of dextromethorphan/quinidine for pseudobulbar affect in multiple sclerosis.

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of DM/Q (capsules containing dextromethorphan [DM] and quinidine [Q]) compared with placebo, taken twice daily, for the treatment of pseudobulbar affect over a 12-week period in multiple sclerosis patients.

Methods: A total of 150 patients were randomized in a double-blind, placebo-controlled study to assess pseudobulbar affect with the validated Center for Neurologic Study-Lability Scale. Each patient also recorded the number of episodes experienced between visits, estimated quality of life and quality of relationships on visual analog scales, and completed a pain rating scale.

Loneliness as a specific risk factor for depressive symptoms: cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses.

The extent to which loneliness is a unique risk factor for depressive symptoms was determined in 2 population-based studies of middle-aged to older adults, and the possible causal influences between loneliness and depressive symptoms were examined longitudinally in the 2nd study. In Study 1, a nationally representative sample of persons aged 54 and older completed a telephone interview as part of a study of health and aging. Higher levels of loneliness were associated with more depressive symptoms, net of the effects of age, gender, ethnicity, education, income, marital status, social support, and perceived stress.

Breast-feeding history and overweight in Latino preschoolers.

Objective: Describe the relationship between breast-feeding history and risk of overweight in the preschool years in a sample of primarily Mexican-origin Latinos.

Methods: Children's breast-feeding history, health history, and demographics were obtained in interviewer-administered questionnaires of a convenience sample of 364 parents of children ages 2-5 in an outpatient clinic waiting room serving a predominantly Mexican immigrant population in a large Midwestern city. Child weight status was determined by weighing and measuring each child and calculating age- and sex-specific body mass index (BMI) percentile using 2000 Centers for Disease Control reference values, with children > or =95th percentile defined as overweight.