Publications by authors named "V Iannacchione"
Article Synopsis
- A study validated a case definition for Gulf War illness that identifies three primary symptom variants in veterans who served in the Gulf War, demonstrating objective brain function abnormalities.
- A large representative sample of 8,020 veterans was surveyed, and statistical analysis confirmed the accuracy and prevalence of the illness, showing it to be significantly more common in deployed veterans compared to nondeployed ones.
- The study concluded that the case definition is applicable to the broader Gulf War veteran population, making it a useful tool for further research on the illness.
Purpose: Sexually transmitted infection (STI) transmission models propose that incident STIs are related to exposure to infected sex partners. The objective of this study was to determine whether the prevalence of STIs among the available pool of sex partners in a neighborhood, measured indirectly, is an independent determinant of a current incident STI.
Methods: The target population comprised 58,299 English-speaking, sexually active 15- to 24-year-olds in 486 census block groups (CBGs) in Baltimore, MD.
Objective: The D1 model that was developed to predict US societal preferences for EQ-5D health states addressed several important conceptual and statistical issues. However, it has been criticized for being too complex, failing to account for the nonnormal distribution of health state values, and the transformation of preferences for worse-than-death health states before estimation. This research was conducted to develop an improved model for predicting median preferences for EQ-5D health states for the US population.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEvaluating the effect of translation on Spanish speakers' ratings of Medicare.
Health Care Financ Rev
March 2007
This study examined the equivalence of the English and Spanish versions of the Medicare Consumer Assessment of Health Plans Study (CAHPS) fee-for-service (FFS) survey among 2,996 Hispanic Medicare beneficiaries. Multigroup confirmatory factor analyses indicated that with few exceptions the factor structures were very similar for the English and Spanish surveys. However, item response theory-based methods for investigating differential item functioning (DIF) revealed that several items demonstrated threshold-related DIF, suggesting that respondents in the two languages utilized the response options for the items differently.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Research reveals that influenza and pneumococcal immunization rates among blacks, Asians, and Hispanics significantly trail those of whites. This 2003 study examines recent trends and disparities for influenza and pneumococcal immunizations among elderly, non-institutionalized Medicare beneficiaries.
Methods: National samples of approximately 179,000 Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries were surveyed by mail and telephone each year from 2000 to 2002.