The Southern Center for Maternal Health Equity (SCMHE): a multisector multifaceted community-based approach to reduce disparities in maternal morbidity and mortality in the Gulf South.

Introduction: The maternal mortality crisis in the United States disproportionately affects women who are Black, especially those living in the Gulf South. These disparities result from a confluence of healthcare, policy, and social factors that systematically place Black women at greater risk of maternal morbidities and mortality. This study protocol describes the Southern Center for Maternal Health Equity (SCMHE), a research center funded by the National Institutes of Health in 2023 to reduce preventable causes of maternal morbidity and mortality while improving health equity.

Knowledge, attitudes, and practices among oncologists regarding the implementation of DRGs payment system: a cross-sectional study in Beijing.

Background: The KAP survey evaluates health-related knowledge, attitudes, and practices through a structured questionnaire. By collecting qualitative and quantitative data, it measures the current situation, tests hypotheses, and provides insights for enhancing health behaviors and education. In 2019, the National Health Security Administration (NHSA) initiated DRG payment reforms.

Exploring the relationship between trauma, mental health, and occupational performance in health science center students.

Introduction: Attending university marks a pivotal yet stressful phase in students' lives, characterized by significant adjustments to a new environment that can impact mental, emotional, and physical well-being. The journey through the acceptance and admissions process into university introduces substantial challenges, academic performance and changes to daily life. Such challenges and corresponding conditions can be intensified for students entering university with prior traumatic experiences.

Effect of two teaching methods on nursing students' acquisition of patient-centered communication competence in older people care: a cluster randomized trial.

Introduction: Patient-centered communication is an essential skill in nursing, particularly in the care of older adult patients. However, generation Z nursing students, who primarily communicate through digital platforms, face unique challenges in adapting to traditional face-to-face communication with older adults. As a result, there is a need for teaching methods that align with this generation's learning style to enhance their communication skills.

Physical activity and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic in Tanzania: insights for public health policy in low-income contexts.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic heightened anxiety levels globally, disproportionately affecting low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). Physical activity (PA) has shown potential to alleviate mental health challenges, including anxiety. This study explores the relationship between PA and anxiety among Tanzanian adults during the pandemic, examining whether self-reported health status moderates this relationship and identifying demographic variations.

Nurses' Reports of Inhaler Use Errors in Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease in Hong Kong.

Background: Persistently high rates of inhaler errors and poor adherence among Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) patients contribute to ineffective symptomatic control, high care burdens, and increased healthcare resource utilization.

Objective: This study aimed to report (i) nurses-identified common problems and errors of inhaler use in COPD patients, (ii) nurses' attitudes, practices, training needs and required support in inhaler education.

Methods: An online questionnaire survey was conducted with nurses working in Hong Kong from May to June 2023 using an exponential, non-discriminative snowball sampling strategy.

Lung cancer in Asia: the impact of climate change.

The escalating global threat of climate change is becoming more evident. The climate crisis intersects with another major challenge: lung cancer. With Asia already bearing half the global cancer burden, the impact of climate-related events on health and on lung cancer care specifically are profound.

Psychological factors associated with Long COVID: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Despite the immense impact of Long COVID on public health and those affected, its aetiology remains poorly understood. Findings suggest that psychological factors such as depression contribute to symptom persistence alongside pathophysiological mechanisms, but knowledge of their relative importance is limited. This study aimed to synthesise the current evidence on psychological factors potentially associated with Long COVID and condition-relevant outcomes like quality of life.

Benchmarking lung cancer screening programmes with adaptive screening frequency against the optimal screening schedules derived from the ENGAGE framework: a comparative microsimulation study.

Background: Lung cancer screening recommendations employ annual frequency for eligible individuals, despite evidence that it may not be universally optimal. The impact of imposing a structure on the screening frequency remains unknown. The ENGAGE framework, a validated framework that offers fully dynamic, analytically optimal, personalised lung cancer screening recommendations, could be used to assess the impact of screening structure on the effectiveness and efficiency of lung cancer screening.

Clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential and the risk of pulmonary embolism: an observational study.

Background: Pulmonary embolism causes a substantial burden of morbidity and mortality. Although there are several well-established risk factors for pulmonary embolism, a substantial proportion of cases cannot be attributed to provoked or known risk factors. Accumulating evidence has suggested an association of clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP) with the risk of arterial thromboembolism.

COVID-19 among migrants, refugees, and internally displaced persons: systematic review, meta-analysis and qualitative synthesis of the global empirical literature.

Background: Evidence amounted early that migrants, who are often side-lined in pandemic response or preparedness plans, are disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences. However, synthesised evidence that quantifies the magnitude of inequalities in infection risk, disease outcomes, consequences of pandemic measures or that explains the underlying mechanisms is lacking.

Methods: We conducted a systematic review searching 25 databases and grey literature (12/2019 to 09/2023) and considered empirical articles covering migrants, refugees, asylum-seekers, and internally displaced persons reporting COVID-19 cases, hospitalisation, ICU admission, mortality, COVID-19 vaccination rates or health consequences of pandemic measures.

Nevus of Hori in African patients: an entity that is most likely underdiagnosed in clinical practice.

Background: Nevus of Hori (HN) has been primarily reported in patients of Eastern Asian descent, with a paucity of data regarding HN occurring in African patients. In this study, we report on South African patients with HN initially thought to have melasma.

Objective: To characterize the histopathological and clinical phenotypes of HN in African patients.

Multi-modal prediction of extracorporeal support-a resource intensive therapy, utilizing a large national database.

Objective: Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is among the most resource-intensive therapies in critical care. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the lack of ECMO resource allocation tools. We aimed to develop a continuous ECMO risk prediction model to enhance patient triage and resource allocation.

Trustworthiness of a machine learning early warning model in medical and surgical inpatients.

Objectives: In the general hospital wards, machine learning (ML)-based early warning systems (EWSs) can identify patients at risk of deterioration to facilitate rescue interventions. We assess subpopulation performance of a ML-based EWS on medical and surgical adult patients admitted to general hospital wards.

Materials And Methods: We assessed the scores of an EWS integrated into the electronic health record and calculated every 15 minutes to predict a composite adverse event (AE): all-cause mortality, transfer to intensive care, cardiac arrest, or rapid response team evaluation.

Machine learning analysis of factors affecting college students' academic performance.

This study aims to explore various key factors influencing the academic performance of college students, including metacognitive awareness, learning motivation, participation in learning, environmental factors, time management, and mental health. By employing the chi-square test to identify features closely related to academic performance, this paper discussed the main influencing factors and utilized machine learning models (such as LOG, SVC, RFC, XGBoost) for prediction. Experimental results indicate that the XGBoost model performs the best in terms of recall and accuracy, providing a robust prediction for academic performance.

Unusual Presentation of Large Retroperitoneal Lipoma in a 3-Year-Old Child: A Case Report.

Background: Lipomas can occur almost anywhere in the body, but they are exceptionally rare in the retroperitoneal region. While lipomas are common in adults, they are quite uncommon in children. Even among adults, retroperitoneal lipomas are not frequently encountered.

Coral histology reveals consistent declines in tissue integrity during a marine heatwave despite differences in bleaching severity.

Marine heatwaves are starting to occur several times a decade, yet we do not understand the effect this has on corals across biological scales. This study combines tissue-, organism-, and community-level analyses to investigate the effects of a marine heatwave on reef-building corals. Adjacent conspecific pairs of coral colonies of and that showed contrasting phenotypic responses (, bleached .

Knowledge, attitudes, practices, and vaccination coverage of medical students toward hepatitis B virus in North Sudan, 2023.

Background: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a global health issue, particularly among healthcare personnel, including students because of its occupational exposure pattern. Healthcare Workers and medical students are recommended to have better knowledge, attitudes and good practices and vaccination toward infection control in general and HBV in particular. This study aimed to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of medical students from North Sudan regarding HBV and its vaccination coverage.

Case report: Clinical and genetic characterization of a novel variant causing pyridoxine-dependent epilepsy, developmental delay, and intellectual disability in two siblings.

Background: Pathogenic variants in are associated with pyridoxine-dependent epilepsy (PDE), a rare autosomal recessive disorder characterized by epileptic seizures, unresponsiveness to standard antiseizure medications (ASM), and a response only to pyridoxine. Here, we report two patients (from a consanguineous family) with neonatal seizures and developmental delay.

Case Presentation: Patient 1 (a 13-year-old girl) was born normally at term.

Internalized stigma level, family self-stigma, and family burden of patients receiving community mental health center services: a comparative, longitudinal study.

Introduction: The study aimed to evaluate, both comparatively and longitudinally, the effects of receiving services from community mental health centers on the stigma levels of patients and relatives and the burden of care for patients with severe mental illness.

Methods: The study was planned to be conducted on patients with severe mental illness [schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs) and bipolar disorder (BD)] and their relatives, followed by the community mental health center (CMHC group) and the outpatient clinic (outpatient group). It was planned to provide psychoeducation to relatives once a month for 2 h; meetings with the case manager at least once every 2 weeks; and psychosocial interventions (social inclusion, daily life activities studies, etc.

Association between somatic microsatellite instability, hypermutation status, and specific T cell subsets in colorectal cancer tumors.

Background: Microsatellite instability-high (MSI-high) tumors comprise ~15% of sporadic colorectal cancers (CRC) and are associated with elevated T cell infiltration. However, the universality of this response across T cell subtypes with distinct functions is unknown.

Methods: Including 1,236 CRC tumors from three observational studies, we conducted T cell profiling using a customized 9-plex (CD3, CD4, CD8, CD45RA, CD45RO, FOXP3, KRT, MKI67, and DAPI) multispectral immunofluorescence assay.

Endostatin as a biomarker of systemic sclerosis: insights from a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Introduction: The critical role played by vascular dysfunction and ineffective angiogenesis in the pathophysiology of systemic sclerosis (SSc) suggests that circulating biomarkers reflecting these alterations may be useful in the clinical evaluation of this patient group. We sought to address this issue by conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies investigating a such candidate biomarker, endostatin, an endogenous glycoprotein exerting anti-angiogenic effects, in SSc patients and healthy controls.

Methods: A literature search was conducted in the electronic databases Web of Science, PubMed, and Scopus from inception to 27 May 2024.