Association of socioeconomic inequality in cardiovascular disease risk with economic development across 57 low- and middle-income countries: Cross-sectional analysis of nationally representative individual-level data.

Background: According to epidemiological transition theory, cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk shifts down the socioeconomic distribution with economic development.

Methods: We tested this hypothesis using nationally representative data on 88,559 individuals aged 40-80 years from 57 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We used measured risk factors to estimate the 10-year probability of a CVD event (CVD risk) and proxied socioeconomic status (SES) by years of education.

Healthcare inequity arising from unequal response to need in the older (45+ years) population of India: Analysis of nationally representative data.

Given the large and growing number of older (45+ years) people in India, inequitable access to healthcare in this population would slow global progress toward universal health coverage. We used a 2017-18 nationally representative sample of this population (n = 53,687) to estimate healthcare inequality and inequity by economic status. We used an extensive battery of indicators in nine health domains, plus age and sex, to adjust for need.

Gender rating gap in online reviews.

Although online reviews are used by many people to make decisions, these reviews may be biased. On the basis of 1.2 billion observations across five leading online review platforms and two lab studies (n = 1,172 and n = 1,165; US respondents fluent in English), we provide evidence for a consistent and systematic gender rating gap: women's mean online review ratings are significantly more favourable than men's.

Sources and processes of social influence on health-related choices: A systematic review based on a social-interdependent choice paradigm.

Background: Most choices in healthcare are not made in social isolation. However, current econometric models treat patients' preferences as the sole determinants of their choices. Through the lens of sociology and medical sociology theories, this paper presents a systematic literature review of identifiable social influences on patients' choices, serving as a first step in developing a social-interdependent choice paradigm.

Investigating the association of the effect of genetically proxied PCSK9i with mood disorders using cis-pQTLs: A drug-target Mendelian randomization study.

PCSK9-inhibitors (PCSK9i) are new drugs recently approved to lower LDL-cholesterol levels. However, due to the lack of long-term clinical data, the potential adverse effects of long-term use are still unknown. The PCSK9 genetic locus has been recently implicated in mood disorders and hence we wanted to assess if the effect of PCSK9i that block the PCSK9 protein can lead to an increase in the incidence of mood disorders.

Social support receipt as a predictor of mortality: A cohort study in rural South Africa.

The mechanisms connecting various types of social support to mortality have been well-studied in high-income countries. However, less is known about how these relationships function in different socioeconomic contexts. We examined how four domains of social support-emotional, physical, financial, and informational-impact mortality within a sample of older adults living in a rural and resource-constrained setting.

Are self-reported fertility preferences biased? Evidence from indirect elicitation methods.

Desired fertility measures are routinely collected and used by researchers and policy makers, but their self-reported nature raises the possibility of reporting bias. In this paper, we test for the presence of such bias by comparing responses to direct survey questions with indirect questions offering a varying, randomized, degree of confidentiality to respondents in a socioeconomically diverse sample of Nigerian women ([Formula: see text]). We find that women report higher fertility preferences when asked indirectly, but only when their responses afford them complete confidentiality, not when their responses are simply blind to the enumerator.

Proteome- and Transcriptome-Wide Genetic Analysis Identifies Biological Pathways and Candidate Drug Targets for Preeclampsia.

Background: Preeclampsia is a leading cause of maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality. However, the current understanding of its underlying biological pathways remains limited.

Methods: In this study, we performed a cross-platform proteome- and transcriptome-wide genetic analysis aimed at evaluating the causal relevance of >2000 circulating proteins with preeclampsia, supported by data on the expression of over 15 000 genes across 36 tissues leveraging large-scale preeclampsia genetic association data from women of European ancestry.

Effect of COVID-19 lockdown on maternity care and maternal outcome in the Netherlands: a national quasi-experimental study.

Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns disrupted health care worldwide. High-income countries observed a decrease in preterm births during lockdowns, but maternal pregnancy-related outcomes were also likely affected. This study investigates the effect of the first COVID-19 lockdown (March-June 2020) on provision of maternity care and maternal pregnancy-related outcomes in the Netherlands.

Ranking Age-at-Death Distributions Using Dominance: Robust Evaluation of United States Mortality Trends, 2006-2021.

Diverging mortality trends at different ages motivate the monitoring of lifespan inequality alongside life expectancy. Conclusions are ambiguous when life expectancy and lifespan inequality move in the same direction or when inequality measures display inconsistent trends. We propose using nonparametric dominance analysis to obtain a robust ranking of age-at-death distributions.

Health outcomes and healthcare utilization associated with four undiagnosed chronic conditions: evidence from nationally representative survey data in Sri Lanka.

Background: Low awareness of chronic conditions raises the risk of poorer health outcomes and may result in healthcare utilization and spending in response to symptoms of undiagnosed conditions. Little evidence exists, particularly from lower-middle-income countries, on the health and healthcare use of undiagnosed people with an indication of a condition. This study aimed to compare health (physical, mental, and health-related quality of life (HRQoL)) and healthcare (inpatient and outpatient visits and out-of-pocket (OOP) medical spending) outcomes of undiagnosed Sri Lankans with an indication of coronary heart disease (CHD), hypertension, diabetes, and depression with the outcomes of their compatriots who were diagnosed or had no indication of these conditions.

Implications of the genomic revolution for education research and policy.

Research at the intersection of social science and genomics, 'sociogenomics', is transforming our understanding of the interplay between genomics, individual outcomes and society. It has interesting and maybe unexpected implications for education research and policy. Here we review the growing sociogenomics literature and discuss its implications for educational researchers and policymakers.

Advantageous early-life environments cushion the genetic risk for ischemic heart disease.

In one of the first papers on the impact of early-life conditions on individuals' health in older age, Barker and Osmond [, , 1077-1081 (1986)] show a strong positive relationship between infant mortality rates in the 1920s and ischemic heart disease in the 1970s. We merge historical data on infant mortality rates to 370,000 individual records in the UK Biobank using information on local area and year of birth. We replicate the association between the early-life infant mortality rate and later-life ischemic heart disease in our sample.

The Prevalence and Epidemiological Features of Ischaemic Heart Disease in Sri Lanka.

Background: There is limited evidence on the prevalence of ischaemic heart disease (IHD) and its association with risk factors and socioeconomic status (SES) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Given the relatively high levels of access to healthcare in Sri Lanka, the association of IHD with SES may be different from that observed in other LMICs.

Objectives: To estimate the prevalence of IHD in Sri Lanka, determine its associated risk factors and its association with SES.

Long-term returns to local health-care spending.

This paper investigates the effects of health-care spending on mortality rates of patients who experienced a heart attack. We relate in-hospital deaths to in-hospital spending and post-discharge deaths to post-discharge health-care spending. In our analysis, we use detailed administrative data on individual personal characteristics including comorbidities, information about the type of medical treatment and information about health-care expenses at the regional level.

Nudging intensive care unit personnel towards sustainable behaviour.

Background: The health care sector is among the most carbon-intensive sectors, contributing to societal problems like climate change. Previous research demonstrated that especially the use of personal protective equipment (e.g.

When the smoke gets in your lungs: short-term effects of Indonesia's 2015 forest fires on health care use.

Background: The forest fires that ravaged parts of Indonesia in 2015 were the most severely polluting of this century but little is known about their effects on health care utilization of the affected population. We estimate their short-term impact on visit rates to primary and hospital care with particular focus on visits for specific smoke-related conditions (respiratory disease, acute respiratory tract infection (ARTI) and common cold).

Method: We estimate the short-term impact of the 2015 forest fire on visit rates to primary and hospital care by combining satellite data on Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) with administrative records from Indonesian National Health Insurance Agency (BPJS Kesehatan) from January 2015-April  2016.

Mining Bodily Cues to Deception.

A significant body of research has investigated potential correlates of deception and bodily behavior. The vast majority of these studies consider discrete, subjectively coded bodily movements such as specific hand or head gestures. Such studies fail to consider quantitative aspects of body movement such as the precise movement direction, magnitude and timing.

Genetically proxied low-density lipoprotein cholesterol lowering via PCSK9-inhibitor drug targets and risk of congenital malformations.

Aims: Current guidelines advise against the use of lipid-lowering drugs during pregnancy. This is based only on previous observational evidence demonstrating an association between statin use and congenital malformations, which is increasingly controversial. In the absence of clinical trial data, we aimed to use drug-target Mendelian randomization to model the potential impact of fetal LDL-lowering, overall and through PCSK9 drug targets, on congenital malformations.

Aversion to health inequality - Pure, income-related and income-caused.

We design a novel experiment to identify aversion to pure (univariate) health inequality separately from aversion to income-related and income-caused health inequality. Participants allocate resources to determine health of individuals. Identification comes from random variation in resource productivity and information on income and its causal effect.

Comparison of antipsychotic drug use in children and adolescents in the Netherlands before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study aims to describe the patterns and trends in antipsychotic prescription among Dutch youth before and during the corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic (between 2017 and 2022). The study specifically aims to determine whether there has been an increase or decrease in antipsychotic prescription among this population, and whether there are any differences in prescription patterns among different age and sex groups. The study utilized the IADB database, which is a pharmacy prescription database containing dispensing data from approximately 120 community pharmacies in the Netherlands, to analyze the monthly prevalence and incidence rates of antipsychotic prescription among Dutch youth before and during the pandemic.