A blockchain-based computerized network infrastructure for the transparent, immutable calculation and dissemination of quantitative, measurable parameters of academic and medical research publications.

Digital transformation of healthcare systems should rely on decentralized computer networks and take advantage of the unique characteristics of blockchain technology. Decentralization ensures process transparency and data transparency for all relevant stakeholders. These values are essential in the realms of populations' healthcare information communications and processing, control and tracking of medical logistics supply chains, clinical research management, and control of certified healthcare services organizations.

Heat-stone massage for patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain: a protocol for multicenter randomized controlled trial.

Introduction: Chronic musculoskeletal pain bothers the quality of life for approximately 1.71 billion people worldwide. Although pharmacological therapies play an important role in controlling chronic pain, overuse of opioids, persistent or recurrent symptoms, and pain-related disability burden still need to be addressed.

Racial/ethnic and gender inequities in the sufficiency of paid leave during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from the service sector.

Background: Access to paid family and medical leave (PFML), including leave to care for a seriously ill loved one or recover from one's own serious illness, conveys health and economic benefits for workers and their families. However, without a national PFML policy, access to paid leave remains limited and unequal. Previous work documenting inequitable access by socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity primarily focuses on parental leave, measures theoretical access to paid leave rather than actual leave uptake, and lacks an accounting for why workers of color and women may have less access to PFML.

Hygiene knowledge and practices and determinants of occupational safety among waste and sanitation workers in Bangladesh during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Waste and sanitation workers provide essential services to society. In most low-and middle-income countries, they are often mistreated and lack access to necessary personal protective equipment (PPE) and hygiene facilities that ensure occupational safety in workplaces. COVID-19 has also imposed serious health risks upon these worker groups.

2022 Emory Business Case for Nursing Summit: What has changed in the past year.

This commentary paper concludes the Business Case for Nursing special edition. The special edition covered major areas of dialogue from the 2022 Emory Business Case for Nursing Summit. The 2022 summit, led by Emory School of Nursing in partnership with Emory School of Business, convened national nursing, health care, and business leaders.

Early maladaptive schemas and addictive behaviours: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Recently, early maladaptive schemas have been increasingly focused as the underlying factor of several psychopathologies. The primary objective is to systematically review and meta-analytically analyse the evidence on the relationship between early maladaptive schemas and types of addictive behaviours. Additionally, the secondary objective was to examine potential moderators of the effect sizes.

Examining the effects of physician burnout on pain management for patients with advanced lung cancer.

Purpose: Physician burnout is generally associated with worse clinical outcomes. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of physician burnout on the quality of physicians' pain assessment and opioid prescribing for patients with advanced lung cancer. Moreover, we test whether these relationships are moderated by patient-level factors, such as patient race and activation level, that have a demonstrated impact on clinical encounters.

Measuring Racial Discrimination in Bail Decisions.

We develop new quasi-experimental tools to measure disparate impact, regardless of its source, in the context of bail decisions. We show that omitted variables bias in pretrial release rate comparisons can be purged by using the quasi-random assignment of judges to estimate average pretrial misconduct risk by race. We find that two-thirds of the release rate disparity between white and Black defendants in New York City is due to the disparate impact of release decisions.

Ethics Inside the Black Box: Integrating Science and Technology Studies into Engineering and Public Policy Curricula.

There is growing need for hybrid curricula that integrate constructivist methods from Science and Technology Studies (STS) into both engineering and policy courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. However, institutional and disciplinary barriers have made implementing such curricula difficult at many institutions. While several programs have recently been launched that mix technical training with consideration of "societal" or "ethical issues," these programs often lack a constructivist element, leaving newly-minted practitioners entering practical fields ill-equipped to unpack the politics of knowledge and technology or engage with skeptical publics.

Ethical Responsibilities for Companies That Process Personal Data.

It has become increasingly difficult for individuals to exercise meaningful control over the personal data they disclose to companies or to understand and track the ways in which that data is exchanged and used. These developments have led to an emerging consensus that existing privacy and data protection laws offer individuals insufficient protections against harms stemming from current data practices. However, an effective and ethically justified way forward remains elusive.

Designing a public access naloxone program for public transportation stations.

The opioid overdose epidemic has caused over 600,000 deaths in the U.S. since 1999.

An examination of how six reasons for valuing nature are endorsed and associated with pro-environmental behavior across 12 countries.

Balanced samples from 12 countries (N = 12,000) were surveyed about their reasons for valuing nature and pro-environmental behaviors. Results showed that people were least likely to endorse moral-based reasons for valuing nature, as compared to five other reasons (wellbeing benefits, nature's intrinsic value, health benefits, economic value, identity-based reasons). However, moral- and identity-based reasons (relative to the other four reasons) for valuing nature were the strongest predictors of pro-environmental behavior across three different methods (correlations, linear mixed models, and relative importance analysis) and two pro-environmental behavior categories (consumer behavior and activism).

Analysis of Geographic Accessibility of Breast, Lung, and Colorectal Cancer Screening Centers Among American Indian and Alaskan Native Tribes.

Purpose: To evaluate geographic accessibility of ACR mammographic screening (MS), lung cancer screening (LCS), and CT colorectal cancer screening (CTCS) centers among US federally recognized American Indian and Alaskan Native (AI/AN) tribes.

Methods: Distances from AI/AN tribes' ZIP codes to their closest ACR-accredited LCS and CTCS centers were recorded using tools from the ACR website. The FDA's database was used for MS.

Nursing home infection control strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 awarded $500 million toward scaling "strike teams" to mitigate the impact of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) within nursing homes. The Massachusetts Nursing Facility Accountability and Support Package (NFASP) piloted one such model during the first weeks of the pandemic, providing nursing homes financial, administrative, and educational support. For a subset of nursing homes deemed high-risk, the state offered supplemental, in-person technical infection control support.

Media use and vaccine resistance.

Public health requires collective action-the public best addresses health crises when individuals engage in prosocial behaviors. Failure to do so can have dire societal and economic consequences. This was made clear by the disjointed, politicized response to COVID-19 in the United States.

COVID-19 Disruptions of Food Systems and Nutrition Services in Ethiopia: Evidence of the Impacts and Policy Responses.

Background: Since its first case of COVID-19 on March 13, 2020, Ethiopia has exerted efforts to curb the spread of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) without imposing a nationwide lockdown. Globally, COVID-19 related disruptions and mitigation measures have impacted livelihoods and food systems, nutrition, as well as access and use of health services.

Objective: To develop a comprehensive understanding of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on food systems, health services, and maternal and child nutrition and to synthesize lessons from policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in Ethiopia.

Promise and peril of claims-based dementia ascertainment in causal inference.

Festa and colleagues highlight underrecognized factors that may bias research, policy, and population health strategies predicated upon claims-based ascertainment of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias within the United States.

Who should see the patient? on deviations from preferred patient-provider assignments in hospitals.

In various organizations including hospitals, individuals are not forced to follow specific assignments, and thus, deviations from preferred task assignments are common. This is due to the conventional wisdom that professionals should be given the flexibility to deviate from preferred assignments as needed. It is unclear, however, whether and when this conventional wisdom is true.

Association of Early Seizure Prophylaxis With Posttraumatic Seizures and Mortality: A Meta-analysis With Evidence Quality Assessment.

Purpose Of The Review: To evaluate the quality of evidence about the association of primary seizure prophylaxis with antiseizure medication (ASM) within 7 days postinjury and the 18- or 24-month epilepsy/late seizure risk or all-cause mortality in adults with new-onset traumatic brain injury (TBI), in addition to early seizure risk.

Results: Twenty-three studies met the inclusion criteria (7 randomized and 16 nonrandomized studies). We analyzed 9,202 patients, including 4,390 in the exposed group and 4,812 in the unexposed group (894 in placebo and 3,918 in no ASM groups).