Recent court ruling could increase the size and administrative complexity of the 340B program.

The 340B program allows certain hospitals and clinics to use outpatient drugs purchased at substantial discounts on insured patients, generating profits to fund care. The size of these profits depends on the number of prescriptions filled by participating hospital or clinics' insured patients that also meet the Health Resources and Services Agency's definition of an eligible patient. A recent court case has challenged the Agency's longstanding definition of a patient, resulting in new definition that could significantly expand the size of the program and create conflicts when an insured patient satisfies the new definition for more than one hospital or clinic participating in the program.

Older rural women's pre-visit planning and involvement in South Australian general practices: A candidacy theory perspective.

Objective: To explain older rural women's participation in clinical decision-making with GPs and explore factors associated with their pre-visit planning and involvement in treatment processes.

Methods: A sequential, theory-driven mixed-method study was conducted. Women aged 65 years or above who had visited a GP three months prior were recruited from five rural towns in South Australia through the local Rotary Club.

Hope and Healing: Exploring the Effect of Physical Illness on Religiosity in a Longitudinal Sample of Americans.

This paper uses longitudinal data from 2002 to 2021 to investigate the extent to which physical illness is predictive of religiosity in the United States. Specifically, it leverages multiple rounds of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97), a survey of over 8000 Americans born between 1980 and 1984. Conditional fixed-effects logistic regressions are employed to examine the sample of respondents with changes in religiosity across survey rounds.

Barriers to integration of health and equity into urban design policies in Regina, Saskatchewan.

Although there is extensive literature on the impact of urban design on health, little is known about the barriers to integrating health into urban design policies. As cities increasingly lead efforts to improve health equity and population health, understanding the perspectives and experiences of municipal actors on health and equity is essential. To address this gap, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 30 stakeholders engaged with urban design policy- and decision-making at the City of Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada.

Strategies for Effective Public Health Communication in a Complex Information Environment.

Development and amplification of effective, culturally resonant, trustworthy, and evidence-based public health communication are urgently needed. Research evidence, theory, and practical experience from within and beyond the interdisciplinary field of health communication are well-positioned to help public health authorities, researchers, and advocates navigate the complex societal challenges that influence health and well-being in global contexts. This review offers a broad overview of the field, considers what constitutes "effectiveness" versus "effects" in public health communication, and describes core concepts of public health communication as a process rather than a product.

Ethnic disparities of poor households by a multilevel analysis of household and contextual effects: Evidence from a multi-ethnic county of China.

Poverty in multi-ethnic regions has always been a concern due to its complex factors and persistent nature. Using a sample of 8,482 ethnic majority-headed households and 2,011 ethnic minority-headed households distributed in 200 villages of Wangqing County, China, this study uses hierarchical linear models to examine the factors of income at the household level, the ethnic disparities of the household-level effect, and the contextual effect on household-level outcomes. The findings suggest that, in comparison to the majority group, there exists a smaller income gap between male-headed and female-headed poor households within the minority group.

Firearm Injury Risk Prediction Among Children Transported by 9-1-1 Emergency Medical Services: A Machine Learning Analysis.

Objective: Among children transported by ambulance across the United States, we used machine learning models to develop a risk prediction tool for firearm injury using basic demographic information and home ZIP code matched to publicly available data sources.

Methods: We included children and adolescents 0-17 years transported by ambulance to acute care hospitals in 47 states from January 1, 2014 through December 31, 2022. We used 96 predictors, including basic demographic information and neighborhood measures matched to home ZIP code from 5 data sources: EMS records, American Community Survey, Child Opportunity Index, County Health Rankings, and Social Vulnerability Index.

Unboxing the imaginary: Typology of future imagination techniques in high-tech development.

When the future is connected to the term 'imagination', it is generally presented through the concept of the 'imaginary'-that is, an image of the future that is related to a grand social image. In this article, we discuss the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries and argue that although this concept provides a needed perspective that allows scholars to unpack imaginaries associated with technological futures, it often features very broad concepts, hindering investigation of the ongoing dynamics of the actual acts of imagining and imagination. In contrast, we are interested in examining the processes and practices of imagination of socio-technical futures.

How Do Scientists Think? Contributions Toward a Cognitive Science of Science.

Scientific thinking is one of the most creative expressions of human cognition. This paper discusses my research contributions to the cognitive science of science. I have advanced the position that data on the cognitive practices of scientists drawn from extensive research into archival records of historical science or collected in extended ethnographic studies of contemporary science can provide valuable insight into the nature of scientific cognition and its relation to cognition in ordinary contexts.

Regional healthcare resource allocation and decision-making: Evaluating the effectiveness of the three-stage super-efficiency DEA model.

This study addresses the challenge of achieving a more rational allocation of medical resources at the regional level, using Guangxi Province, China, as a case study. A three-stage super-efficiency Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model is employed to assess and analyze the effectiveness of resource allocation. The research methodology involves identifying input, output, and environmental variable indicators to construct a healthcare resource allocation index system.

Protecting the health of children with universal child cash benefits.

This Health Policy examines the relationship between child cash benefits and child health, with the goal of informing future policy development in the USA. As of 2024, more than 140 countries have adopted large-scale, government-funded child cash transfer programmes. High-income countries more often adopt universal or near universal programmes, while lower-income countries often impose means tests or condition benefits on specific behaviours.

A high-resolution multi-scale industrial water use dataset in China.

Water is crucial for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 6. As a major source of water use and pollution, industrial sector requires improved water management based on more systematic and refined analysis. Such analysis, however, is compromised by the accuracy, granularity, and coverage of industrial water data.

Performance analysis of PPP models in rural tourism projects of Shandong Province based on DEA and super-DEA.

Rural tourism development has made positive contributions to promoting an increase in farmers' income, coordinated urban-rural development, rural civilization, and industrial transformation & upgrading. However, it also faces problems such as immature development and unsound planning. This paper focuses on the development status of the public-private partnership (PPP) models in rural tourism projects of Shandong Province in China, as well as their operations and cooperation models.

Contraceptive Care Visit Objectives and Outcomes: Evidence From Burkina Faso, Pakistan, and Tanzania.

Globally, care experiences of the growing population of contraceptive users are not well-understood. We leverage a large client dataset (n = 71,602) from three countries (Burkina Faso, Pakistan, and Tanzania) to characterize contraceptive services sought (visit objective and method preference), assess whether these visit objectives were met and for whom, and explore if visit objective fulfillment was associated with care quality. Most people in all three countries said they were seeking to continue their current method or adopt a method for the first time.

Barriers and facilitators to the implementation of electronic monitors to improve adherence and health outcomes in patients with tuberculosis: a systematic review.

Tuberculosis remains a public health concern, and electronic monitors show promise in improving treatment adherence and health outcomes among patients with tuberculosis. This Review aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the implementation barriers and facilitators of electronic monitors for patients with tuberculosis, by use of an implementation science framework. A literature search was done across Ovid MEDLINE, CINAHL, Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and Global Health databases from their inception to April 25, 2024.

Pharmacy-based preventive services for opioid use disorder: a survey of U.S. pharmacists.

Background: Pharmacists play a key role in combating the opioid-related overdose epidemic in the United States (US), but little is known about their experience and willingness to deliver preventive services for opioid use disorder (OUD).

Aims: This study seeks to identify correlates of pharmacists' concerns about drug use problems (prescription drug misuse/use disorder and illicit drug use/use disorder) as well as their practice experience delivering preventive services for OUD (e.g.