Assessing COVID-19 Pandemic-Era Vaccine Uptake and Adherence to Prevention Measures: A Comparative Analysis Among Men and Women Using Lot Quality Assurance Sampling in Central Uganda.

Aim: This study examined citizens' knowledge and compliance with COVID-19 standard operating procedures (SOPs), vaccine acceptance and hesitancy, and factors that could influence these behaviors.

Methods: The study that utilised the Lot Quality Assurance Sampling (LQAS) approach was conducted in eight districts of Central Uganda; Kiboga, Kyankwanzi, Mubende, Kasanda, Mityana, Luwero, Nakaseke, and Nakasongola districts. Each district was divided into five supervision areas (SAs).

Population-level administrative data: A resource to advance psychological science.

Population-level administrative data-data on individuals' interactions with administrative systems, such as healthcare, social-welfare, criminal-justice, and education systems-are a fruitful resource for research into behavior, development, and wellbeing. However, administrative data are underutilized in psychological science. Here, we review advantages of population-level administrative data for psychological research, with examples of advances in psychological theory arising from administrative-data studies.

Methodological Approaches to Comparative Trend Analyses: The Case of Adolescent Toothbrushing.

Objectives: Research questions about how and why health trends differ between populations require decisions about data analytic procedure. The objective was to document and compare the information returned from stratified, fixed effect and random effect approaches to data modelling for two prototypical descriptive research questions about comparative trends in toothbrushing.

Methods: Data included five cycles of the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children 2006 to 2022, which provided a sample of 980192 11- to 15- year olds from 35 countries.

Associations between degree of food processing and all-cause and cause-specific mortality: a multicentre prospective cohort analysis in 9 European countries.

Background: Ultra-processed food (UPF) consumption has been linked with higher risk of mortality. This multi-centre study investigated associations between food intake by degree of processing, using the Nova classification, and all-cause and cause-specific mortality.

Methods: This study analyzed data from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition.

Perspective on Antibiotic Resistance in Bangladesh: A Critical Yet Overlooked Public Health Crisis.

Background And Aims: This article explores antibiotic resistance as a critical public health issue in Bangladesh, emphasizing its growing threat to the nation's healthcare system. As a developing country, Bangladesh faces unique challenges in managing this crisis, with antibiotic resistance posing significant risks due to its multidimensional problems to both individual health and the broader population.

Methods: We searched for relevant pieces of literature that discuss the antibiotic resistance problem both from a global and national perspective.

Practical Steps to Design Brucellosis Preventive Interventions: An Intervention Mapping Approach.

Background And Aims: Common diseases between humans and animals are one of the health problems of countries, which requires targeted intervention. The intervention mapping model provides guidance for choosing the most appropriate methods and applications. Since one of the most important challenges in the endemic areas of Iran is the control of brucellosis.

Access to public health care and associated factors in rural areas: a cross-sectional community-based study in Bopa district, Southern Benin.

Introduction: despite the considerable progress made to date, access to health care in public health facilities remains a challenging public health problem in Benin. This study aimed to assess trends in access to care over five years and to identify factors associated with low access to care.

Methods: a cross-sectional community-based study was conducted in the Bopa district, a rural area of southern Benin between January and February 2020.

Targeted distribution of nicotine patches by mail to rural regions of Canada: Predictors of patch use.

Introduction: Rural regions generally report higher smoking rates than urban centers, which increases the risk of tobacco related harms and consequences, and makes promoting smoking cessation in these areas a priority. Mass distribution of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) by postal mail has been found to increase the odds of successful cessation attempts. Understanding factors that contribute to the use of NRT could help maximize this intervention's effectiveness.

Pandemic Perceptions and Healthcare Decisions: Exploring Perceived COVID-19 Threat's Impact on Perinatal Healthcare in Florida.

The COVID-19 pandemic directly impacted well-being and healthcare delivery, but its indirect effects on health services utilization among pregnant women and new mothers remain less understood. Understanding how big events like pandemics impact health behaviors is essential for anticipating healthcare needs during future crises. This study examined how the perceived COVID-19 threat influenced health concerns and service utilization among 378 participants who were either pregnant or mothers of infants less than 12 months old, 18 years or older, and lived within a 50-mile radius of healthcare sites in the OneFlorida+ Clinical Research Consortium.

AI-assisted exposure-response data analysis: Quantifying heterogeneous causal effects of exposures on survival times.

AI-assisted data analysis can help risk analysts better understand exposure-response relationships by making it relatively easy to apply advanced statistical and machine learning methods, check their assumptions, and interpret their results. This paper demonstrates the potential of large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, to facilitate statistical analyses, including survival data analyses, for health risk assessments. Through AI-guided analyses using relatively recent and advanced methods such as Individual Conditional Expectation (ICE) plots using Random Survival Forests and Heterogeneous Treatment Effects (HTEs) estimated using Causal Survival Forests, population-level exposure-response functions can be disaggregated into individual-level exposure-response functions.

Risk and Prognosis of Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Mexican Americans with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.

Introduction: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) disproportionately affects Hispanic persons with higher age-specific incidence and increased mortality rates compared to non-Hispanic Whites. These high rates of incidence and mortality may be explained by the variation in risk factors. Given the high prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) among the Hispanic population, we aimed to assess the risk and prognosis of HCC in Mexican Americans with type 2 DM with consideration of treatment for DM.

Building Responsive Intersectoral Initiatives for Newcomers in Toronto: Learning from Service Providers' Experiences in the Context of COVID‑19.

Newcomer populations in urban centers experienced an exacerbated effect of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‑19) due to their precarious living and working conditions. Addressing their needs requires holistic care provisioning, including psychosocial support, assistance to address food security, and educational and employment assistance. Intersectoral collaboration between the public and the community sector can reduce vulnerabilities experienced by these groups.

The intersection of digital health and artificial intelligence: Clearing the cloud of uncertainty.

Digital health (DH) and artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare are rapidly evolving but were addressed synonymously by many healthcare authorities and practitioners. A deep understanding and clarification of these concepts are fundamental and a prerequisite for developing robust frameworks and practical guidelines to ensure the safety, efficacy, and effectiveness of DH solutions and AI-embedded technologies. Categorizing DH into technologies (DHTs) and services (DHSs) enables regulatory, HTA, and reimbursement bodies to develop category-specific frameworks and guidelines for evaluating these solutions effectively.

What are the Thoughts of Women Whose Husbands' Frozen Testicular Sperm Is Thawed for in vitro Fertilization on the Day of Oocyte Retrieval? A Qualitative Study.

Objective: The psychological experiences will be analyzed to understand the needs and burdens of women on the day of oocyte retrieval when the thawed testicular sperm of their husbands is used for in vitro fertilization, in order to provide a basis for the subsequent formulation of relevant nursing measures.

Methods: This study utilized a descriptive phenomenological research approach. A cohort of 13 women undergoing oocyte retrieval on the day when thawed testicular sperm from their husbands is used for in vitro fertilization at the Reproductive Medicine Center of Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, between August and October 2024, were chosen as participants for this study.

A Scoping Review of Existing Policy Instruments to Tackle Overweight and Obesity in India: Recommendations for a Social and Behaviour Change Communication Strategy.

Background: The Indian government is committed to addressing various manifestations of malnutrition, including overweight and obesity, inorder to improve individual health and well-being. The scoping review aims to map existing national policy instruments (programmes, schemes, regulations and guidelines) addressing overweight and obesity in India and analysing them for Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) strategies.

Methods: Systematic identification and selection of policy instruments using 'Arksey and O'Malley' framework was conducted from central government ministry websites, between March and June 2023.

Cost-Effectiveness of Serum Pepsinogen as a Gastric Cancer Targeted Screening Strategy in the United States.

Background And Aims: Current gastric cancer (GC) screening modalities are invasive and expensive. Noninvasive screening for GC precursors with serum pepsinogen (PG) may improve early detection and prevention. Test characteristics of PG based on US prospective data was recently reported and used to study the cost-effectiveness of PG screening vs no screening in the US.

A conceptual framework for the ethical analysis of moral conflicts in migrant live-in care.

In many industrialized countries, hiring a migrant live-in carer represents a promising solution to support families caring for an older person at home and to avoid institutionalization. Migrant live-in carers live in the household of the person in need of care and provide extensive care and social support. They usually come from geographic areas such as Eastern Europe or Southeast Asia.

Association of a Liver Allocation Policy Change With Domestic Travel for Liver Transplantation.

Background: In 2020, liver allocation policy in the United States was changed to allow for broader organ sharing, which was hypothesized to reduce patient incentives to travel for transplant. Our objective was to describe patterns of travel for domestic liver transplant pre- and post-acuity circle (AC) implementation.

Methods: Incident adult liver transplant listings between August 16, 2016, and February 3, 2020 (pre-AC) or June 13, 2020, and December 3, 2023 (post-AC) were obtained from the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients.

Lecturers' teaching competencies towards improving teaching and learning process in universities in Tanzania: Students' perspectives.

This study examined lecturers' teaching competencies at universities in the attempt to improve the teaching and learning process by considering students' perspectives. Specifically, the study examined indicators of lecturers' teaching competencies in universities as well as establishing whether there is a relationship between students' perceived lecturers' teaching competencies and students' demographic parameters. The study used a cross-sectional survey design to generate data from 422 undergraduate students from three public universities in Tanzania using a questionnaire.

Revisiting community-based traditional irrigation systems in India.

Several scholars, policy think tanks and advocacy groups have advocated for reviving community-based traditional irrigation systems. Traditional irrigation systems are conceptualised as sustainable and resilient alternatives to large irrigation infrastructures. But do traditional irrigation systems always represent just, sustainable, and resilient alternatives? Based on interviews, focus group discussion, ethnographic fieldwork, and archival research, the paper offers a nuanced socio-historical understanding of one such community-based irrigation system, aka the system of South Bihar, India.

Association of ambient temperature with social isolation among the community-dwelling Chinese older adults: A cross-sectional study in Hong Kong.

Background: The adverse health impacts of ambient temperature have been well-documented, encompassing not only the mortality and morbidity burden but also mood and mental health disorders. However, the relationship between temperature and social isolation remains unexplored. The objective of the current study was to investigate the potential associations between ambient temperature and social isolation among the aging population.

The emotions of Chinese netizens toward the opening-up policies for COVID-19: panic, trust, and acceptance.

With the development of social media platforms such as Weibo, they have provided a broad platform for the expression of public sentiments during the pandemic. This study aims to explore the emotional attitudes of Chinese netizens toward the COVID-19 opening-up policies and their related thematic characteristics. Using Python, 145,851 texts were collected from the Weibo platform.

Tax and noncommunicable diseases attributable to tobacco and alcohol consumption in 5 Sub-Saharan African countries.

Background: Increased taxation on alcohol and tobacco is among the cost-effective measures used to deal with the burden of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) globally. Despite adopting such efforts, the impacts of taxation on alcohol and tobacco are yet to be fully understood.

Objective: The study's objective is to find empirical evidence regarding changes in the NCD mortality rate associated with changes in the tax rates of tobacco and alcohol.

Evaluating Federal Policies Using Bayesian Time Series Models: Estimating the Causal Impact of the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program.

Researchers are often faced with evaluating the effect of a policy or program that was simultaneously initiated across an entire population of units at a single point in time, and its effects over the targeted population can manifest at any time period afterwards. In the presence of data measured over time, Bayesian time series models have been used to impute what would have happened after the policy was initiated, had the policy not taken place, in order to estimate causal effects. However, the considerations regarding the definition of the target estimands, the underlying assumptions, the plausibility of such assumptions, and the choice of an appropriate model have not been thoroughly investigated.

A Pilot Analysis of Patient Portal Use and Breast Cancer Screening Among Black Patients in a Large Academic Health System.

Introduction: Patient portals may facilitate breast cancer screening and could be an important factor to address inequities; however, this association is not well characterized. The authors sought to examine this association in a large academic health system to inform interventions to address breast cancer screening inequities.

Methods: The authors conducted a cross-sectional study among Black patients in a large academic health system using logistic regression to examine the association between breast cancer screening and portal use, adjusting for multilevel covariates and interactions.