Importance of reference group selection in the evaluation of cancer incidence.

Elevated cancer incidence has been reported among World Trade Center (WTC)-exposed responders, with some incidence rate ratios (IRRs) varying over time. This study describes the influence that different reference populations have on relative cancer incidence and temporal trends. Participants from the WTC Combined Rescue/Recovery Cohort (n = 65,691) were observed between 1/1/2002 and 12/31/2015 using data obtained from 13 state cancer registries.

Self-reported chronic rhinosinusitis diagnoses and symptoms in World Trade Center-exposed and non-World Trade Center-exposed United States firefighters.

Background: Greater World Trade Center (WTC) exposure levels have been associated with chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) diagnoses and symptoms. We aimed to determine whether self-reported CRS is elevated in WTC-exposed Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) firefighters when compared with non-WTC-exposed/non-FDNY firefighters and with the general population.

Methods: The study included male WTC-exposed (N = 7840) and non-WTC-exposed (N = 2771) firefighters who were employed on 9/11/2001 and later completed a health survey.

Prevalence of Mild and Severe Cognitive Impairment in World Trade Center Exposed Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) and General Emergency Responders.

Background: The emergency personnel who responded to the World Trade Center (WTC) attacks endured severe occupational exposures, yet the prevalence of cognitive impairment remains unknown among WTC-exposed-FDNY-responders. The present study screened for mild and severe cognitive impairment in WTC-exposed FDNY responders using objective tests, compared prevalence rates to a cohort of non-FDNY WTC-exposed responders, and descriptively to meta-analytic estimates of MCI from global, community, and clinical populations.

Methods: A sample of WTC-exposed-FDNY responders (n = 343) was recruited to complete an extensive battery of cognitive, psychological, and physical tests.

Characterization of medical device randomized controlled trials with adaptive designs.

Adaptive designs are frequently used in drug randomized controlled trials (RCTs). However, their use in medical device RCTs remains unclear. We aimed to characterize medical device RCTs with adaptive designs.

The World Trade Center exposome and health effects in 9/11 rescue and recovery workers.

Background: In the aftermath of the World Trade Center (WTC) attack on 11 September 2001, rescue and recovery workers faced hazardous conditions and toxic agents. Prior research linked these exposures to adverse health effects, but mainly examined individual factors, overlooking complex mixture effects.

Methods: This study applies an exposomic approach encompassing the totality of responders' experience, defined as the WTC exposome.

Exposure duration and cerebral amyloidosis in the olfactory cortex of World Trade Center responders: A positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance imaging study.

Background: Amyloid-β proteins, a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease, are believed to play an adaptive role in the cerebral immune response.

Objective: Amyloid is believed to play a role in cerebral immune response and could play a similar role in response to air pollution exposures. In the present study, we examined whether WTC exposure duration was associated with cerebral amyloidosis in WTC responders.

Accelerating Parkinson's Disease drug development with federated learning approaches.

Parkinson's Disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder afflicting almost 12 million people. Increased understanding of its complex and heterogenous disease pathology, etiology and symptom manifestations has resulted in the need to design, capture and interrogate substantial clinical datasets. Herein we advocate how advances in the deployment of artificial intelligence models for Federated Data Analysis and Federated Learning can help spearhead coordinated and sustainable approaches to address this grand challenge.

The impact of COVID-19 on routine child immunisation in South Africa.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted immunisation programs worldwide, reversing gains that had brought vaccine-preventable diseases largely under control. This study explored the impact of COVID-19 on the uptake of routine child immunisation services in South Africa.

Methods: We conducted qualitative research using in-depth interviews with 51 purposively selected parents/caregivers of children below the age of five who missed or delayed one or more scheduled immunisation doses in 2020-2022 and with 12 healthcare providers who provided public immunisation services during the pandemic.

Characteristics of survivors enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Program.

The World Trade Center (WTC) Health Program is a limited federal health care program that provides medical monitoring and treatment for WTC-related health conditions to responders and survivors impacted by the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.This study described the characteristics of the Program survivor members (who lived, worked, went to school, daycare or adult daycare or present in the New York City Disaster Area of 9/11/2001) to stimulate innovative ideas for improving healthcare services, generate new research interest, and serve as a reference for future research on this population. Administrative and medical claims data collected from the Program start date (07/01/2011) through 2022 were used.

A dataset of Solicited Cough Sound for Tuberculosis Triage Testing.

Cough is a common and commonly ignored symptom of lung disease. Cough is often perceived as difficult to quantify, frequently self-limiting, and non-specific. However, cough has a central role in the clinical detection of many lung diseases including tuberculosis (TB), which remains the leading infectious disease killer worldwide.

Racial and ethnic disparities in mortality among World Trade Center Health Registry enrollees with post-9/11 cancer.

Introduction: There are well-documented racial and ethnic disparities in mortality after cancer in the general population, but less is known about whether disparities also exist in disaster-exposed populations.

Methods: We conducted a longitudinal cohort study of 4341 enrollees in the World Trade Center Health Registry (WTCHR) with a first-ever primary invasive cancer diagnosis after 9/11/2001 and followed through 2020. We examined associations of race and ethnicity with all-cause mortality risk and cause-specific mortality risk using multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression models and Fine and Gray's proportional sub-distribution hazards models, respectively.

Prevalence of Mild and Severe Cognitive Impairment in World Trade Center Exposed Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) and General Emergency Responders.

Background: The emergency personnel who responded to the World Trade Center (WTC) attacks endured severe occupational exposures, yet the prevalence of cognitive impairment remains unknown among WTC-exposed-FDNY-responders. The present study screened for mild and severe cognitive impairment in WTC-exposed FDNY responders using objective tests, compared prevalence rates to a cohort of non-FDNY WTC-exposed responders, and descriptively to meta-analytic estimates of MCI from global, community, and clinical populations.

Methods: A sample of WTC-exposed-FDNY responders ( = 343) was recruited to complete an extensive battery of cognitive, psychological, and physical tests.

May Measurement Month 2021: an analysis of blood pressure screening results from Ecuador.

Arterial hypertension is a growing burden worldwide, leading to over 10.8 million deaths each year. Before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, cardiovascular diseases were the main cause of death in Ecuador.

Cross-sectional association between posttraumatic stress and cognition is moderated by pulmonary functioning in world trade center responders.

Background: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology and poorer pulmonary function are highly prevalent psychiatric and medical conditions. In the present study, we tested for the individual, additive, and modifying associations of PTSD symptomatology and pulmonary function with cognitive performance.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, a total of 1,401 World Trade Center (WTC) responders (mean age = 53, SD = 8 years, 92% males) participated in the study.

The Association between Socioeconomic Status and Race/Ethnicity with Home Evacuation of Lower Manhattan Residents following the 9/11/2001 World Trade Center Disaster.

On 11 September 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) killed nearly three thousand people and exposed hundreds of thousands of rescue and recovery workers, passersby, area workers, and residents to varying amounts of dust and smoke. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani ordered the emergency evacuation of Lower Manhattan below Canal Street, but not all residents evacuated. Previous studies showed that those who did not evacuate had a higher incidence of newly diagnosed asthma.

Colorectal cancer screening: results from the World Trade Center Health Registry cohort.

Purpose: Little is known about colorectal cancer screening in 9/11 World Trade Center (WTC)-exposed populations. We utilized survey data from the WTC Health Registry (WTCHR) to examine associations between enrollees' characteristics and colorectal cancer (CRC) screening.

Methods: We studied 22,061 enrollees aged 50-75 who completed the WTCHR follow-up survey in 2015-2016.

Incidence of Dementia Before Age 65 Years Among World Trade Center Attack Responders.

Importance: Reports suggest that the individuals who served in rescue operations following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) have poorer brain health than expected.

Objective: To assess the incidence of dementia before age 65 years in a prospective study of WTC responders and to compare incidence among responders with severe exposures to debris vs responders not exposed to building debris or who wore personalized protective equipment (PPE).

Design, Setting, And Participants: This prospective cohort study was conducted from November 1, 2014, to January 1, 2023, in an academic medical monitoring program available to verified WTC responders residing on Long Island, New York.

Identification of novel driver risk genes in CNV loci associated with neurodevelopmental disorders.

Copy-number variants (CNVs) are genome-wide structural variations involving the duplication or deletion of large nucleotide sequences. While these types of variations can be commonly found in humans, large and rare CNVs are known to contribute to the development of various neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), including autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Nevertheless, given that these NDD-risk CNVs cover broad regions of the genome, it is particularly challenging to pinpoint the critical gene(s) responsible for the manifestation of the phenotype.

Neural topic models with survival supervision: Jointly predicting time-to-event outcomes and learning how clinical features relate.

We present a neural network framework for learning a survival model to predict a time-to-event outcome while simultaneously learning a topic model that reveals feature relationships. In particular, we model each subject as a distribution over "topics", where a topic could, for instance, correspond to an age group, a disorder, or a disease. The presence of a topic in a subject means that specific clinical features are more likely to appear for the subject.

A comparison of two user-friendly methods to identify and support correction of misspelled medications.

Objective: To identify and support correction of misspelled medication names recorded as free text, we compared the relative effectiveness of two user-friendly methods, used without reliance on clinical knowledge.

Methods: Leveraging the SAS® COMPGED function, fuzzy string search programs examined 1.8 million medication records from 183,600 World Trade Center General Responder Cohort monitoring visits conducted in New York and New Jersey between 7/16/2002 and 3/31/2021, producing replicable generalized edit distance scores between the reported and correct spelling.