PLoS medicine
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Increasing evidence supports an association between in-labour cesarean section and recurrent preterm birth in subsequent pregnancies. This clinically challenging problem may be caused by cervical damage at the time of in-labour cesarean section.
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Psychiatric patients experience lower life expectancy compared to the general population. Conditional cash transfer programmes (CCTPs) have shown promise in reducing mortality rates, but their impact on psychiatric patients has been unclear. This study tests the association between being a Brazilian Bolsa Família Programme (BFP) recipient and the risk of mortality among people previously hospitalised with any psychiatric disorders. ⋯ BFP appears to reduce mortality rates among psychiatric patients. While not designed to address elevated mortality risk in this population, this study highlights the potential for poverty alleviation programmes to mitigate mortality rates in one of the highest-risk population subgroups.
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Raquel González and colleagues discuss the drugs available to HIV-exposed children to prevent malaria infection and the urgent need to evaluate alternative agents.
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Comparative Study Observational Study
Comparative analysis of 2 approaches to monitor countries' progress towards full and equal access to sexual and reproductive health care, information, and education in 75 countries: An observational validation study.
Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Indicator 5.6.2 is the "Number of countries with laws and regulations that guarantee full and equal access to women and men aged 15 years and older to sexual and reproductive health care, information, and education." This indicator plays a key role in tracking global progress toward achieving gender equity and empowerment, ensuring its validity is essential. Significant challenges related to the indicator's calculation have been noted, which have important implications for the indicator's validity in measuring progress towards meeting the SDG target. Recommendations have been made to revise the scoring of the indicator. This study examines the indicator's validity by proposing a revision to the indicator's calculation that addresses these global concerns and comparing the resulting values. ⋯ Our results illustrate underlying challenges with the current indicator formulation that impact its interpretability. The proposed changes could alter the way the current legal landscape governing sexual and reproductive health is understood, thereby pointing to different programmatic and policy priorities that may better support countries in achieving full and equal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights globally.
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Clozapine is widely regarded as a highly efficacious psychotropic drug that is largely underused worldwide. Recent disproportionality analyses and nationwide case-control studies suggested a potential association between clozapine use and hematological malignancy (HM). Nevertheless, the absolute rate difference is not well-established due to the absence of analytic cohort studies. The clinical significance of such a potential risk remains unclear. ⋯ Absolute rate difference in HM incidence associated with clozapine is small despite a 2-fold elevated rate. Given the rarity of HM and existing blood monitoring requirements, more restrictive indication for clozapine or special warnings may not be necessary.