Preventive medicine
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Preventive medicine · Nov 2022
Pre-pandemic social isolation as a predictor of the adverse impact of the pandemic on self-rated health: A longitudinal COVID-19 study in Japan.
Many studies have found adverse effects of the coronavirus disease pandemic on health. Irrespective of being infected by the coronavirus, lockdowns and other measures to restrict mobility have worsened an individual's subjective health assessment. Unlike previous studies, this study examined how pre-pandemic social isolation (in the form of no interaction with others and having no social support) affected the impact of the pandemic on self-rated health in Japan. ⋯ The state of emergency raised the probability of reporting poor health by 17.8 (95% confidence interval [CI]:1.9-33.8) percentage points among the participants who had not interacted with others before the pandemic, compared with only 0.7 (95% CI: -3.1-4.5) percentage points among other participants. Similar results were obtained in the absence of social support prior to the pandemic. In conclusion, pre-pandemic social isolation was detrimental to health, suggesting that policy measures are needed to avoid social isolation to increase the resilience of public health to external shocks.
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Preventive medicine · Nov 2022
Impact assessment of a provider-targeted national vaccine messaging campaign on human papillomavirus vaccination rates among US adolescent males.
Initial uptake of the cancer-preventative human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine in the US was slow, especially among adolescent males. To address this, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) partnered with the Hager Sharp communications development company to launch a national campaign in 2015 to improve physician counseling and rebrand the vaccine as cancer prevention. In this study, we compared HPV vaccination rates among 13-17-year-old males before (2010-2014) and after (2015-2019) the CDC-Hager Sharp campaign using National Immunization Survey-Teen data to determine the potential impact of this campaign on improving vaccine uptake among adolescent males. ⋯ Together, these data suggest that the campaign contributed to the observed increase in HPV vaccine uptake among adolescent males. Although sociodemographic disparities were identified, the greater improvement in vaccination rates observed among individuals with higher socio-demographic status may simply reflect their relatively poorer rates of initial vaccine uptake. Overall, the data suggest that provider-targeted campaigns can be a useful tool to boost vaccinations and should be considered for inclusion in future vaccination campaigns.
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Preventive medicine · Nov 2022
Trends in HPV- and non-HPV-associated vulvar cancer incidence, United States, 2001-2017.
Vulvar cancer incidence has been rising in recent years, possibly due to increasing exposure to human papillomavirus (HPV). We assessed incidence rates of HPV-associated and non-HPV-associated vulvar cancers diagnosed from 2001 to 2017 in the United States (US). Using population-based cancer registry data covering 99% of the US population, incidence rates were calculated and stratified by age, race/ethnicity, stage, geographic region, and histology. ⋯ HPV-associated vulvar cancer incidence increased overall and among women aged over 50 years while remaining stable among women younger than 50 years. The overall incidence for non-HPV-associated cancers was stable. Continued surveillance of HPV-associated cancers will allow us to monitor future trends as HPV vaccination coverage increases in the US.
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Preventive medicine · Nov 2022
Multilevel determinants on COVID-19 booster intention among Americans.
The pandemic has disrupted public health and social well-being for more than two years. With the vaccine efficacy waning over time and the spread of new variants, a booster becomes increasingly imperative. This study investigates predictors of the American public's COVID-19 booster intention. ⋯ This study articulates that individual intention to take the booster is a function of their personal characteristics and is also rooted in social networks. These findings contribute to the literature and have policy implications. Knowledge of the profiles among people who intend to take/refuse the booster provides essential information to leverage certain factors and maximize booster uptake to mitigate the pandemic's devastating impact.
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Preventive medicine · Nov 2022
The social determinants of substance use associated with deaths of despair: Individual risks and population impacts.
As the incidence of deaths from external causes including poisonings, suicide, and alcohol-related liver disease, increases in countries such as the United States and Canada, a better understanding of the fundamental social determinants of the substance use underlying these so-called "deaths of despair", at the population level, is needed. Using data from the nationally representative data from the Canadian Community Health Survey (2003, 2015-2016, 2018 cycles) (N = 30,729), the independent associations between age, sex, marital status, immigrant status, race/ethnicity, education, income, rurality, affective health and the use of illicit substances, opioids (without distinction for prescription status), problematic levels of alcohol, and combined past-year use (≥2) of substances, were explored using multivariate logistic regression, marginal risk, and population attributable fraction estimation, with propensity score-adjusted sensitivity analyses. Males, those who were under 29 years, without a partner, born in Canada, White, or had an affective disorder reported both higher use of individual substances and multiple substances in the past year. ⋯ Between 10% and 45% of illicit substance, problematic alcohol, and polysubstance use prevalence was attributable to non-partnered marital status, non-immigrant status, and White race/ethnicity. Of opioid use prevalence, 25% was attributable to White race/ethnicity, 13% to affective disorder status and 4% to lower-income. Though not all substance use will result in substance-related morbidity or mortality, these findings highlight the role of social determinants in shaping the intermediary behavioural outcomes that shape population-level risk of "deaths of despair".