Preventive medicine
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Preventive medicine · Dec 2023
Risks of opioid overdose among New York State Medicaid recipients with chronic pain before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to healthcare disruptions for patients with chronic pain. Following initial disruptions, national policies were enacted to expand access to long-term opioid therapy (LTOT) for chronic pain and opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment services, which may have modified risk of opioid overdose. We examined associations between LTOT and/or OUD with fatal and non-fatal opioid overdoses, and whether the pandemic moderated overdose risk in these groups. ⋯ Findings demonstrated no significant effect of the pandemic on opioid overdose among people with chronic pain and LTOT and/or OUD, suggesting pandemic policies expanding access to chronic pain and OUD treatment services may have mitigated the risk of opioid overdose.
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Preventive medicine · Dec 2023
Social inequalities in trajectories of contacts with the healthcare system in adolescence and young adulthood.
Understanding of healthcare utilization of different populations is useful for prevention and prioritization of healthcare resources. This study aims to identify populations following different trajectories of contacts with the healthcare system and to describe social inequalities between the groups. ⋯ The observed trajectories of health service use and the social inequalities between trajectory groups highlight that prevention and treatment targeting the entire population will benefit from a complementary focus on social inequalities in health.
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Preventive medicine · Dec 2023
Exploring whether mental health crisis text conversations that include discussion of firearms differ from those without firearms.
Firearm violence represents a public health crisis in the United States. Yet, there is limited knowledge about how firearms are discussed in the context of mental health emergencies representing a major gap in the current research literature. This study addresses this gap by examining whether the content of mental health crisis text conversations that mention firearms differ from those that do not mention firearms in a large, unique dataset from a national crisis text line. ⋯ These results offer an initial glimpse of how firearms are mentioned in the context of acute mental health emergencies, which has been completely absent in prior literature. Our results are preliminary and help sharpen our understanding of contextual factors surrounding mental health emergencies where a firearm is mentioned.
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Preventive medicine · Dec 2023
Racial and ethnic disparities in influenza vaccination coverage among pregnant women in the United States: The contribution of vaccine-related attitudes.
Racial and ethnic disparities in influenza vaccination coverage among pregnant women in the United States have been documented. This study assessed the contribution of vaccine-related attitudes to coverage disparities. ⋯ In a setting with relatively high influenza vaccination coverage among pregnant women, racial and ethnic disparities in coverage were identified. Vaccine-related attitudes were associated with the disparities observed.
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Preventive medicine · Dec 2023
A discrete choice experiment to understand public preferences and priorities for risk-stratified bowel cancer screening programmes in the UK.
Public acceptability of bowel cancer screening programmes must be maintained, including if risk stratification is introduced. We aimed to describe and quantify preferences for different attributes of risk-stratified screening programmes amongst the UK population, focussing on who to invite for bowel screening. ⋯ Bowel cancer screening programmes that improve cancer outcomes, particularly by preventing more deaths amongst those screened, are most preferred by the public. Optimising risk prediction models, developing public communication, and readying infrastructure should be prioritised for implementation.