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JBJS Rev 2021 Apr 22;9(4). Epub 2021 Apr 22.

The Rothman Orthopaedic Institute at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

»: Ultrasonography (US) is valued for its availability, tolerability, low cost, and utility in real-time dynamic evaluation. Its use in diagnosing upper-extremity shoulder injury has expanded, but several features require definition before more widespread adoption can be realized.

»: In particular, the evaluation of rotator cuff tears (RCTs) with US has been extensively studied, and authors generally agree that US is comparable with magnetic resonance imaging for the detection of full-thickness RCTs, whereas partial-thickness RCTs are more difficult to accurately identify with US. Read More

Alcohol Clin Exp Res 2021 Apr 22. Epub 2021 Apr 22.

University of Florida Department of Health Education and Behavior, and Center for Behavioral Economic Health Research, Gainesville, Florida, USA.

Background: Behavioral economics predicts that recovery from Alcohol Use Disorder involves shifts in resource allocation away from drinking, toward valuable non-drinking rewards that reinforce and stabilize recovery behavior patterns, and these shifts should distinguish non-problem drinking (moderation) outcomes from outcomes involving abstinence or relapse. To evaluate this hypothesis, five prospective studies of recent natural recovery attempts were integrated to examine changes in monetary spending during the year following initial cessation of heavy drinking as a function of 1-year drinking outcomes.

Methods: Problem drinkers from Southeastern U. Read More

Environ Sci Pollut Res Int 2021 Apr 22. Epub 2021 Apr 22.

School of Economics and Management, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, 221116, China.

Environmental values are key factors influencing consumers' purchase intentions and improving consumers' willingness to buy green products is crucial for the sustainable development of ecological environments. Based on environmental values and green product trust, the present study classified environmental values into egoistic, altruistic, and biospheric values and discussed the influence mechanisms of environmental values on green product purchase intention. On this basis, the study verified the mediating role of environmental concern and the moderating role of green trust on the relationship between environmental concern and green product purchase intention. Read More

J Contemp Crim Justice 2021 Feb 21;37(1):66-87. Epub 2020 Oct 21.

Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA.

The expansion of monetary sanctions constitutes what Beckett and Murakawa describe as the "shadow carceral state," where covert penal power is expanded through institutional annexation by blending civil, administrative, and criminal legal authority. A growing body of work on monetary sanctions has begun to dissect covert penal power by tracing increased civil and administrative pipelines to incarceration, civil financial alternatives to criminal sanctions, and innovations to generate criminal justice revenue. However, institutional annexation and innovation in the form of contemporary pay-to-stay practices remain understudied and undertheorized. Read More

Stress Health 2021 Apr 21. Epub 2021 Apr 21.

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Department of I/O Psychology, Edwardsville, Illinois.

Employees who feel the urge and preoccupation to respond to workplace asynchronous communication quickly may be suffering from workplace telepressure. Although information and communication technologies have many organizational benefits, it is imperative to understand the cost of blurring work and family roles. Using the Job Demands-Resources model, the relationship between workplace telepressure and key outcomes, such as strain, work-family conflict, family-work conflict, and burnout was examined. Read More

Disabil Health J 2021 Apr 15:101099. Epub 2021 Apr 15.

Mathematica, 1100 First Street NE, 12th Floor, Washington, DC, 20002, USA. Electronic address:

Background: States had flexibility in their implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) Medicaid expansions, which may have led to variation in coverage and changes in access to care for workers with disabilities.

Objective/hypothesis: To examine differential trends in health insurance coverage and access to care among workers with disabilities by states' decisions about expanding Medicaid under the ACA.

Methods: We aggregated data from the National Health Interview Survey into groups by time period relative to ACA implementation: pre-ACA (2006-2009), early ACA (2010-2013), and later ACA (2014-2017). Read More

PLoS One 2021 20;16(4):e0249778. Epub 2021 Apr 20.

National University of Singapore, Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, Singapore, Singapore.

Background: Computerized decision-support systems (CDSS) and performance-based incentives (PBIs) have potential to contribute to client satisfaction with health services. However, rigorous evidence is lacking on the effectiveness of these strategies in lower-income countries such as Ghana. This study aimed to determine the effect of a combined CDSS-PBI intervention on client satisfaction with maternal health services in primary facilities in the Upper East Region of Ghana. Read More

J R Coll Physicians Edinb 2021 Mar;51(1):85-90

South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust.

Telemedicine use has expanded rapidly to cope with increasing demand on services by delivering remote clinical review and monitoring of long-term conditions. Triaging individual patients to determine their suitability for telephone, video or face-to-face consultations is necessary. This is crucial in the context of COVID-19 to ensure doctor-patient safety. Read More

Environ Sci Pollut Res Int 2021 Apr 20. Epub 2021 Apr 20.

School of Economics and Management, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao, 266580, People's Republic of China.

A more comprehensive understanding of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on changes in pollution could serve us to better deal with the environmental challenges caused by the pandemic. Existing studies mainly focused on the linear impact of the pandemic on the pollutants without considering the impact of other factors. To fill the research gap, the nonlinear relationship between pandemic and pollutants with considering the temperature factor was explored by developing panel threshold regression approach. Read More

J Vis Exp 2021 03 31(169). Epub 2021 Mar 31.

Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens and Biosafety, Center for Biosafety Mega-Science, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences;

Diagnosis of the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is a priority for all countries across the globe. Currently, reverse transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) is the gold standard for SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis as no permanent solution is available. However effective this technique may be, research has emerged showing its limitations in detection and diagnosis especially when it comes to low abundant targets. Read More

J Med Econ 2021 Apr 18. Epub 2021 Apr 18.

The University of Arizona Cancer Center, Tucson, AZ, USA.

Aims: Therapeutic guidelines recommend prophylaxis against chemotherapy-induced (febrile) neutropenia (CIN/FN). Pegfilgrastim (Neulasta®), biosimilar pegfilgrastim-jmdb (Fulphila), and pegfilgrastim with on-body injector (OBI; Neulasta Onpro) are options for CIN/FN prophylaxis. We aimed to simulate the cost-savings and budget-neutral expanded access to CIN/FN prophylaxis or anticancer treatment achieved through conversion from pegfilgrastim-OBI to pegfilgrastim-jmdb and to evaluate the economic impact of FN-related hospitalization costs due to pegfilgrastim-OBI failure. Read More

BMC Vet Res 2021 Apr 17;17(1):170. Epub 2021 Apr 17.

Departments of Veterinary Microbiology and Preventative Medicine (McDaniel) and Veterinary Diagnostic and Production Animal Medicine (Derscheid), College of Veterinary Medicine, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, 50011, USA.

Background: Mycoplasma bovis is an important pathogen of cattle worldwide. Many different clinical manifestations of infection can occur, including respiratory disease, arthritis, and mastitis, causing heavy losses to beef and dairy industries. Because Mycoplasma species are slow-growing and fastidious, traditional identification methods are not cost- or time-effective, and improved methods are sought to streamline laboratory processes. Read More

Int Orthop 2021 Apr 18. Epub 2021 Apr 18.

Trend Research Centre, Asia University, No. 500, Lioufeng Road, Wufeng, Taichung, 41354, Taiwan.

Background: Nonunion continues to be the most frequent and challenging complication to treat following fracture fixation. Herein, we carried out a bibliometric analysis aiming to identify the key researchers, centres and research trends developed during the past 30 years in this important clinical condition.

Methods: The Science Citation Index Expanded database and the Web of Science Core Collection were interrogated for manuscripts published between 1990 and 2019 in the topic domain, utilising title, abstract, author keywords and KeyWords Plus. Read More

J Public Health (Oxf) 2021 Apr 19. Epub 2021 Apr 19.

Non-communicable Diseases Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.

Background: Health costs have increased significantly around the world, and cost assessments have become important. This study aimed to collect cost of the resources used in the national hepatitis B immunization program in Southern Iran.

Methods: Costs were calculated by investigating the available documents as well as consulting with knowledgeable personnel. Read More

Emerg Med Clin North Am 2021 May 16;39(2):419-427. Epub 2021 Mar 16.

Maine Medical Center, 22 Bramhall Street, Portland, ME 04102, USA.

The rehab services of Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, and Speech Language Pathology (PT/OT/SLP) are areas of emerging practice in the emergency department (ED). These specialty consult services can provide ED physicians with valuable, nuanced assessments for the older adults that will assist in determining a safe discharge plan. PT and OT interventions in the ED have been shown to decrease hospital admissions and readmissions, increase patient satisfaction, and decrease cost. Read More

Am J Public Health 2021 Apr 15:e1-e7. Epub 2021 Apr 15.

Felix M. Muchomba is with the School of Social Work, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. Neeraj Kaushal is with the School of Social Work, Columbia University, New York, NY, and the National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA.

To estimate the effect of Medicaid expansion on noncitizens' and citizens' participation in the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) expanded Medicaid eligibility to cover low-income nonelderly adults without children, thus delinking their Medicaid participation from participation in the SSI program. Using data from the Social Security Administration for 2009 through 2018 (n = 1020 state-year observations) and the Current Population Survey for 2009 through 2019 (n = 78 776 respondents), we employed a difference-in-differences approach comparing SSI participation rates in US states that adopted Medicaid expansion with participation rates in nonexpansion states before and after ACA implementation. Read More

PLoS One 2021 14;16(4):e0249123. Epub 2021 Apr 14.

Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States of America.

Purpose: The Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite (EPIC) is the most commonly used patient reported outcome (PRO) tool in prostate cancer (PC) clinical trials, but health utilities associated with the different health states assessed with this tool are unknown, limiting our ability to perform cost-utility analyses. This study aimed to map EPIC tool to EuroQoL-5D-3L (EQ5D) to generate EQ5D health utilities.

Methods And Materials: This is a secondary analysis of a prospective, randomized non-inferiority clinical trial, conducted between 04/2006 and 12/2009 at cancer centers across the United States, Canada, and Switzerland. Read More

medRxiv 2021 Apr 10. Epub 2021 Apr 10.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized treatment of hospitalized COVID-19 patients with Convalescent Plasma (CCP) via the Expanded Access Program (EAP) and the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), leading to the use of CCP in some 500,000 patients during the first year of the pandemic. We tracked the number of CCP units dispensed to hospitals by blood banking organizations and correlated that usage with hospital admission and mortality data over the course of the year. CCP usage per admission peaked after issuance of the EUA, with more than 40% of inpatients estimated to have received CCP between late September and early November 2020. Read More

Soc Sci Med 2021 Mar 27;277:113875. Epub 2021 Mar 27.

Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom.

Financial barriers are a key limitation to accessing health services, such as tuberculosis (TB) care in resource-poor settings. In Ghana, the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), established in 2003, officially offers free TB care to those enrolled. Using data from the first Ghana's national TB patient cost survey, we address two key questions 1) what are the key determinants of costs and affordability for TB-affected households, and 2) what would be the impact on costs for TB-affected households of expanding NHIS to all TB patients? We reported the level of direct and indirect costs, the proportion of TB-affected households experiencing catastrophic costs (defined as total TB-related costs, i. Read More

Annu Rev Genomics Hum Genet 2021 Apr 13. Epub 2021 Apr 13.

Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva 8410501, Israel; email:

Since its introduction in 2011, noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) has spread rapidly around the world. It carries numerous benefits but also raises challenges, often related to sociocultural, legal, and economic contexts. This article describes the implementation of NIPT in nine countries, each with its own unique characteristics: Australia, Canada, China and Hong Kong, India, Israel, Lebanon, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Read More

Medicine (Baltimore) 2021 Apr;100(15):e25286

Health Economics and Epidemiology Research Office, Department of Internal Medicine, School of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand.

Abstract: To explore associations between self-reported ill-health as a primary motivator for HIV-testing and socio-demographic factors.Four local primary healthcare clinics in Johannesburg, South Africa.A total of 529 newly HIV diagnosed adults (≥18 years) enrolled from October 2017 to August 2018, participated in the survey on the same day of diagnosis. Read More

BMJ Open 2021 Apr 12;11(4):e047023. Epub 2021 Apr 12.

Department of Global Health, Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development, Amsterdam University Medical Centres, Duivendrecht, The Netherlands.

Objectives: To examine changes in the screening, diagnosis, treatment and management of drug-resistant tuberculosis (DRTB) patients, and investigate the impacts of DRTB-related policies on patients of different demographic and socioeconomic characteristics.

Design: A retrospective cohort study using registry data, plus a survey on DRTB-related policies.

Setting: All prefecture-level Centres for Disease Control in Zhejiang Province, China. Read More

J Cannabis Res 2021 Apr 12;3(1). Epub 2021 Apr 12.

Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, 182# Nanhu Avenue, East Lake High-tech Development Zone, Wuhan, 430073, People's Republic of China.

Background: Cannabis is one of humanity's oldest crops with several uses, from food to clothing and medicine. It remains one of the most controversial crops whose production, possession, and usage are regulated differently across jurisdictions. Academic research and advocacy have resulted in the redefinition of the legal status of cannabis in several countries. Read More

Int J Infect Dis 2021 Apr 7. Epub 2021 Apr 7.

Lamps and Canadian Centre for Disease Modelling (CCDM), Department of Mathematics and Statistics, York University, Toronto, ON, M3J 1P3, Canada. Electronic address:

Objectives: The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic expanded its geographic distribution through the movement of humans and caused subsequent local outbreaks. Hence, it is essential to investigate how human mobility and travel ban affect the transmission and spatial spread while minimizing the impact on social activities and national economics.

Methods: We developed a mobility network model for spatial epidemics, explicitly taking into account time-varying inter-province and inner-province population flows, spatial heterogeneity in terms of disease transmission, as well as the impact of media reports. Read More

PeerJ Comput Sci 2021 26;7:e454. Epub 2021 Mar 26.

School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering, Dankook University, Yongin, South Korea.

This article proposes a novel network model to achieve better accurate residual binarized convolutional neural networks (CNNs), denoted as AresB-Net. Even though residual CNNs enhance the classification accuracy of binarized neural networks with increasing feature resolution, the degraded classification accuracy is still the primary concern compared with real-valued residual CNNs. AresB-Net consists of novel basic blocks to amortize the severe error from the binarization, suggesting a well-balanced pyramid structure without downsampling convolution. Read More

J Pharm Bioallied Sci 2020 Nov 5;12(Suppl 2):S752-S757. Epub 2020 Nov 5.

Drug and Herbal Research Center, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Introduction: The appendage of "halal" to a product is not just a guarantee that the product is permitted for Muslims, but it has also become favorable lifestyle choice globally. However, the expansion of halal pharmaceutical market was hindered by lack of global halal standards for pharmaceutical ingredients and product integrity analytical methodology.

Objective: This work aimed to explore the possibility of using Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and chemometrics to develop multivariate models to authenticate the "halal-ity" of pharmaceutical excipients with controversial halal status (e. Read More

Nat Commun 2021 04 6;12(1):2066. Epub 2021 Apr 6.

Key Lab of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen, China.

Steel production is a difficult-to-mitigate sector that challenges climate mitigation commitments. Efforts for future decarbonization can benefit from understanding its progress to date. Here we report on greenhouse gas emissions from global steel production over the past century (1900-2015) by combining material flow analysis and life cycle assessment. Read More

Transl Behav Med 2021 Apr 5. Epub 2021 Apr 5.

Department of Economics and School of Social Work, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to rising morbidity, mortality, and social and economic disruption, likely impairing mental health. The purpose of this study was to track trends in mental health symptoms, use of services, and unmet need for services among U.S. Read More

AIDS 2021 05;35(6):911-919

Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases & Global Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA.

Objective: Sub-Saharan Africa faces twin epidemics of HIV and noncommunicable diseases including hypertension. Integrating hypertension care into chronic HIV care is a global priority, but cost estimates are lacking. In the SEARCH Study, we performed population-level HIV/hypertension testing, and offered integrated streamlined chronic care. Read More

Adv Pharmacol Pharm Sci 2021 16;2021:6640133. Epub 2021 Mar 16.

Department of Public Health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ambo University, Ambo, Ethiopia.

Background: Affordability is one of the key dimensions for access to essential medicines, and poor affordability impedes access to treatment in health facilities. The concept of affordability is associated with the issue of impoverishment and catastrophic expenditure. The provision of affordable and appropriate essential medicines is a vital component of a well-functioning health system. Read More