Epidemiology Commons^™

Cancer Incidence And Stage At Diagnosis Among People With Psychotic Disorders: Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis., Jared C Wootten, Joshua C Wiener, Phillip S Blanchette, Kelly K. Anderson

Epidemiology and Biostatistics Publications

Research regarding the incidence of cancer among people with psychotic disorders relative to the general population is equivocal, although the evidence suggests that they have more advanced stage cancer at diagnosis. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to examine the incidence and stage at diagnosis of cancer among people with, relative to those without, psychotic disorders. We searched the MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, and CINAHL databases. Articles were included if they reported the incidence and/or stage at diagnosis of cancer in people with psychotic disorders. Random effects meta-analyses were used to determine risk of cancer and odds of advanced stage …

Characterization And Determinant Factors Of Critical Illness And In-Hospital Mortality Of Covid-19 Patients: A Retrospective Cohort Of 1,792 Patients In Kenya, Isinta M. Elijah, Endawoke Amsalu, Xuening Jian, Mingyang Cao, Eric K. Mibei, Danvas O. Kerosi, Francis G. Mwatsahu, Wei Wang, Faith Onyangore, Youxin Wang

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Limited data is available on the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), critical illness rate, and in-hospital mortality in the African setting. This study investigates determinants of critical illness and in-hospital mortality among COVID-19 patients in Kenya. We conducted a retrospective cohort study at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) in Kenya. Multivariate logistic regression and Cox proportional hazard regression were employed to determine predictor factors for intensive care unit (ICU) admission and in-hospital mortality, respectively. In addition, the Kaplan-Meier model was used to compare the survival times using log-rank tests. As a result, 346 (19.3 %) COVID-19 patients were admitted to ICU, and …

Socioeconomic, Ethnocultural, Substance- And Cannabinoid-Related Epidemiology Of Down Syndrome Usa 1986–2016: Combined Geotemporospatial And Causal Inference Investigation, Albert Stuart Reece, Gary Kenneth Hulse

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Background: Down syndrome (DS) is the commonest of the congenital genetic defects whose incidence has been rising in recent years for unknown reasons. This study aims to assess the impact of substance and cannabinoid use on the DS Rate (DSR) and assess their possible causal involvement. Methods: An observational population-based epidemiological study 1986–2016 was performed utilizing geotemporospatial and causal inferential analysis. Participants included all patients diagnosed with DS and reported to state based registries with data obtained from National Birth Defects Prevention Network of Centers for Disease Control. Drug exposure data was from the National Survey of Drug Use and …

Socioeconomic And Comorbid Factors Affecting Mortality And Length Of Stay In Covid-19 Patients, Adam Delora, Ashlynn Mills, David Jacobson, Brendon Cornett, William F Peacock, Anita Datta, Shane P Jenks

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Background The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic exposed and exacerbated health disparities between socioeconomic groups. Our purpose was to determine if age, sex, race, insurance, and comorbidities predicted patients' length of stay (LOS) in the hospital and in-hospital mortality in patients diagnosed with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) during the early pandemic. Methods Utilizing retrospective, secondarily sourced electronic health record (EHR) data for patients who tested positive for COVID-19 from HCA Healthcare facilities, predictors of LOS and in-hospital mortality were assessed using regression. LOS and in-hospital mortality were assessed using logistic regression and negative binomial regression, respectively. All …

Novel Dietary Index For Gut Microbiota And Associations With Colorectal Cancer And Breast Cancer Risk, Bezawit Eyob Kase

Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: Diet serves as a driving force for shaping the gut microbiome. Understanding how diet may modify gut microbiota and subsequently may be associated with chronic disease is critical to public health prevention efforts. Aims: We aimed to develop a novel dietary index that captures the quality of diet with respect to attaining beneficial composition and function of gut microbiota. We then examined the relationship between the dietary index and two gut microbiota-related cancers, i.e., colorectal and breast cancers.

Methods: We conducted a systematic review of studies that examined the effect of foods on gut microbiota in adult populations. Dietary …

The Ubiquitin-Proteasome System Is Necessary For Long-Term Synaptic Depression In Aplysia, Jennifer S Love, Dana L Karshenas, Meghan B Spyres, Lynn A Farrugia, A Min Kang, Hoanvu Nguyen, Sharan L Campleman, Shao Li, Paul M Wax, Jeffery Brent, Kim Aldy, Toxicology Investigators Consortium Study Group

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The Toxicology Investigators Consortium (ToxIC) Core Registry was established by the American College of Medical Toxicology in 2010. The Core Registry collects data from participating sites with the agreement that all bedside and telehealth medical toxicology consultations will be entered. This twelfth annual report summarizes the registry's 2021 data and activity with its additional 8552 cases. Cases were identified for inclusion in this report by a query of the ToxIC database for any case entered from January 1 to December 31, 2021. Detailed data was collected from these cases and aggregated to provide information, which included demographics, reason for medical …

Monkeypox: What Do Dental Professionals Need To Know?, Charifa Zemouri, Edgar O Beltrán, Richard Holliday, Nicholas S Jakubovics, James R Allison

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Infection control is critical for the safe delivery of dental care. Infection control practices must be responsive to emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases and outbreaks, as was clearly seen during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. An emerging global outbreak of the monkeypox virus has again raised potential challenges for infection control in dentistry. Monkeypox is an infectious disease, characterised by a rash affecting the skin and soft tissues, including the oral cavity. Previously, cases were mostly seen following contact with infected animals in Central and West Africa, with limited human-to-human transmission within and outside of these areas. However, since …

The Impact Of Intraoperative Glucagon On The Diagnostic Accuracy Of Intraoperative Cholangiogram For The Diagnosis Of Choledocholithiasis: Experience From A Large Tertiary Care Center, Artem Boyev, Srinivas Sanjeevi, Martha M Estrada, Tien C Ko, Curtis J Wray

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

INTRODUCTION: In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals reported decreased admissions for acute surgical diagnoses, but scant data was available to quantify the decrease and its consequences. The objective of this study was to examine the incidence of acute care surgery encounters before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: A retrospective cohort study was performed at a single, urban, United States safety-net hospital. Emergency room encounters, admissions, non-elective surgical procedures, patient acuity, and surgical complications were compared before and after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The primary outcome of the study was the incidence rate (IR) and …

A Case Study Investigating Perceptions Of The Covid-19 Vaccine In Cato Manor And Chesterville, Caitlin Chan

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Despite countries all over the world transitioning to life post COVID-19, there are still many aspects of the pandemic that remain controversial and hot topics of debate. Perhaps among one of the most debated subjects is the question of whether vaccinations are necessary and if they truly had an impact on eliminating the virus. The concept of vaccine hesitancy has become a growing concern and threatens the health of communities around the world.

This project employed a mixed-methodology research design to investigate attitudes towards the COVID-19 vaccine constructed by community members living in the townships of Cato Manor and Chesterville. …

From World War Ii To Covid-19: A Historical Perspective On The American Medical Supply Chain, Hunter D Bechtold, Andrea T Cruz, Brent D Kaziny

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

COVID-19 is the latest episode of shortages of critical medical supplies. Historically and to the present day, medical supplies have been sourced from single regions in the world, thus rendering the supply chain vulnerable to a myriad of harmful circumstances. We argue that shortages in medications related and unrelated to COVID have illustrated the need for the United States to diversify its medical supply sources before future pandemics, political crises, or natural disasters occur.

Covid Community-Engaged Testing In Alabama: Reaching Underserved Rural Populations Through Collaboration, Christopher Greer Mccollum, Thomas N Creger, Aadia I Rana, Lynn T Matthews, Stefan D Baral, Greer A Burkholder, William A Curry, Latesha Elopre, Faith E Fletcher, Sydney Grooms, Emily B Levitan, Max Michael, Barbara Van Der Pol, Michael J Mugavero

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Rural communities are often underserved by public health testing initiatives in Alabama. As part of the National Institutes of Health's Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics‒Underserved Populations initiative, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, along with community partners, sought to address this inequity in COVID-19 testing. We describe the participatory assessment, selection, and implementation phases of this project, which administered more than 23 000 COVID-19 tests throughout the state, including nearly 4000 tests among incarcerated populations. (

Probing Mechanisms Of Binding And Allostery In The Sars-Cov-2 Spike Omicron Variant Complexes With The Host Receptor: Revealing Functional Roles Of The Binding Hotspots In Mediating Epistatic Effects And Communication With Allosteric Pockets, Gennady M. Verkhivker, Steve Agajanian, Ryan Kassab, Keerthi Krishnan

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

In this study, we performed all-atom MD simulations of RBD–ACE2 complexes for BA.1, BA.1.1, BA.2, and BA.3 Omicron subvariants, conducted a systematic mutational scanning of the RBD–ACE2 binding interfaces and analysis of electrostatic effects. The binding free energy computations of the Omicron RBD–ACE2 complexes and comprehensive examination of the electrostatic interactions quantify the driving forces of binding and provide new insights into energetic mechanisms underlying evolutionary differences between Omicron variants. A systematic mutational scanning of the RBD residues determines the protein stability centers and binding energy hotpots in the Omicron RBD–ACE2 complexes. By employing the ensemble-based global network analysis, we …

Transmission Roles Of Symptomatic And Asymptomatic Covid-19 Cases: A Modelling Study, Jianbin Tan, Yang Ge, Leonardo Martinez, Jimin Sun, Changwei Li, Adrianna Westbrook, Enfu Chen, Jinren Pan, Yang Li, Wei Cheng, Feng Ling, Zhinping Chen, Ye Shen, Hui Huang

Faculty Publications

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) asymptomatic cases are hard to identify, impeding transmissibility estimation. The value of COVID-19 transmissibility is worth further elucidation for key assumptions in further modelling studies. Through a population-based surveillance network, we collected data on 1342 confirmed cases with a 90-days follow-up for all asymptomatic cases. An age-stratified compartmental model containing contact information was built to estimate the transmissibility of symptomatic and asymptomatic COVID-19 cases. The difference in transmissibility of a symptomatic and asymptomatic case depended on age and was most distinct for the middle-age groups. The asymptomatic cases had a 66.7% lower transmissibility rate than symptomatic …

Do You Know The Pathophysiology Of Cytokine Storm During Covid-19?, Shameera Shaik Masthan, Deekshitha Turaka, Ahmed Abdelhaleem, Mounica Vorla, Steven B. Lippmann

The University of Louisville Journal of Respiratory Infections

No abstract provided.

Dietary Inflammatory Index And Mortality From All Causes, Cardiovascular Disease, And Cancer: A Prospective Study, Zhen Lin, Yanfei Feng, Nitin Shivappa Mbbs, Mph, Ph.D., James R. Hébert Scd, Xin Xu

Faculty Publications

The Energy-adjusted Dietary Inflammatory Index (E-DIITM) is a comprehensive, literature-derived index for assessing the effect of dietary constituents on inflammatory biomarkers and inflammation-related chronic diseases. Several studies have examined the association between E-DII scores and mortality, with results that vary across populations. Therefore, in the present study, we aimed to investigate the potential association between E-DII scores and all-cause, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and cancer mortality using data from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian (PLCO) Screening Trial. E-DII scores, calculated based on a food-frequency questionnaire, were analyzed both as a continuous variable and after categorization into quintiles. A multivariate Cox …

Availability Of Hospital-Based Cancer Services Before And After Rural Hospital Closure, 2008-2017, Whitney Zahnd Ph.D., Peiyin Hung Ph.D., Sylvia Kewei Shi, Anja Zgodic, Melinda A. Merrell Ph.D., Elizabeth L. Crouch, Janice C. Probst, Jan Eberth Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

Introduction

Rural populations have less access to cancer care services and experience higher cancer mortality rates than their urban counterparts, which may be exacerbated by hospital closures. Our objective was to examine the impact of hospital closures on access to cancer-relevant hospital services across hospital service areas (HSAs).

Methods

We used American Hospital Association survey data from 2008 to 2017 to examine the change in access to cancer-related screening and treatment services across rural HSAs that sustained hospitals over time, experienced any closures, or had all hospitals close. We performed a longitudinal analysis to assess the association between hospital closure …

A Novel Approach To Assessment Of Us Pediatric Trauma System Development., Mary E. Fallat, Colin Traeger, Sophie Humphrey, Lindsey Gumer, Kahir Jawad, Elissa Butler, Frederick B. Rogers, Frederick P. Rivara, Amelia T. Collings

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Importance Mature trauma systems are critical in building and maintaining national, state, and local resilience against all-hazard disasters. Currently, pediatric state trauma system plans are not standardized and thus are without concrete measures of potential effectiveness.

Objective To develop objective measures of pediatric trauma system capability at the state level, hypothesizing significant variation in capabilities between states, and to provide a contemporary report on the status of national pediatric trauma system planning and development.

Design, Setting, and Participants A national survey was deployed in 2018 to perform a gap analysis of state pediatric trauma system capabilities. Four officials from each …

Omicron Variants Of The Sars-Cov-2: A Potentially Significant Threat In A New Wave Of Infections, Lukasz Szarpak, Michal Pruc, Alla Navolokina, Kavita Batra, Francesco Chirico, Charles De Roquetaillade

School of Medicine Faculty Research

From the beginning, the COVID-19 pandemic turned out to be a huge challenge and burden for medical services [1]. Currently, humanity is dealing with a new wave of the virus that has evolved and presents a new challenge, mainly due to its ability to avoid immune surveillance. Indeed, our main line of defense — vaccines — may be compromised. Omicron variants are characterized by an evolutionary force unprecedented so far. Among the several sublines that have already emerged, the BA.5 strain exhibit higher transmissibility and demonstrates a worrisome immune evasion. According to several laboratory investigations, vaccination-induced antibodies are less successful …

Veterans’ Ambulatory Care Experience During Covid-19: Veterans’ Access To And Satisfaction With Primary Care Early In The Pandemic, Brice Thomas, Aanchal Thadani, Patricia V Chen, Israel C Christie, Lisa M Kern, Mangala Rajan, Himabindu Kadiyala, Drew A Helmer

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread changes to healthcare, but few studies focus on ambulatory care during the early phase of the pandemic. We characterize veterans' ambulatory care experience, specifically access and satisfaction, early in the pandemic.

METHODS: We employed a semi-structured telephone interview to capture quantitative and qualitative data from patients scheduled with a primary care provider between March 1 - June 30, 2020. Forty veterans were randomly identified at a single large urban Veterans Health Administration (VHA) medical center. The interview guide utilized 56 closed and open-ended questions to characterize veterans' perceptions of access to and satisfaction with …

A Cross-Sectional Examination Of The Early-Onset Hypertensive Disorders Of Pregnancy And Industrial Emissions Of Toxic Metals Using Kentucky Birth Records, 2008–2017, Courtney J. Walker, W. Jay Christian, Anna M. Kucharska-Newton, Steven R. Browning

Epidemiology and Environmental Health Faculty Publications

This cross-sectional study assessed geospatial patterns of early-onset hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (eHDP) in primiparous mothers and exposure to industrial emissions using geocoded residential information from Kentucky live (N = 210,804) and still (N = 1,247) birth records (2008–2017) and census block group estimates of aerosol concentrations of arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), lead (Pb), mercury (Hg), selenium (Se), and zinc (Zi) from the Risk Screening Environmental Indicators (RSEI) model. A latent class analysis allowed for the identification of four district exposure classes—As, Cd, and Pb (12.6%); Se and Zi (21.4%); Pb and Cr (8%); and low or no …