Gun violence has shortened the average life expectancy of Americans, and better knowledge about the root causes of gun violence is crucial to its prevention. While some empirical evidence exists ...regarding the impacts of social and economic factors on violence and firearm homicide rates, to the author's knowledge, there has yet to be a comprehensive and comparative lagged, multilevel investigation of major social determinants of health in relation to firearm homicides and mass shootings.
This study used negative binomial regression models and geolocated gun homicide incident data from January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2015, to explore and compare the independent associations of key state-, county-, and neighborhood-level social determinants of health-social mobility, social capital, income inequality, racial and economic segregation, and social spending-with neighborhood firearm-related homicides and mass shootings in the United States, accounting for relevant state firearm laws and a variety of state, county, and neighborhood (census tract CT) characteristics. Latitude and longitude coordinates on firearm-related deaths were previously collected by the Gun Violence Archive, and then linked by the British newspaper The Guardian to CTs according to 2010 Census geographies. The study population consisted of all 74,134 CTs as defined for the 2010 Census in the 48 states of the contiguous US. The final sample spanned 70,579 CTs, containing an estimated 314,247,908 individuals, or 98% of the total US population in 2015. The analyses were based on 13,060 firearm-related deaths in 2015, with 11,244 non-mass shootings taking place in 8,673 CTs and 141 mass shootings occurring in 138 CTs. For area-level social determinants, lag periods of 3 to 17 years were examined based on existing theory, empirical evidence, and data availability. County-level institutional social capital (levels of trust in institutions), social mobility, income inequality, and public welfare spending exhibited robust relationships with CT-level gun homicide rates and the total numbers of combined non-mass and mass shooting homicide incidents and non-mass shooting homicide incidents alone. A 1-standard deviation (SD) increase in institutional social capital was linked to a 19% reduction in the homicide rate (incidence rate ratio IRR = 0.81, 95% CI 0.73-0.91, p < 0.001) and a 17% decrease in the number of firearm homicide incidents (IRR = 0.83, 95% CI 0.73-0.95, p = 0.01). Upward social mobility was related to a 25% reduction in the gun homicide rate (IRR = 0.75, 95% CI 0.66-0.86, p < 0.001) and a 24% decrease in the number of homicide incidents (IRR = 0.76, 95% CI 0.67-0.87, p < 0.001). Meanwhile, 1-SD increases in the neighborhood percentages of residents in poverty and males living alone were associated with 26%-27% and 12% higher homicide rates, respectively. Study limitations include possible residual confounding by factors at the individual/household level, and lack of disaggregation of gun homicide data by gender and race/ethnicity.
This study finds that the rich-poor gap, level of citizens' trust in institutions, economic opportunity, and public welfare spending are all related to firearm homicide rates in the US. Further establishing the causal nature of these associations and modifying these social determinants may help to address the growing gun violence epidemic and reverse recent life expectancy declines among Americans.
While social assistance through the U.S. federal CARES Act provided expanded unemployment insurance benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic until the summer of 2020, it is unclear whether social ...assistance was sufficient in subsequent months to meet everyday spending needs and to curb the adverse health-related sequelae of financial hardship.
Using multivariable Poisson log-binomial regression and repeated cross-sectional Household Pulse Survey data between September and December 2020 on 91,222 working-aged U.S. adults and 28,842 adult housing renters, this study explored the associations of financial hardship with mental health outcomes and food and housing insecurity after accounting for receipt of social assistance.
Financial hardship rose progressively from September to December 2020, and disproportionately affected Black non-Hispanic and Hispanic Americans and lower-income households. Experiencing considerable financial hardship (vs no hardship) predicted nearly 3-fold higher risks of anxiety and depressive symptoms (e.g., adjusted prevalence ratio, PR of depression = 2.75, 95% CI = 2.54–2.98, P < .001), a 23-fold higher risk of food insufficiency (PR = 22.71, 95% CI = 15.62–33.01, P < .001), and a 27-fold higher risk of a likely eviction (PR = 27.20, 95% CI = 10.63–69.59, P < .001). Across outcomes, these relationships were stronger at each successively higher level of financial hardship (all P values for linear trend <0.001), and more than offset benefits from social assistance.
Even after accounting for social assistance receipt, working-aged adults experiencing financial hardship had markedly greater risks of anxiety and depressive symptoms, food insufficiency, and an anticipated housing eviction. These findings point to the urgent need for direct and sustained cash relief well in excess of current levels of social assistance to mitigate the pandemic's adverse impacts on the well-being of millions of Americans, including vulnerable minority and low-income populations.
Abstract Objective To investigate government state and local spending on public goods and income inequality as predictors of the risks of dying. Methods Data on 431,637 adults aged 30–74 and 375,354 ...adults aged 20–44 in the 48 contiguous US states were used from the National Longitudinal Mortality Study to estimate the impacts of state and local spending and income inequality on individual risks of all-cause and cause-specific mortality for leading causes of death in younger and middle-aged adults and older adults. To reduce bias, models incorporated state fixed effects and instrumental variables. Results Each additional $250 per capita per year spent on welfare predicted a 3-percentage point (− 0.031, 95% CI: − 0.059, − 0.0027) lower probability of dying from any cause. Each additional $250 per capita spent on welfare and education predicted 1.6-percentage point (− 0.016, 95% CI: − 0.031, − 0.0011) and 0.8-percentage point (− 0.008, 95% CI: − 0.0156, − 0.00024) lower probabilities of dying from coronary heart disease (CHD), respectively. No associations were found for colon cancer or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; for diabetes, external injury, and suicide, estimates were inverse but modest in magnitude. A 0.1 higher Gini coefficient (higher income inequality) predicted 1-percentage point (0.010, 95% CI: 0.0026, 0.0180) and 0.2-percentage point (0.002, 95% CI: 0.001, 0.002) higher probabilities of dying from CHD and suicide, respectively. Conclusions Empirical linkages were identified between state-level spending on welfare and education and lower individual risks of dying, particularly from CHD and all causes combined. State-level income inequality predicted higher risks of dying from CHD and suicide.
To date, there has been limited data available to understand the associations between race/ethnicity and socioeconomic and related characteristics with novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) ...vaccination in the United States. I leveraged the large, nationally-representative cross-sectional surveys of the U.S. Household Pulse Survey between January and March 2021 with relatively complete race/ethnicity and socioeconomic data to examine national trends in levels of COVID-19 vaccine initiation and intention in adults aged 18–85 years. I further estimated the multivariable associations between race/ethnicity, education, income, and financial hardship with the adjusted prevalence odds ratios of: 1) receipt of ≥1 COVID-19 vaccine dose; and 2) among those unvaccinated, the definite intention to receive a vaccine. I observed persistent disparities in vaccine initiation for non-Hispanic Blacks, Hispanics, and non-Hispanic multiracial/other race persons, and vaccine intention for Blacks and multiracial/other race persons, compared to non-Hispanic Whites and Asians. In late March 2021, the prevalence estimates of Hispanics and Blacks receiving a vaccine were 12-percentage points and 8-percentage points lower than for Whites, respectively. Education and income exhibited dose–response relationships with vaccine initiation (P for trend ≤0.01 and <0.001, respectively). Substantial financial hardship was linked to 35–44% lower adjusted odds of vaccination (P<.001). In this large, nationally-representative study, I found persistent racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in vaccine initiation and intention, more than three months after COVID-19 vaccines first became available. Addressing these persistent racial/ethnic and socioeconomic inequities in vaccination is essential to mitigate the pandemic's higher risks of infection and adverse health outcomes in Hispanic, Black, and socioeconomically-disadvantaged communities.
This study examined students' feedback engagement and assessment experiences in a higher education teacher programme with the Assessment Experience Questionnaire (n = 182) and individual interviews ...(n = 14). The results suggested that quantity of effort and feedback quality were the most important predictors of variance in students' use of feedback. Feedback quality was a stronger predictor for female students' use of feedback compared to male students. Feedback quantity partially mediated the relationship between use of feedback and feedback quality for all students. The interviewed students emphasised that feedback had to be comprehensible, process-oriented, and dialogic to be used. On the contrary, feedback barriers were considered to occur when feedback was negative, incomprehensible, contradictory, or lacked relevance. Maladaptive feedback agency was reported to be exercised by students when teacher-student relationships were affected by mistrust, negativity, or disagreements. The results indicated a summative assessment culture with some formative traits.
•Exosomes have been identified to hold exceptional value in clinical diagnostics and tumor therapy.•A short overview of conventional methods of exosome isolation is summarized.•The recent ...advancements of microfluidic strategy for exosomes isolation and detection are overviewed.•A brief overview of exosome-based drug delivery for tumor therapy is provided.•The current challenges and outlook of these fields are assessed.
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Exosomes are a class of cell-secreted, nano-sized extracellular vesicles with a bilayer membrane structure of 30–150 nm in diameter. Their discovery and application have brought breakthroughs in numerous areas, such as liquid biopsies, cancer biology, drug delivery, immunotherapy, tissue repair, and cardiovascular diseases. Isolation of exosomes is the first step in exosome-related research and its applications. Standard benchtop exosome separation and sensing techniques are tedious and challenging, as they require large sample volumes, multi-step operations that are complex and time-consuming, requiring cumbersome and expensive instruments. In contrast, microfluidic platforms have the potential to overcome some of these limitations, owing to their high-precision processing, ability to handle liquids at a microscale, and integrability with various functional units, such as mixers, actuators, reactors, separators, and sensors. These platforms can optimize the detection process on a single device, representing a robust and versatile technique for exosome separation and sensing to attain high purity and high recovery rates with a short processing time. Herein, we overview microfluidic strategies for exosome isolation based on their hydrodynamic properties, size filtration, acoustic fields, immunoaffinity, and dielectrophoretic properties. We focus especially on advances in label-free isolation of exosomes with active biological properties and intact morphological structures. Further, we introduce microfluidic techniques for the detection of exosomal proteins and RNAs with high sensitivity, high specificity, and low detection limits. We summarize the biomedical applications of exosome-mediated therapeutic delivery targeting cancer cells. To highlight the advantages of microfluidic platforms, conventional techniques are included for comparison. Future challenges and prospects of microfluidics towards exosome isolation applications are also discussed. Although the use of exosomes in clinical applications still faces biological, technical, regulatory, and market challenges, in the foreseeable future, recent developments in microfluidic technologies are expected to pave the way for tailoring exosome-related applications in precision medicine.
Social Capital and Health Kawachi, Ichiro; Subramanian, S. V; Kim, Daniel
2007, 2008, 2007-11-15, 20080401
eBook
This text discusses social capital, a concept that originated in the social sciences, & its application to the field of public health. The editors take care to define the concept of social capital, ...describe its theoretical origins, & discuss the controversies & debates surrounding the use of the concept in public health research.
DNA accessibility has been a powerful tool in locating active regulatory elements in a cell type, but dissecting the combinatorial logic within these regulatory elements has been a continued ...challenge in the field. Deep learning models have been shown to be highly predictive models of regulatory DNA and have led to new biological insights on regulatory syntax and logic. Here, we provide a framework for deep learning in genomics that implements best practices and focuses on ease of use, versatility, and compatibility with existing tools for inference on DNA sequence.
ATAC-seq Data Processing Kim, Daniel S
Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.),
2023, Letnik:
2611
Journal Article
ATAC-seq (Assay for Transposase-Accessible Chromatin using sequencing) has gained wide popularity as a fast, straightforward, and efficient way of generating genome-wide maps of open chromatin and ...guiding identification of active regulatory elements and inference of DNA protein binding locations. Given the ubiquity of this method, uniform and standardized methods for processing and assessing the quality of ATAC-seq datasets are needed. Here, we describe the data processing pipeline used by the ENCODE (Encyclopedia of DNA Elements) consortium to process ATAC-seq data into peak call sets and signal tracks and to assess the quality of these datasets.
Infant mortality (IM) and birth outcomes, key population health indicators, have lifelong implications for individuals, and are unequally distributed globally. Even among western industrialized ...nations, striking cross-country and within-country patterns are evident. We sought to better understand these variations across and within the United States of America (USA) and Western Europe (WE), by conceptualizing a social determinants of IM/birth outcomes framework, and systematically reviewing the empirical literature on hypothesized social determinants (e.g., social policies, neighbourhood deprivation, individual socioeconomic status (SES)) and intermediary determinants (e.g., health behaviours). To date, the evidence suggests that income inequality and social policies (e.g., maternal leave policies) may help to explain cross-country variations in IM/birth outcomes. Within countries, the evidence also supports neighbourhood SES (USA, WE) and income inequality (USA) as social determinants. By contrast, within-country social cohesion/social capital has been underexplored. At the individual level, mixed associations have been found between individual SES, race/ethnicity, and selected intermediary factors (e.g., psychosocial factors) with IM/birth outcomes. Meanwhile, this review identifies several methodological gaps, including the underuse of prospective designs and the presence of residual confounding in a number of studies. Ultimately, addressing such gaps including through novel approaches to strengthen causal inference and implementing both health and non-health policies may reduce inequities in IM/birth outcomes across the western developed world.
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