PLoS medicine
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Review
Achieving global mortality reduction targets and universal health coverage: The impact of COVID-19.
Wenhui Mao and coauthors discuss possible implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for health aspirations in low- and middle-income countries.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Effectiveness of Group Problem Management Plus, a brief psychological intervention for adults affected by humanitarian disasters in Nepal: A cluster randomized controlled trial.
Globally, 235 million people are impacted by humanitarian emergencies worldwide, presenting increased risk of experiencing a mental disorder. Our objective was to test the effectiveness of a brief group psychological treatment delivered by trained facilitators without prior professional mental health training in a disaster-prone setting. ⋯ In this study, we found that a 5-session group psychological treatment delivered by nonspecialists modestly reduced psychological distress and depression symptoms in a setting prone to humanitarian emergencies. Benefits were partly explained by the degree of psychosocial skill use in daily life. To improve the treatment benefit, future implementation should focus on approaches to enhance skill use by PM+ participants.
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Comparative Study Observational Study
Resistance exercise, alone and in combination with aerobic exercise, and obesity in Dallas, Texas, US: A prospective cohort study.
Obesity is a significant and growing public health problem in high-income countries. Little is known about the relationship between resistance exercise (RE), alone and in combination with aerobic exercise (AE), and the risk of developing obesity. The purpose of this prospective cohort study was to examine the associations between different amounts and frequencies of RE, independent of AE, and incident obesity. ⋯ In this study, we observed that RE was associated with a significantly reduced risk of obesity even after considering AE. However, meeting both the RE and AE guidelines was associated with the lowest risk of obesity.
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Observational Study
Association between industry payments and prescriptions of long-acting insulin: An observational study with propensity score matching.
The rapidly increased spending on insulin is a major public health issue in the United States. Industry marketing might be one of the upstream determinants of physicians' prescription of long-acting insulin-the most commonly used and costly type of insulin, but the evidence is lacking. We therefore aimed to investigate the association between industry payments to physicians and subsequent prescriptions of long-acting insulin. ⋯ Industry marketing payments to physicians for long-acting insulin were associated with the physicians' prescriptions and costs of long-acting insulin in the subsequent year. Future research is needed to assess whether policy interventions on physician-industry financial relationships will help to ensure appropriate prescriptions and limit overall costs of this essential drug for diabetes care.
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Cervical cancer elimination through human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination programs requires the attainment of herd effect. Due to its uniquely high basic reproduction number, the vaccination coverage required to achieve herd effect against HPV type 16 exceeds what is attainable in most populations. We have compared how gender-neutral and girls-only vaccination strategies create herd effect against HPV16 under moderate vaccination coverage achieved in a population-based, community-randomized trial. ⋯ In this study we only observed herd effect against HPV16/18 after gender-neutral vaccination with moderate vaccination coverage. With only moderate vaccination coverage, a gender-neutral vaccination strategy can facilitate the control of even HPV16. Our findings may have limited transportability to other vaccination coverage levels.