Preventive medicine
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Preventive medicine · Dec 2022
National support for gun policies among U.S. adults in 2019 and 2021.
Gun-related deaths and gun purchases were at record highs in 2020. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, public protests against police violence, and a tense political environment, which may influence policy preferences, we aimed to understand the current state of support for gun policies in the U. S. ⋯ Support for seven restrictive policies declined from 2019 to 2021, driven by reduced support among non-gun owners. Support declined for three permissive policies: allowing legal gun carriers to bring guns onto college campuses or K-12 schools and stand your ground laws. Public support for gun-related policies decreased from 2019 to 2021, driven by decreased support among Republicans and non-gun owners.
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Preventive medicine · Dec 2022
Intersections between environmental reward availability, loss aversion, and delay discounting as potential risk factors for cigarette smoking and other substance use.
Behavioral theory suggests that density of environmental rewarding activities and biases in decision making influence risk for substance use disorder (SUD). To better understand intersections of these potential risk factors, this study examined whether environmental reward predicted smoking status or other drug use and whether such associations were independent of two decision-making biases known to predict SUD risk, namely loss aversion and delay discounting. Individuals that reported current daily cigarette smoking (n = 186; >10 cigarettes/day) and never-smoking (n = 241; <100 cigarettes lifetime) were recruited with standard crowdsourcing methods. ⋯ We saw no evidence that RPI was significantly influencing associations between LA and DD with smoking status or other substance use. Finally, RPI, but not LA or DD, was significantly associated with depressed mood and sleep disturbance. These results provide new evidence on associations of RPI with smoking status and other substance use while further documenting independent associations between LA and DD and those outcomes.
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Gun violence is frequently described in the language of epidemics. Yet, few quantitative studies have generated convincing evidence on the most basic question underlying the epidemic model of violence: Does violence at time t beget violence at time t + 1? With a sample of 98 of the 100 largest U. S. cities from 2014 to 2020, we employ an instrumental variable approach developed in (Jacob et al., 2007) that uses weather conditions in a given week to instrument for shootings in the same week. ⋯ However, in years when cities went through sharp increases in gun violence, the prevalence of shootings in a given week has a strong, positive, causal effect on shootings in the following week. These results suggest that the relationship between current and subsequent violence is not static, but varies across different places and time periods. The results have implications for understanding how violence builds on itself during periods of sharp change.
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Preventive medicine · Dec 2022
Meta AnalysisLonger-term use of electronic cigarettes when provided as a stop smoking aid: Systematic review with meta-analyses.
Moderate certainty evidence supports use of nicotine electronic cigarettes to quit smoking combustible cigarettes. However, there is less certainty regarding how long people continue to use e-cigarettes after smoking cessation attempts. We set out to synthesise data on the proportion of people still using e-cigarettes or other study products at 6 months or longer in studies of e-cigarettes for smoking cessation. ⋯ More people were using nicotine e-cigarettes at longest follow-up compared to non-nicotine e-cigarettes, but CIs included no difference (risk ratio 1.15, 95% CI: 0.94 to 1.41, n = 601). The levels of continued e-cigarette use observed may reflect the success of e-cigarettes as a quitting tool. Further research is needed to establish drivers of variation in and implications of continued use of e-cigarettes.