Preventive medicine
-
This study sought to examine public support for gun carrying-related policies from 2019 to 2021, a period encompassing the COVID-19 pandemic and increasing calls for racial and social justice. We conducted the National Survey of Gun Policy in January 2019 and 2021. The surveys were fielded using the NORC AmeriSpeak panel. ⋯ Support remains high among U. S. adults, including the two-thirds of gun owners, for requiring concealed carry applicants to demonstrate competence in safe and lawful gun use. Our findings in support of a more regulated approach to concealed carry are in direct contrast to state-level shifts eliminating concealed gun carrying regulations.
-
Preventive medicine · Jun 2022
Racial/ethnic inequalities in cervical cancer screening in the United States: An outcome reclassification to better inform interventions and benchmarks.
In the United states (U. S.), prevailing understanding suggests significant racial/ethnic inequalities in cervical cancer screening exist. However, recent findings elsewhere in North America indicate the magnitude of these inequalities depend on the way screening is defined: lifetime screening versus up-to-date screening. ⋯ However, among women who had been screened at least once in their lifetime, an inverse association was observed between being a member of a racial/ethnic minority group and not being up-to-date with screening (e.g. PRasian vs white = 0.7, 95% CI = 0.6-0.9). Physicians and public health institutions concerned with monitoring racial/ethnic inequalities should consider adding lifetime screening as a primary benchmark, as this outcome implies different intervention targets to address inequalities and the differential burden of cervical cancer.
-
Preventive medicine · Jun 2022
Differential trends in US suicide rates, 1999-2020: Emerging racial and ethnic disparities.
Suicide is an important cause of mortality in the United States. This study aimed to examine US suicide trends by race and ethnicity from 1999 to 2020. Publicly available de-identified data were extracted from the CDC's Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research. ⋯ Based on suicide mechanism, recent trends have increased by firearm (APC = 1.7; 95% CI: 1.5, 2.0) and suffocation (APC = 3.8; 95% CI: 3.5, 4.1), decreased by drug poisoning (APC = -2.9; 95% CI: -3.9, -1.9), and stabilized by non-drug poisoning (APC = 0.6; 95% CI: -2.4, 3.7). Racial and ethnic disparities exist in suicide trends in the United States. Further research to identify individual and contextual factors for the differences may guide effective public health intervention efforts.
-
Preventive medicine · Jun 2022
Associations between illicit drug use in early adulthood and mortality: Findings from a National Birth Cohort.
Illicit drug use is known to be associated with premature mortality. Whether exposure to socioeconomic disadvantage and mental health problems in childhood help to explain this association, is unclear. We analysed data from 11,250 participants in the 1970 British Birth Cohort study. ⋯ There was, however, very little change in these associations when exposure to childhood socioeconomic disadvantage (% change in hazard ratios [HR] 0-10%) or mental health problems (0.4-11.9%) were added to the sex-adjusted model. Adding exposure to socioeconomic disadvantage (0.8-38.9%) and mental health problems (31.7-74.1%) in adulthood to the sex-adjusted model resulted in marked attenuation in HRs for all drugs. These findings imply that interventions which provide opportunities for education, employment and access to effective mental health treatments in early adulthood may help to reduce mortality among drug users.
-
Preventive medicine · Jun 2022
Disparities in high schools' vaccination coverage (COVID-19). A natural experiment in the Province of Quebec.
Teenagers' vaccination has become crucial to limit the COVID-19 transmission in the population. To increase the vaccination rate of this age group, a school-based vaccination campaign was launched in Québec, Canada from June 7 to 18, 2021. This study aimed to analyze trajectories of vaccination coverage over time among students attending 37 high schools. ⋯ Similar trends were observed for the second dose, although between schools' inequality at the end of the period of observation was significantly larger. The school-based vaccination campaign might have initially contributed to a prompt rise in vaccination coverage and helped the disadvantaged schools to reach similar vaccination coverage as seen in other schools. In addition to being an efficient way to achieve rapidly high vaccination coverage, the school-based approach might contribute to increase equity in vaccination distribution.