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Introduction: Effective management of hypertension (HTN) is a priority in primary care. With telehealth now considered a staple care delivery method, uninsured and low-income patients without home blood pressure (BP) monitors may need additional attention and resources to achieve successful HTN control., Methods: This prospective study at an underserved community clinic assessed the impact of distributing free BP monitors on patients' HTN control and therapy adherence. Enrollees were randomized into 2 groups, both completing 4 primary care physician (PCP) visits over a 6-month study period. Intervention participants collected home BP readings to report to their PCP and comparison participants completed an equivalent number of visits without having home BP data available for their PCP to review. Both groups completed an initial and final Therapy Adherence Scale (TAS) questionnaire., Results: 263 patients were invited and 200 participants (mean age 50, 60% female, 19% Black, 67% Hispanic) completed the study. Intervention and comparison subjects featured comparable initial BP levels and TAS scores. After adjusting for age, race, ethnicity, sex, presence of diabetes and therapy adherence, intervention participants experienced higher odds of controlled HTN (OR 4.0; 95% Confidence Interval 2.1 to 7.7). A greater proportion of participants achieved BP control in the intervention arm compared with the comparison arm (82% vs 54% of participants, P < .001 ). TAS scores were higher in the intervention group (Mean = 44.1 vs 41.1; P < .001 )., Discussion: The provision of free home BP monitors to low-income patients may feasibly and effectively improve BP control and therapy adherence., Competing Interests: Conflict of interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare., (© Copyright 2024 by the American Board of Family Medicine.)

Since the emergence of Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 in late 2021, a number of sub-lineages have arisen and circulated internationally. Little is known about the relative severity of Omicron sub-lineages BA.2.75, BA.4.6, and BQ.1. We undertook a case-control analysis to determine the clinical severity of these lineages relative to BA.5, using whole genome sequenced, PCR-confirmed infections, between 1 August 2022 and 27 November 2022, among those who presented to emergency care in England 14 days after and up to one day prior to the positive specimen. A total of 10,375 episodes were included in the analysis; of which, 5,207 (50.2%) were admitted to the hospital or died. Multivariable conditional regression analyses found no evidence of greater odds of hospital admission or death among those with BA.2.75 (odds ratio (OR) = 0.96, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.84-1.09) and BA.4.6 (OR = 1.02, 95% CI: 0.88- 1.17) or BQ.1 (OR = 1.03, 95% CI: 0.94-1.13) compared to BA.5. Future lineages may not follow the same trend and there remains a need for continued surveillance of COVID-19 variants and their clinical outcomes to inform the public health response.

Objective: Countries routinely offering acellular pertussis vaccine, where long-term protection is not sustained, have the challenge of selecting an optimal schedule to minimise disease among young infants. We conducted a narrative systematic review and synthesis of information to evaluate different pertussis immunisation strategies at controlling pertussis disease, hospitalisation, deaths, and vaccine effectiveness among young infants., Methods: We conducted a review of the literature on studies about the primary, booster, and/or maternal vaccination series and synthesised findings narratively. Countries offering the first three doses of vaccine within six-months of life and a booster on or before the second year or life were defined as accelerated primary and booster schedules, respectively. Countries offering primary and booster doses later were defined as extended primary and booster schedules. All search results were screened, and articles reviewed and reconciled, by two authors. The Risk of Bias in Non-randomised Studies of Intervention tool was used to evaluate the risk of bias., Findings: A total of 98 studies were included in the analyses and the following recurring themes were described: timing of vaccination, vaccine coverage, waning immunity/vaccine effectiveness, direct and indirect effectiveness, switching from an accelerated to extended schedule, impact of changes in testing. The risk of bias was generally low to moderate for most studies., Conclusion: Comparing schedules is challenging and there was insufficient evidence to that one schedule was superior to another. Countries must select a schedule that maintains high vaccine coverage and reduced the risk of delaying the delivery vaccines to protect infants., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has provided vaccine manufacturers with post-marketing surveillance reports which the companies are required to submit to the UK Licensing Authority in compliance with their Risk Management Strategy, and a cost recovery charge is made for these reports., (Crown Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) information has played a crucial role in the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic by providing evidence about variants to inform public health policy. The purpose of this study was to assess the representativeness of sequenced cases compared with all COVID-19 cases in England, between March 2020 and August 2021, by demographic and socio-economic characteristics, to evaluate the representativeness and utility of these data in epidemiological analyses. To achieve this, polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-confirmed COVID-19 cases were extracted from the national laboratory system and linked with WGS data. During the study period, over 10% of COVID-19 cases in England had WGS data available for epidemiological analysis. With sequencing capacity increasing throughout the period, sequencing representativeness compared to all reported COVID-19 cases increased over time, allowing for valuable epidemiological analyses using demographic and socio-economic characteristics, particularly during periods with emerging novel SARS-CoV-2 variants. This study demonstrates the comprehensiveness of England's sequencing throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, rapidly detecting variants of concern, and enabling representative epidemiological analyses to inform policy.

There are concerns that sotrovimab has reduced efficacy at reducing hospitalisation risk against the BA.2 sub-lineage of the Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant. We performed a retrospective cohort (n = 8850) study of individuals treated with sotrovimab in the community, with the objective of assessing whether there were any differences in risk of hospitalisation of BA.2 cases compared with BA.1. We estimated that the hazard ratio of hospital admission with a length of stay of 2 days or more was 1.17 for BA.2 compared with BA.1 (95%CI 0.74-1.86). These results suggest that the risk of hospital admission was similar between the two sub-lineages., (© 2023 Crown copyright. Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This article is published with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the King’s Printer for Scotland.)

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which perceived support and depressive symptoms might interfere with Hispanic patients' ability to manage their diabetes and whether these effects vary by gender., Methods: Data were collected from a cohort of 232 Hispanic men and women with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Conditional process analysis was used to test a moderated mediation model of the time-lagged processes associating gender, diabetes support, and depressive symptoms with reported self-efficacy after 3 months., Results: Increased depressive symptoms were associated with lower self-efficacy, but the conditional effects varied among men and women. The index of moderated mediation was significant, indicating that among women, the indirect effect of depressive symptoms on self-efficacy was contingent on lower levels of perceived support. Among men, increased depressive symptoms were directly associated with declines in self-efficacy and were not conditional on perceived support., Conclusions: Results of the study have important implications for gender health equity. Mental health screening and an assessment of support needs may be important for determining appropriate complementary therapies when treating Hispanic women with chronic conditions such as diabetes. Attention to possible differences in gender-specific mental health needs could lead to improved self-management, better glycemic control, and more equitable health outcomes.

To investigate if the AY.4.2 sublineage of the SARS-CoV-2 delta variant is associated with hospitalization and mortality risks that differ from non-AY.4.2 delta risks, we performed a retrospective cohort study of sequencing-confirmed COVID-19 cases in England based on linkage of routine health care datasets. Using stratified Cox regression, we estimated adjusted hazard ratios (aHR) of hospital admission (aHR = 0.85; 95% confidence interval [CI], .77-.94), hospital admission or emergency care attendance (aHR = 0.87; 95% CI, .81-.94), and COVID-19 mortality (aHR = 0.85; 95% CI, .71-1.03). The results indicate that the risks of hospitalization and mortality are similar or lower for AY.4.2 compared to cases with other delta sublineages., Competing Interests: Potential conflicts of interest. G. D. declares that his employer, UK Health Security Agency, previously known as Public Health England, received funding from GlaxoSmithKline for a research project related to influenza antiviral treatment. This preceded and had no relation to COVID-19, and G. D. had no role in and received no funding from the project. All other authors report no potential conflicts. All authors have submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest. Conflicts that the editors consider relevant to the content of the manuscript have been disclosed., (© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America.)

Background: The omicron variant (B.1.1.529) of SARS-CoV-2 has demonstrated partial vaccine escape and high transmissibility, with early studies indicating lower severity of infection than that of the delta variant (B.1.617.2). We aimed to better characterise omicron severity relative to delta by assessing the relative risk of hospital attendance, hospital admission, or death in a large national cohort., Methods: Individual-level data on laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases resident in England between Nov 29, 2021, and Jan 9, 2022, were linked to routine datasets on vaccination status, hospital attendance and admission, and mortality. The relative risk of hospital attendance or admission within 14 days, or death within 28 days after confirmed infection, was estimated using proportional hazards regression. Analyses were stratified by test date, 10-year age band, ethnicity, residential region, and vaccination status, and were further adjusted for sex, index of multiple deprivation decile, evidence of a previous infection, and year of age within each age band. A secondary analysis estimated variant-specific and vaccine-specific vaccine effectiveness and the intrinsic relative severity of omicron infection compared with delta (ie, the relative risk in unvaccinated cases)., Findings: The adjusted hazard ratio (HR) of hospital attendance (not necessarily resulting in admission) with omicron compared with delta was 0·56 (95% CI 0·54-0·58); for hospital admission and death, HR estimates were 0·41 (0·39-0·43) and 0·31 (0·26-0·37), respectively. Omicron versus delta HR estimates varied with age for all endpoints examined. The adjusted HR for hospital admission was 1·10 (0·85-1·42) in those younger than 10 years, decreasing to 0·25 (0·21-0·30) in 60-69-year-olds, and then increasing to 0·47 (0·40-0·56) in those aged at least 80 years. For both variants, past infection gave some protection against death both in vaccinated (HR 0·47 [0·32-0·68]) and unvaccinated (0·18 [0·06-0·57]) cases. In vaccinated cases, past infection offered no additional protection against hospital admission beyond that provided by vaccination (HR 0·96 [0·88-1·04]); however, for unvaccinated cases, past infection gave moderate protection (HR 0·55 [0·48-0·63]). Omicron versus delta HR estimates were lower for hospital admission (0·30 [0·28-0·32]) in unvaccinated cases than the corresponding HR estimated for all cases in the primary analysis. Booster vaccination with an mRNA vaccine was highly protective against hospitalisation and death in omicron cases (HR for hospital admission 8-11 weeks post-booster vs unvaccinated: 0·22 [0·20-0·24]), with the protection afforded after a booster not being affected by the vaccine used for doses 1 and 2., Interpretation: The risk of severe outcomes following SARS-CoV-2 infection is substantially lower for omicron than for delta, with higher reductions for more severe endpoints and significant variation with age. Underlying the observed risks is a larger reduction in intrinsic severity (in unvaccinated individuals) counterbalanced by a reduction in vaccine effectiveness. Documented previous SARS-CoV-2 infection offered some protection against hospitalisation and high protection against death in unvaccinated individuals, but only offered additional protection in vaccinated individuals for the death endpoint. Booster vaccination with mRNA vaccines maintains over 70% protection against hospitalisation and death in breakthrough confirmed omicron infections., Funding: Medical Research Council, UK Research and Innovation, Department of Health and Social Care, National Institute for Health Research, Community Jameel, and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests GD declares that his employer UK Health Security Agency (previously operating as Public Health England) received funding from GlaxoSmithKline for a research project related to influenza antiviral treatment. This preceded and had no relation to COVID-19, and GD had no role in and received no funding from the project. All other authors declare no competing interests., (Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 license. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify psychosocial factors associated with depressive symptoms in Hispanic patients with diabetes and explore the extent to which their effects may vary by gender and acculturation., Methods: The authors completed a secondary analysis of data from 247 Hispanic adults with type 2 diabetes. Gender and language groups were compared using chi-square and t tests. Hierarchical multiple regression was used to examine associations of depressive symptoms with perceived support, diabetes-related distress, and social and personal factors., Results: Women reported less support than men. English speakers reported more depressive symptoms than Spanish speakers. When adjusting for age, gender, and acculturation, psychosocial factors significantly associated with depressive symptoms included less support received, greater emotional burden, and less ability to socialize or pursue normal activities because of diabetes., Conclusions: Social support provided by family among less acculturated Hispanics may play an important role in reducing emotional burden and lowering the risk of comorbid depression. The quality of interpersonal relationships and the ability to continue normal activities may also be important. More acculturated Hispanic women with diabetes may be at greater risk for comorbid depression and worse health outcomes. Screening for depression and assessment of support needs is warranted for Hispanic women.

Background: Uptake of HIV self-tests (HIVST) remains low in Europe. We conducted two separate surveys to understand facilitators and barriers to the use of HIVST in two European countries, as part of the EU INTEGRATE Joint Action. In both countries, HIV has been legal since 2016. In Lithuania, where HIVST sales have been low, the survey primarily assessed acceptability whilst in Italy, with better HIVST uptake, usability was the focus., Methods: Participants were recruited through community HIV testing sites, and in Lithuania also through social media. In Lithuania, participants self-completed a survey on their testing history, and attitudes toward and experiences with self-testing. In Italy participants performed an HIVST (Mylan Autotest) while being observed by a community health worker (CHW). Both participants and CHW completed a self-administered survey evaluating the experience of the participant., Results: In Lithuania, awareness of HIV self-testing (75%) was high among the 138 people who completed the survey. Privacy and confidentiality (70%) was the most common reason to use an HIVST whilst cost was reported as the main barrier by 60%, only 15% were willing to pay the current price. Almost half (42%) were concerned about doing the test incorrectly and 36% preferred that a trained person could discuss their result. Purchasing HIVST at a pharmacy (70%) or online (61%) was favoured and 68% would opt to simultaneously test for other infections. In Italy, 28 people who had never used an HIVST before were observed using one. 43% found the test easy to use but CHWs reported that 36% of participants failed at least one step. The quick result (68%) was the most common reason to use one again, yet the main concerns were the lack of counselling (50%) and reading result alone (32%)., Conclusions: HIVST are acceptable and usable, however cost is a major barrier. Local and national strategies are needed to increase awareness of and access to HIVST and target HIVST campaigns toward key risk groups such as MSM. Meanwhile, steps can be taken to improve testing instructions and support for self-testers. Offering multiplex testing for other infections would also likely increase uptake., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

Introduction: Despite near-universal utilization of electronic health records (EHRs) by physicians in practice, medical students in most ambulatory settings gain limited experience with placing EHR orders. In this study, an individual preceptor site investigated the usefulness of a targeted curriculum in improving students' EHR confidence and clinical reasoning skills., Methods: Family medicine clerkship students assigned to one community health center were invited to participate in this prospective, survey-based study. In their first week, students observed a preceptor performing EHR tasks. For the remainder of the 4-week clerkship, students utilized decision support tools, assigned a working diagnosis, entered unsigned orders in the EHR, proposed an assessment, and discussed a plan with a preceptor. Students completed weekly questionnaires to self-report confidence across several EHR domains while preceptors synchronously evaluated students' accuracy with entering orders correctly., Results: From February 2017 to March 2020, all 49 eligible students completed the study. One hundred percent of students reported that placing EHR orders was beneficial to their medical education. The difference over time in learner confidence with placing EHR orders was statistically significant across every domain (eg, writing prescriptions, ordering labs and imaging). Preceptors' evaluations of students' accuracy with placing orders also showed significant improvement between each week., Conclusion: Clerkship-wide EHR training may be limited by multiple sites with multiple EHR products. This pilot study suggests that committed faculty at an individual preceptor site can offer a targeted curriculum to help students develop EHR confidence. We propose other preceptors similarly offer students this opportunity to maximize clerkship education., (© 2021 by the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine.)

In this paper, we report data and experiments related to the research article entitled "An adaptive truncation criterion, for linesearch-based truncated Newton methods in large scale nonconvex optimization" by Caliciotti et al. [1]. In particular, in Caliciotti et al. [1], large scale unconstrained optimization problems are considered by applying linesearch-based truncated Newton methods. In this framework, a key point is the reduction of the number of inner iterations needed, at each outer iteration, to approximately solving the Newton equation. A novel adaptive truncation criterion is introduced in Caliciotti et al. [1] to this aim. Here, we report the details concerning numerical experiences over a commonly used test set, namely CUTEst (Gould et al., 2015) [2]. Moreover, comparisons are reported in terms of performance profiles (Dolan and Moré, 2002) [3], adopting different parameters settings. Finally, our linesearch-based scheme is compared with a renowned trust region method, namely TRON (Lin and Moré, 1999) [4].

Since October 2015 up to September 2016, HIV diagnoses fell by 32% compared with October 2014-September 2015 among men who have sex with men (MSM) attending selected London sexual health clinics. This coincided with high HIV testing volumes and rapid initiation of treatment on diagnosis. The fall was most apparent in new HIV testers. Intensified testing of high-risk populations, combined with immediately received anti-retroviral therapy and a pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) programme, may make elimination of HIV achievable., (This article is copyright of The Authors, 2017.)

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine whether perceived support, social norms, and their association with self-efficacy varied by gender and language-based acculturation in Hispanic men and women with uncontrolled type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM)., Methods: A cross-sectional, secondary analysis of baseline survey data from a randomized control trial. Participants were 248 Hispanic patients from 4 community health centers who participated in a culturally targeted intervention for diabetes management. Quantitative statistical methods were used, including chi-square analyses, one-way ANOVA, and multiple regression., Results: Gender and language both moderated the relationship between social factors and self-efficacy. Regardless of language, better perceived support was associated with improved self-efficacy in women but not men. Dietary norms were associated with self-efficacy in English-speaking men and women, while physical activity norms were associated with self-efficacy for Spanish-speaking women only., Conclusions: This study builds on previous research by exploring the extent to which the social context of diabetes self-management may vary in its effects depending on gender and acculturation. The findings revealed potentially important differences based on both gender and language, suggesting that interventions must be designed with these differences in mind. Diabetes-specific support from family members, especially spouses, may be especially important for Hispanic women. For both men and women, it may be effective to find creative ways of involving the family in creating healthier social norms and expectations., (© 2016 The Author(s).)

Objective: To explore quantitatively the extent to which social support, social norms and barriers are associated with self-efficacy and self-care adherence in Hispanic patients with diabetes and the extent to which these differ for men and women., Methods: Baseline survey data were collected from 248 low-SES, Hispanic men and women who were participants in a randomized controlled trial of a culturally targeted intervention for diabetes management. Student's t, Pearson correlations and multiple regression were used to analyze the data., Results: Compared to men, women were less likely to receive support, faced more barriers, reported less self-efficacy and had lower levels of self-care adherence. Perceived support was consistently correlated with better self-efficacy in women but not men, even though men reported higher levels of support., Conclusion: The lack of adequate support seems to be a fundamental barrier for Hispanic women with diabetes., Practice Implications: Health care providers should be sensitive to sociocultural influences in Hispanic groups that may facilitate men's self-care adherence, but could potentially hamper women's efforts. Interventions designed for Hispanics should augment women's support needs and address culture and social factors that may differentially impact the ability of men and women to manage their diabetes., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: This study was conducted to examine the relationships among family environment, peer influence, stress, self-efficacy, and adolescent alcohol use and to test for the potential moderating effects of parental expectations regarding adolescent alcohol use., Methods: Data were obtained from questionnaires completed by high school students (n = 2573) participating in a longitudinal study of substance use and other problem behaviors. Variables were lagged across three time points to reflect a causal sequence relating family environment to adolescent alcohol use through self-efficacy, peer influence, and stress. A latent measure of family environment included adolescents' perceptions of parental acceptance, parental monitoring, and communication with parents. The latent measure of peer influence included use of alcohol by same-age peers and friends and friends' approval of alcohol use. Observed scale scores were used for self-efficacy and stress measures, and the latent measure of alcohol behaviors included quantity, frequency, and associated problems., Results: Structural equation modeling indicated good model fit, chi(2) (144) = 831.69, p < .001, comparative fit index (CFI) = .992, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = .043 (.040, .046). Family environment exerted significant indirect effects on adolescent alcohol use through peer influence, self-efficacy, and stress, and parental expectations significantly moderated all structural paths., Conclusions: Parental expectations of adolescent alcohol use significantly moderated all structural relationships, and greater parental disapproval was associated with less involvement with friends and peers who use alcohol, less peer influence to use alcohol, greater self-efficacy for avoiding alcohol use, and lower subsequent alcohol use and related problems.

Grounded in theories of global positive expectancies and social influences of behavior, this investigation posited a model in which global positive expectancies are related to substance use as mediated by attitudes, subjective norms, self-efficacy, and intentions. Using a cohort sample (n = 525), structural equation modeling was employed to test the hypothesized predictions of future substance use. The findings suggest that, relative to adolescents with lower global positive expectancies, adolescents with higher global positive expectancies use substances less frequently over time because of their protective attitudinal and control-oriented perceptions towards that behavior. Additionally, results from the current investigation also extend prior findings on the factor structure of global positive expectancies, suggesting these expectancies can be viewed as a second-order factor representing optimism and two components of hope-agency and pathways.

Purpose: To investigate a broad range of social influence-related and global determinants of smoking to aid in the design of comprehensive multiethnic interventions by testing the most important factors of initiation and escalation of smoking across various subgroups., Methods: Cross-sectional (N = 2546) and cohort (N = 736) samples of multiethnic middle school students near a large Southwestern metropolis were surveyed through self-report questionnaires. The confidential questionnaires included information on demographics, risk factors, and smoking behavior and were administered in class by trained data collectors. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was used to examine the statistical significance and strength of the factors., Results: Those lower in self-esteem and higher in social assertiveness appeared to be most at risk for the onset of smoking, whereas those low in optimism appeared to be the most at risk for the escalation of smoking. Attitudes, friends' norms, parents' norms, perceived behavioral control, and perceived prevalence were consistent predictors of all smoking status outcomes., Conclusions: The behavioral-specific determinants of smoking appear to be important predictors of smoking status outcomes in all demographic subgroups. The relationships of the global determinants were more dependent on the smoking outcome variable and subgroup examined. The findings may serve to help facilitate the targeting of comprehensive interventions aimed at reducing adolescent smoking in multiethnic and ethnic group-specific populations.

A simple, quick, inexpensive and long term method of cryopreserving human red cells using hydroxyethyl starch (HES) as a cryoprotectant is described. No sophisticated equipment or skilled labour is required. As HES is a plasma expander, it does not have to be removed prior to transfusion, thereby obviating the requirement for a washing stage. This allows 60 units/h to be prepared. As the microbiological integrity of the system is maintained, there is potential for prolonged storage post-thaw at 4 degrees C. Recoveries of 99% and 30 min saline stabilities in excess of 91% have been consistently achieved. P50O2 and 2,3DPG values are not significantly decreased.

The skin and muscles of human fetuses were used to obtain extracts of alpha-fetoprotein (AFP). Fetuses up to sixteen weeks gestation gave the highest yields. Rabbits immunized by concentrates from this source made anti-AFP of a quality suitable for use in radioimmunoassay systems.