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The purpose of the study was to examine trends in COVID-19 cases, related deaths, and staffing shortages in nursing homes (NH) by rural and urban status from May 2020 to Feb 2021. Generalized linear mixed models with state-fixed effects were used to estimate the interaction effect of study period and rural/urban status on having at least: one COVID-19 case, one related death, and/or at least one week of staffing shortage using the NH COVID-19 data spanning the 40-week period. The findings revealed shortages in staff, particularly direct care providers, were greatly accelerated in rural NHs as the pandemic wore on over time. Conversely, staffing shortages in urban NHs were relatively stable despite the fluctuating COVID-19 cases over the same time period. The findings highlight the need of identifying effective strategies that prevent rural NHs from encountering staffing deficits in response to long-lasting natural disasters such as the COVID-19 pandemic., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest None, (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to identify patterns of nurse staffing and skill mix and estimate the impact of these patterns on rehospitalization and emergency department (ED) visits in nursing home (NH) residents. We also estimated the relative contribution of unique staffing patterns on variations in hospital and ED use rates., Design: Retrospective secondary data analysis at the facility level, using administrative data., Setting and Participants: Data from Medicare/Medicaid certified NHs in the 2018 Certification and Survey Provider Enhanced Reporting System were merged with the NH Compare Claims-Based Quality Measures file, for those facilities with complete data available (N = 14,325)., Methods: Cluster analysis was performed to identify groups of NHs with similar nursing skill mix patterns, using measures that captured hours per resident day (HPRD) for registered nurses (RNs), licensed practical nurses (LPNs), and certified nursing assistants (CNAs). We estimated the impact of cluster assignment on unplanned rehospitalization and ED visits using multivariate generalized estimating equations. Plots were generated to visualize simulation models that showed the relative contribution of unique staffing strategies to the outcomes, while holding other factors constant., Results: We identified 3 nursing skill mix clusters: high-RN, high-LPN, and high-CNA, relative to national staffing averages. After controlling for regional and organizational characteristics, residents in NHs in the high-RN cluster had significantly lower rehospitalization and ED use compared with those in the high-LPN cluster, with a similar nonsignificant trend for the high-CNA vs high-LPN clusters. Though the high-RN cluster had CNA HPRD similar to the high-CNA cluster, it relied much less on LPN staffing. Whereas NHs in the high-LPN cluster had proportionally fewer hours of care by both CNAs and RNs., Conclusions and Implications: NHs that emphasize LPN care in place of either RN or CNA care appears to exhibit higher rates of unplanned rehospitalization and ED visits among residents., (Copyright © 2020 AMDA – The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Case investigation and contact tracing are core public health tools used to interrupt transmission of pathogens, including SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19); timeliness is critical to effectiveness (1,2). In May 2020, CDC funded* 64 state, local, and territorial health departments † to support COVID-19 response activities. As part of the monitoring process, case investigation and contact tracing metrics for June 25-July 24, 2020, were submitted to CDC by 62 health departments. Descriptive analyses of case investigation and contact tracing load, timeliness, and yield (i.e., the number of contacts elicited divided by the number of patients prioritized for interview) were performed. A median of 57% of patients were interviewed within 24 hours of report of the case to a health department (interquartile range [IQR] = 27%-82%); a median of 1.15 contacts were identified per patient prioritized for interview § (IQR = 0.62-1.76), and a median of 55% of contacts were notified within 24 hours of identification by a patient (IQR = 32%-79%). With higher caseloads, the percentage of patients interviewed within 24 hours of case report was lower (Spearman coefficient = -0.68), and the number of contacts identified per patient prioritized for interview also decreased (Spearman coefficient = -0.60). The capacity to conduct timely contact tracing varied among health departments, largely driven by investigators' caseloads. Incomplete identification of contacts affects the ability to reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Enhanced staffing capacity and ability and improved community engagement could lead to more timely interviews and identification of more contacts., Competing Interests: All authors have completed and submitted the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors form for disclosure of potential conflicts of interest. Alison Stargel reports employment as the duty epidemiologist on the Washington State Department of Health COVID-19 response during April–June 2020. No other potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.

Context: Community education and engagement are important for informing family planning projects. The objective of this study was to update two prior systematic reviews assessing the impact of community education and engagement interventions on family planning outcomes., Evidence Acquisition: Sixteen electronic databases were searched for studies relevant to a priori determined inclusion/exclusion criteria in high development settings, published from March 2011 through April 2016, updating two reviews that included studies from 1985 through February 2011., Evidence Synthesis: Nine relevant studies were included in this updated review related to community education, in addition to 17 from the prior review. No new community engagement studies met inclusion criteria, as occurred in the prior review. Of new studies, community education modalities included mass media, print/mail, web-based, text messaging, and interpersonal interventions. One study on mass media intervention demonstrated a positive impact on reducing teen and unintended pregnancies. Three of four studies on interpersonal interventions demonstrated positive impacts on medium-term family planning outcomes, such as contraception and condom use. Three new studies demonstrated mostly positive, but inconsistent, results on short-term family planning outcomes., Conclusions: Findings from this systematic review update are in line with a previous review showing the positive impact of community education using traditional modalities on short-term family planning outcomes, identifying additional impacts on long-term outcomes, and highlighting new evidence for education using modern modalities, such as text messaging and web-based education. More research is necessary to provide a stronger evidence base for directing community education and engagement efforts in family planning contexts., Theme Information: This article is part of a theme issue entitled Updating the Systematic Reviews Used to Develop the U.S. Recommendations for Providing Quality Family Planning Services, which is sponsored by the Office of Population Affairs, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services., (Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Program evaluation is a key tool for gathering evidence about the value and effectiveness of sexually transmitted disease (STD) prevention programs and interventions. Drawing from published literature, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention evaluation framework, and program examples, this article lays out some of the key principles of program evaluation for STD program staff. The purpose is to offer STD program staff a stronger basis for talking about, planning, conducting, and advocating for evaluation within their respective program contexts.

Objective: To investigate the long-term effect of medically serious adverse medical events (AMEs) among older adults., Methods: We linked nationally representative survey and claims data from the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (1998-2004) with non-response files (1999-2005) and the Area Resource File, providing 12,541 beneficiaries with 428,373 person-months for analysis. Latent class analysis was used to assign severity status to episodes. Multinomial logistic regression was used to identify AME risk factors. The long-term consequences of AMEs on Medicare expenditures were examined by population average models. Survival analyses examined the long-term risk of death., Results: Nearly 19% of participants experienced at least one AME, with 62% from outpatient claims. The risk of AMEs is greater among participants in poorer health, and increases with comorbidity and with impairment in performing activities of daily living or instrumental activities of daily living. Medicare expenditures during an AME episode increased sharply and remained higher than what would have otherwise been expected in quarters following an AME episode, and failed to return to pre-AME expenditure levels. Differences in survival rates were observable long after the AME episode concluded, with only 55% of the patients sustaining an AME surviving to the end of the study. In contrast, nearly 80% of those without an AME were estimated to have survived., Conclusions: The impacts of AMEs are observable over extended periods of time and are associated with considerable excess mortality and costs. Efforts to monitor and prevent AMEs in both acute care and outpatient settings are warranted., (Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.)

HIV-infected young women in the United States have important reproductive health needs that are made more complex by their HIV status. We searched Pubmed and relevant bibliographies to identify 32 articles published from 2001 to July 2012 that described the prevalence, correlates, and characteristics of the sexual activity, relationships, pregnancy intentions, HIV status disclosure, and contraceptive and condom use among US HIV-infected adolescents and young women. Our synthesis of those articles found that, like youth not infected with HIV, substantial proportions of HIV-infected youth were sexually active, and most sought romantic or sexual relationships, though their serostatus may have affected the pace of physical and emotional intimacy. Disclosure was difficult, and large proportions of HIV-infected youth had not disclosed their serostatus to recent partners. A few studies suggest that most HIV-infected young women hoped to have children in the future, but many wanted to avoid pregnancy until later. Only one study described contraceptive use among this population in detail and found that condoms were a primary method of contraception. The results point to substantial gaps in published research, particularly in the areas of pregnancy intentions and contraceptive use. Much more needs to be done in research and health services to better understand and meet the complex health needs of HIV-infected young women.

Study Objective: We examine whether using public National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS) data with masked design variables produces different estimates, standard errors, and confidence intervals (CIs) for the temporal trend of overall and injury-related emergency department (ED) visits compared with using unmasked data housed at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention., Methods: We obtained counts of ED visits with their standard errors for unmasked data from published summaries from 1999 through 2006. Public files with masked design variables were used to estimate visit counts and rates with standard errors for each year, using the Taylor series linearization method. Weighted least squares linear regressions were used for trend analysis to estimate the annual change in visits., Results: Compared with using unmasked data, using masked data produced similar estimates of overall ED visit counts and rates for each year from 1999 through 2006 but overestimated standard errors by 27% on average (range 12% to 45%). According to unmasked data, overall ED visit counts increased by 1.973 million annually (standard error 0.747; 95% CI 0.505 to 3.440 million [corrected] ). With masked data, the estimated change was 1.977 million visits annually (standard error 0.894; 95% CI -0.221 to 3.733 million [corrected] ). As for injury-related ED visit counts, masked data overestimated the standard error by 16% for trend. Although neither unmasked nor masked data suggested a statistically significant annual increase of overall or injury-related ED visit rate, masked data overestimated the standard error by 16%., Conclusion: Using masked public data overestimated standard errors for trend of counts and rates for overall and injury-related ED visits and resulted in wider CIs., (Copyright © 2011 American College of Emergency Physicians. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: To examine the long-term effect of sentinel injury (unintentional injury involving serious health-related consequences) among older adults on Medicare expenditures., Design: Secondary data analysis of the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey, a nationally representative survey of Medicare Beneficiaries., Setting: Noninstitutionalized community dwellers., Participants: Older adults (N = 12,318) continuously enrolled in Medicare Fee-for-Service under Old Age Survivors Insurance Benefits surveyed between October 1998 and December 2004., Measurements: Monthly total Medicare expenditures served as the dependent variable. Injury status (preinjury, injury episode, postinjury) was identified from Medicare claims and specified as a set of dummy variables. Injury episodes began with the first index injury claim identified and ended when no further injury claims were found within 180 days. Population-averaged models using generalized estimating equation techniques were estimated to explore changes in Medicare expenditures over time after adjusting for casemix differences. A case-crossover design was used to compare monthly Medicare expenditures before and after sentinel injury events., Results: Fifteen percent of beneficiaries sustained at least one sentinel injury. Medicare expenditures increased sharply during sentinel injury episodes (β = 1.703, P < .001) and remained at least 28% higher than would otherwise be expected for 27 uninterrupted months following injury. Additive Medicare expenditures associated with sentinel injury over 3 years were estimated at $28,885., Conclusion: Consequences of sentinel injury in older adults extend well beyond the period typically considered to be an acute injury episode. Better understanding of the long-term consequences of injury-related outcomes is needed to achieve public health goals of reducing injury and improving injury-related medical care., (© 2011, Copyright the Authors. Journal compilation © 2011, The American Geriatrics Society.)

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to examine the epidemiology of injury among older adults treated in emergency departments (EDs) and to explore the effect of advanced age and nursing home residence on associated outcomes., Methods: A secondary data analysis of a nationally representative sample from the National Hospital Ambulatory Care Survey was conducted using available sampling weights and data from the US Census Bureau. Weighted multivariate logistic regression was used to explore factors associated with injury outcomes, including hospitalization and receipt of potentially inappropriate medications., Results: Nearly 21 million injury-related ED patient visits were made by older adults during the study period. Nearly 10% of episodes were identified as adverse events, which increased hospitalization risk 3-fold. Potentially inappropriate medications were provided during nearly 12% of encounters., Conclusions: Injury reductions among elders could be achieved by reducing adverse events, whereas quality could be improved by reducing potentially inappropriate medication use in the ED.

This study examines how resident risk of hospitalization varies in relation to facility performance on select quality indicators (QIs). Using a 15% sample, three years of Medicaid reimbursement data from over 525 nursing homes (NHs) were linked with four years of hospital claims data and facility-level data to investigate whether residents of NHs with worse (better) than expected performance on QIs experienced increased (decreased) risk of hospitalization. Logistic regression results indicate that variations in hospitalization risk among NH residents are explained in part by facility performance on QIs. Residents from NHs with more decubitus ulcers, with greater use of physical restraints, and with a higher than expected incidence of unexplained weight loss/gain experienced increased risk of hospitalization.

This study explores whether nursing home residents with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) are affected differently by facility-level risk factors of ambulatory care-sensitive (ACS) conditions, a measure of timely access to medical care. Three years of quarterly Medicaid reimbursement data from over 525 Massachusetts nursing homes were linked with four years of Medical Provider Analysis and Review hospital claims data and facility-level attribute data to investigate whether facility effects differed by resident ADRD status. The findings suggest that nursing home residents with ADRD are more likely to be hospitalized for certain ACS conditions, including gastroenteritis and kidney/ urinary tract infections. Availability of increased registered nurse staffing levels and on-site nurse practitioners appears to attenuate this risk. Although findings suggest that ACS hospitalization measures may represent a useful approach to monitoring nursing home care, additional effort is needed to understand the extent to which severity of illness and/or comorbidities affect the measurement of these hospitalizations.

This note is a personal re-collection of some of the problems and experiences of the Health Physics Department staff at Dungeness Power Station during the period 1963-1971. This was a period of construction, commissioning, operating and learning. It was an interesting period for power reactor health physicists as appropriate instrumentation; information and experience were all in fairly short supply.

This study examined patient-level, facility-level, and area market-level factors affecting ambulatory care-sensitive hospitalization (ACSH) rates among nursing home residents. Although ACSH has long been used to monitor accessibility to health care services among community-dwelling populations, the use of ACSH rates as an indicator of potential quality-of-care problems affecting nursing home residents has not been employed. METHODS. Three years of quarterly Medicaid reimbursement data from more than 500 nursing homes were linked to 4 years of Medicare Provider Analysis and Review hospital claims data, nursing facility attribute data, and Area Resource File data to investigate the relative contribution of patient-, facility-, and market-level risk factors to ACSH among nursing home residents. RESULTS. Logistic regression results indicate that facility-level factors and nursing home quality-of-care indicators significantly contribute to the risk of ACSH. DISCUSSION. Findings underscore the need for continuing efforts to improve quality-of-care practices in nursing homes, particularly with respect to associations between quality-of-care indicators and facility structural/organizational characteristics with ACSHs.

This paper summarizes the deliberations and conclusions of the Compliance and Policy Committee of the National Workshop for Radioactivity in Drinking Water. Prior to and during the workshop the committee considered a total of 32 possible compliance and policy issues and determined that 22 were valid. The committee developed positions on seven of these and these positions are presented herein. The remaining 25 issues are also listed with the committee's evaluation of each.