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To estimate the prevalence of patients with an immunocompromising condition at risk for COVID-19, estimate COVID-19 prevalence rate (PR) and incidence rate (IR) by immunocompromising condition, and describe COVID-19-related healthcare resource utilization (HCRU) and costs. Using the Healthcare Integrated Research Database (HIRD), patients with ≥1 claim for an immunocompromising condition of interest or ≥2 claims for an immunosuppressive (IS) treatment and COVID-19 diagnosis during the infection period (1 April 2020–31 March 2022) and had ≥12 months baseline data were included. Cohorts (other than the composite cohort) were not mutually exclusive and were defined by each immunocompromising condition. Analyses were descriptive in nature. Of the 16,873,161 patients in the source population, 2.7% (n = 458,049) were immunocompromised (IC). The COVID-19 IR for the composite IC cohort during the study period was 101.3 per 1000 person-years and the PR was 13.5%. The highest IR (195.0 per 1000 person-years) and PR (20.1%) were seen in the end-stage renal disease (ESRD) cohort; the lowest IR (68.3 per 1000 person-years) and PR (9.4%) were seen in the hematologic or solid tumor malignancy cohort. Mean costs for hospitalizations associated with the first COVID-19 diagnosis were estimated at nearly $1 billion (2021 United States dollars [USD]) for 14,516 IC patients, with a mean cost of $64,029 per patient. Immunocompromised populations appear to be at substantial risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes, leading to increased costs and HCRU. Effective prophylactic options are still needed for these high-risk populations as the COVID-19 landscape evolves. People who have a medical condition or take a medicine that can suppress their immune system (immunocompromised) have a high risk of getting COVID-19. Our study looked at how many immunocompromised people got COVID-19. We also looked at the costs and lengths of hospital stays for people with COVID-19. We found that 2.7% of the people in this large US population with health insurance were immunocompromised. People who were immunocompromised were more likely to get COVID-19 than people who were not immunocompromised. About 14% of the immunocompromised people in this study got COVID-19 and, of those, 24% were hospitalized. Immunocompromised patients in this study had long hospital stays and high costs associated with COVID-19. The risk of getting COVID-19 and having a severe case seemed to be highest for people with advanced kidney disease. The study results showed that COVID-19 can cause severe health issues in immunocompromised people and the use of vaccinations, medications, and other measures to prevent COVID-19 are especially important for immunocompromised people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a potential right under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution for members of the press to access polling places for newsgathering purposes as of 2015, and it mentions democracy in America and freedom of the press protections in places such as Canada, Great Britain, and the U.S. Press-related statutes in Ohio and Pennsylvania are examined, along with exit polls and the laws associated with electoral polling stations.

Expenditure patterns are believed to be influenced not only by the price and income variables, but also by the demographic characteristics of households. Consequently, demographic dynamics in the US could have significant implications for its structure of production and income distribution.[1] The present study analyses the consumption effects of eleven demographic variables, i.e. the regional location and the urban/rural base of the household, its age, size, race, sex and marital characteristics, and the education and the employment status of the household head and the spouse. The data on household expenditures, incomes and demographic profiles are obtained from the 1972/3 Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES), and regression technique is used to estimate the impact of various demographic variables on the pattern of consumer spending.
The paper is divided into five parts. Section II briefly discusses the relevance of demographic characteristics as determinants of household expenditures. The expenditure functions are specified in Section III. Section IV is devoted to a discussion of the data sources and the empirical estimates of expenditure functions for various items of consumption spending. The paper concludes with a brief summary of the findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While our understanding of the issues surrounding foreign direct investment (FDI) in tourism is limited (Endo, 2006), even less is known about the role of FDI and other macroeconomic variables in the lodging segment of the tourism industry. This research fills this gap by examining the population of U.S. hotels with international operations with respect to FDI, Market Interconnectedness and Tourist Flows in foreign countries. Additional examination is performed separately on high-income and middle-income countries. Study findings suggest that Market Interconnectedness is highly significantly and positively correlated with presence of U.S. hotel firms abroad, while FDI and Tourist Flows are not. However, results somewhat differ with respect to high-income and middleincome countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While our understanding of the issues surrounding foreign direct investment (FDI) in tourism is limited (Endo, 2006), even less is known about the role of FDI and other macroeconomic variables in the lodging segment of the tourism industry. This research fills this gap by examining the population of U.S. hotels with international operations with respect to FDI, Market Interconnectedness and Tourist Flows in foreign countries. Additional examination is performed separately on high-income and middle-income countries. Study findings suggest that Market Interconnectedness is highly significantly and positively correlated with presence of U.S. hotel firms abroad, while FDI and Tourist Flows are not. However, results somewhat differ with respect to high-income and middle-income countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Outsourcing has gained much prominence in managerial practice and academic discussions in the last two decades or so. Yet, we still do not understand the full implications of outsourcing strategy for corporate performance. No general explanation has so far been provided for how outsourcing could lead to deterioration in a firm's competence base. We longitudinally analyze three cases of major consumer electronics manufacturers, Emerson Radio from the U.S., Japan's Sony and Philips from the Netherlands to understand the dynamic process related to their sourcing strategies. • We develop an evolutionary stage model that relates outsourcing to competence development inside the firm and shows that a vicious cycle may emerge. The evolutionary stage model helps managers understand for which activities and under which conditions outsourcing across borders is not a viable option. • Results suggest that each of these firms had faced a loss of manufacturing competitiveness in its home country, to which it responded by offshoring and then outsourcing production. When a loss of competences occurred, some outsourcing decisions were reversed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The policy of regulation has been used to abate pollution in the USA. However, a number of other measures such as a tax-cum-subsidy program and taxes on polluters have been frequently suggested in the literature. In this paper, the impact of these policies on the structure of prices, production, income distribution and the input requirements of labour and capital is determined. The input--output methodology is used for this purpose. The direct and primary input requirement coefficients of the 1971 input-output table are adjusted to reflect the input requirements of pollution abatement technology. The policy of regulation is found to be more effective in controlling pollution than the tax-cum-subsidy program, though the latter will create more jobs. The reason for this is that the tax-cum-subsidy program is not as successful as the policy of controls or taxes on polluters in steering consumption away from the polluting industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The academic performance of public schools in the United States has been declining for more than two decades now, and this is a hotly debated topic since this deterioration in performance has important implications on the quality of labour and on the productivity growth of the nation (Bishop, 1989). Moreover, the performance among school districts in states varies significantly, raising questions about the factors contributing to the large variability in performance. One area where the current debate has been focused is the ability and quality of the school management to use the available resources efficiently, giving rise to the issues of a voucher system and the private management of the public schools. This study measures the efficiency of public schools for the state of New Jersey using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method; it also examines the effect of certain socio-economic factors on efficiency. We find that the average efficiency for all schools is 81%. The wealthiest districts have an efficiency score of 88% while for the neediest districts the efficiency is 63%. However, when we adjust for socio-economic factors the difference between the two groups becomes smaller. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The polluter pays principal is justified as a deterrent to future pollution. However, the US experience suggests that it has considerably reduced the clean up rate of existing hazardous waste sites. Coase's theorem is used as basis to propose that a partnership between the polluters and property owners near these sites will not only ease financial burden but will also speed up the pace of cleanup. A hedonic price model is used to empirically estimate the impact of siting of hazardous waste sites on property values and determine the economic feasibility of the proposed partnership. The empirical estimates are based on municipality level data from the state of New Jersey. The benefits from speedy clean up of hazardous waste sites to New Jersey property owners are observed to exceed the cleanup cost of these sites. The above analysis suggests that if HW sites are cleaned up, the positive effect of this improvement in environmental quality will be internalized or captured by property owners. The benefits of the clean-up of HW sites will be realized by the property owners when they sell their properties at a price higher than if they had sold their property before the clean-up, assuming that everything else remains unchanged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction/methods: EPOCH-US is an ongoing, retrospective, observational cohort study among individuals identified in the Healthcare Integrated Research Database (HIRD ® ) with ≥ 12 months of continuous health plan enrollment. Data were collected for the HIRD population (containing immunocompetent and immunocompromised [IC] individuals), individual IC cohorts (non-mutually exclusive cohorts based on immunocompromising condition and/or immunosuppressive [IS] treatment), and the composite IC population (all unique IC individuals). This study updates previous results with addition of the general population cohort and data specifically for the year of 2022 (i.e., Omicron wave period). To provide healthcare decision-makers the most recent trends, this study reports incidence rates (IR) and severity of first SARS-CoV-2 infection; and relative risk, healthcare utilization, and costs related to first COVID-19 hospitalizations in the full year of 2022 and overall between April 2020 and December 2022., Results: These updated results showed a 2.9% prevalence of immune compromise in the population. From April 2020 through December 2022, the overall IR of COVID-19 was 115.7 per 1000 patient-years in the composite IC cohort and 77.8 per 1000 patient-years in the HIRD cohort. The composite IC cohort had a 15.4% hospitalization rate with an average cost of $42,719 for first COVID-19 hospitalization. Comparatively, the HIRD cohort had a 3.7% hospitalization rate with an average cost of $28,848 for first COVID-19 hospitalization. Compared to the general population, IC individuals had 4.3 to 23 times greater risk of hospitalization with first diagnosis of COVID-19. Between January and December 2022, hospitalizations associated with first COVID-19 diagnosis cost over $1 billion, with IC individuals (~ 3% of the population) generating $310 million (31%) of these costs., Conclusion: While only 2.9% of the population, IC individuals had a higher risk of COVID-19 hospitalization and incurred higher healthcare costs across variants. They also disproportionately accounted for over 30% of total costs for first COVID-19 hospitalization in 2022, amounting to ~ $310 million. These data highlight the need for additional preventive measures to decrease the risk of developing severe COVID-19 outcomes in vulnerable IC populations., (© 2024. The Author(s).)