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Little is known on the long-term effects of cruciate ligament (CL) injuries. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of CL injuries on long-term health and socioeconomic outcomes in New Zealand using national-level observed data. We used a comprehensive linked database to identify the majority of CL injuries in New Zealand, and to find matched control cases based on a large set of covariates. Regression analyses were then performed to identify the long-term effects of CL injury. We found that CL injuries were associated with significantly increased healthcare utilization (number of hospitalizations, days spent in hospital, emergency department visits, medications dispensed) and costs within 10 years post-injury, as well as increased likelihood of having a total knee replacement or a subsequent CL injury. However, we also found that having a CL injury was also associated with improved socioeconomic outcomes and reduced mortality, which is surprising and may indicate bias due to unobserved differences in physical activity levels between the treatment and control groups.

This report describes the methodology and results of the process for finding an optimal matching model for this analysis.

This report describes the methodology and results of the process for finding an optimal matching model for this analysis.

This report describes the methodology and results of the process for finding an optimal matching model for this analysis.

This is an economic evaluation of manual therapy and/or booster sessions in addition to exercise therapy for knee osteoarthritis, in conjunction with the MOA-II randomized controlled trial.

This project aims to identify the medium- to long-term health, economic, and social outcomes of pre- and perioperative opioid use in patients undergoing total hip and knee replacement surgery in New Zealand. We hypothesise that patients prescribed opioids before TJR or for short-term postoperative pain management will have worse outcomes than patients not prescribed opioid medications.

This is an update of a previous review on measurement properties of the Patient-Specific Functional Scale (PSFS).

This analysis plan describes the data, methods, and intended outputs for this project.

This thesis consists of three empirical studies on the effects of exposure to heavy metal pollution in early childhood on a broad set of individual outcomes. The first study analyses how accumulated exposure to metal pollution during childhood affects long-run outcomes. Exploiting policy-driven reductions in metal pollution in Sweden, it shows that accumulated exposure to metals (including cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, nickel, vanadium, and zinc) leads to lower GPA scores, fewer years of education, and reduced adult wages. It also shows that these effects may contribute to intergenerational persistence of socioeconomic status due to inequalities in pollution exposure driven by parental sorting.The second study estimates the effect of lead pollution on infant mortality in five Sub-Saharan African countries. A sharp phase-out of leaded gasoline provides exogenous variation in changes in lead pollution between those living close to major roads and those living further away to identify a causal effect. The results show that the phase-out led to a large reduction in infant mortality, particularly among girls. This effect was driven by infants born to mothers with low socioeconomic status.The third study investigates how exposure to lead pollution in early life affects cognitive skills among school age children in Uganda. Again, it relies on the phase-out of leaded gasoline as an exogenous shock to lead pollution levels. The findings suggest a strong negative effect of lead pollution on math and English test scores, which is stronger for children exposed to lead pollution at an earlier age.Taken together, these studies contribute to our understanding of the benefits of more stringent environmental regulations regarding heavy metal pollution.

This paper contributes to the scant empirical literature on the effects of emigration on source countries' labour markets. Using a novel dataset by Brücker et al. (2009), we investigate whether emigration from the Central and Eastern European (CEE) members of European Union (EU) during the period 2000 to 2007 has contributed to the decline in unemployment observed in these countries. We find that along with structural changes that occurred in the CEE economies during the last decade, emigration indeed had a strong negative effect on unemployment in these countries. A 10 per cent increase in emigration rate leads to around 5 per cent decrease in unemployment rate. Given the minor effect of immigration on host countries' unemployment found in the literature (including the studies examining the East-West European migration), this paper's results indicate that the opening up of labour markets following the enlargement of EU in 2004 mainly has had positive effects.

Purpose of Review: We provide an overview of recent research into the relationship between preoperative opioid use and total joint replacement outcomes. Recent Findings: Recent findings indicate that total joint replacement patients with a history of preoperative opioid use experience higher rates of infection, revision, short-term complications, and prolonged postoperative opioid use, along with fewer improvements in pain and function following surgery. These risks are particularly pronounced among chronic opioid users. While the baseline risk profiles of these patients may contribute to higher rates of adverse outcomes, it is also plausible that certain outcomes are directly impacted by opioid use through mechanisms such as opioid-induced hyperalgesia and immunosuppression. There is little available data on the efficacy of interventions that aim to mitigate these risks. Summary: Well-designed clinical trials are needed to evaluate the efficacy of targeted perioperative interventions that aim to improve outcomes for this high-risk surgical population. Where such trials are not feasible, additional high-quality observational studies are necessary to further our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the relationships between opioid use and specific adverse outcomes. Refereed/Peer-reviewed