Searched for: in-biosketch:yes
person:matthe01
Building the evidence on Making Health a Shared Value: Insights and considerations for research
Tan, May Lynn; Vlahov, David; Hagan, Erin; Glymour, M Maria; Gottlieb, Laura M; Matthay, Ellicott C; Adler, Nancy E
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF)'s Culture of Health Action Framework guides a movement to improve health and advance health equity across the nation. Action Area One of the Framework, Making Health a Shared Value, highlights the role of individual and community factors in achieving a societal commitment to health and health equity, centered around three drivers: Mindset and Expectations, Sense of Community, and Civic Engagement. To stimulate research about how Action Area One and its drivers may impact health, Evidence for Action (E4A), a signature research funding program of RWJF, developed and released a national Call for Proposals (CFP). The process of formulating the CFP and reviewing proposals surfaced important challenges for research on creating and sustaining shared values to foster and maintain a Culture of Health. In this essay, we describe these considerations and provide examples from funded projects regarding how challenges can be addressed.
PMCID:6715953
PMID: 31485479
ISSN: 2352-8273
CID: 4067452
Firearm and Nonfirearm Violence After Operation Peacemaker Fellowship in Richmond, California, 1996-2016
Matthay, Ellicott C; Farkas, Kriszta; Rudolph, Kara E; Zimmerman, Scott; Barragan, Melissa; Goin, Dana E; Ahern, Jennifer
PMID: 31536413
ISSN: 1541-0048
CID: 5031412
Exposure to Community Homicide During Pregnancy and Adverse Birth Outcomes: A Within-Community Matched Design
Goin, Dana E; M Gomez, Anu; Farkas, Kriszta; Zimmerman, Scott C; Matthay, Ellicott C; Ahern, Jennifer
BACKGROUND:Community violence is an understudied aspect of social context that may affect risk of preterm birth and small-for-gestational age (SGA). METHODS:We matched California mothers with live singleton births who were exposed to a homicide in their Census tract of residence in 2007-2011 to unexposed mothers within the same tract. We estimated risk differences with a weighted linear probability model, with weights corresponding to the matched data structure. We estimated the average treatment effect on the treated of homicide exposure on the risk of preterm birth and SGA during the preconception period and first and second trimester. RESULTS:We found a small increase in risk of SGA associated with homicide exposure in the first trimester (0.14% [95% confidence interval (CI) = -0.01%, 0.30%]), but not for exposure during the preconception period (-0.01% [95% CI = -0.17%, 0.15%]) or the second trimester (-0.06% [95% CI = -0.23%, 0.11%]). Risk of preterm birth was not affected by homicide exposure. When women were exposed to homicides during all three exposure windows, there was a larger increase in risk of SGA (1.09% [95% CI = 0.15%, 2.03%]) but not preterm birth (0.14% [95% CI = -0.74%, 1.01%]). Exposure to three or more homicides was also associated with greater risk of SGA (0.78% [95% CI = 0.15%, 1.40%]). Negative controls indicated that residual confounding by temporal patterning was unlikely. CONCLUSIONS:Homicide exposure during early pregnancy is associated with a small increased risk of SGA.
PMCID:6677586
PMID: 31180933
ISSN: 1531-5487
CID: 5031402
Racial and ethnic differences in associations of community violence with self-harm: a population-based case-control study
Matthay, Ellicott C; Farkas, Kriszta; Ahern, Jennifer
PMCID:6548584
PMID: 31072682
ISSN: 1873-2585
CID: 5031392
Mental and substance use disorders among legal intervention injury cases in California, 2005-2014
Farkas, Kriszta; Matthay, Ellicott C; Rudolph, Kara E; Goin, Dana E; Ahern, Jennifer
Police use of force is an important public health issue in the US. Recent high-profile incidents suggest a potential link between mental disorders and police use of force, however little research has examined their co-occurrence in the general population. We aimed to assess the overall association between specific mental and substance use disorders (MSUDs) and nonfatal legal intervention injury. We identified nonfatal legal intervention injury cases (n = 90,099) and MSUD diagnoses from all hospital and emergency department (ED) records in California between 2005 and 2014. Age-, sex-, and race-standardized MSUD prevalence estimates among legal intervention injury cases, stratified by inpatient status, were compared to general US population-based estimates from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. Compared to the general US population, nonaffective psychoses, mood disorders, alcohol use disorders, and drug use disorders were substantially overrepresented among inpatient legal intervention injuries (prevalence difference [PD]: 19.2%, (95% confidence interval [CI]: 18.0, 20.4); PD: 15.3%, (95% CI: 13.9, 16.7); PD: 21.1%, (95% CI: 19.8, 22.4); PD: 29.7%, (95% CI: 28.4, 31.0), respectively). Associations for all except mood disorders were similar but attenuated among ED injury cases. In contrast, anxiety disorders were underrepresented in both inpatient and ED injury cases. Results for mood disorders and suicidal ideation were mixed. In summary, MSUDs characterized by more overt behavioral symptoms were substantially overrepresented among legal intervention injury cases. Findings support the potential importance of interventions to improve treatment and law enforcement recognition of such disorders. Additional research should disentangle the complex relationship between MSUDs and legal intervention injury.
PMCID:6410732
PMID: 30759367
ISSN: 1096-0260
CID: 5031372
Within-community Variation in Violence and Risk of Self-harm in California: A Population-based Case-crossover Study [Letter]
Matthay, Ellicott C; Rudolph, Kara E; Goin, Dana E; Farkas, Kriszta; Skeem, Jennifer; Ahern, Jennifer
PMCID:6366333
PMID: 30720589
ISSN: 1531-5487
CID: 5031352
Suicide falls by a third globally [Comment]
Matthay, Ellicott C
PMID: 30728139
ISSN: 1756-1833
CID: 5031362
Acute Changes in Community Violence and Increases in Hospital Visits and Deaths From Stress-responsive Diseases
Ahern, Jennifer; Matthay, Ellicott C; Goin, Dana E; Farkas, Kriszta; Rudolph, Kara E
BACKGROUND:Community violence may affect a broad range of health outcomes through physiologic stress responses and changes in health behaviors among residents. However, existing research on the health impacts of community violence suffers from problems with bias. METHODS:We examined the relations of acute changes in community violence with hospital visits and deaths due to stress-responsive diseases (mental, respiratory, and cardiac conditions) in statewide data from California 2005-2013. The community violence exposure was measured as both binary spikes and continuous acute changes. We applied a combined fixed-effects and time-series design that separates the effects of violence from those of community- and individual-level confounders more effectively than past research. Temporal patterning was removed from community violence rates and disease rates in each place using a Kalman smoother, resulting in residual rates. We used linear regression with place fixed-effects to examine within-place associations of acute changes in community violence with residual rates of each outcome, controlling for local time-varying covariates. RESULTS:We found acute increases in hospital visits and deaths due to anxiety disorders (0.31 per 100,000; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.02, 0.59), substance use (0.47 per 100,000; 95% CI = 0.14, 0.80), asthma (0.56 per 100,000; 95% CI = 0.16, 0.95), and fatal acute myocardial infarction (0.09 per 100,000; 95% CI = 0.00, 0.18) co-occurring with violence spikes. The pattern of findings was similar for the exposure of continuous acute violence changes. CONCLUSIONS:Although the associations were small, the identified increases in stress-responsive conditions suggest the possibility of health impacts of acute changes in community violence.
PMID: 29889688
ISSN: 1531-5487
CID: 5031332
The Authors Respond [Comment]
Ahern, Jennifer; Matthay, Ellicott C; Goin, Dana E; Farkas, Kriszta; Rudolph, Kara E
PMID: 29889686
ISSN: 1531-5487
CID: 5031322
Exposure to Community Violence and Self-harm in California: A Multilevel, Population-based, Case-Control Study
Matthay, Ellicott C; Farkas, Kriszta; Skeem, Jennifer; Ahern, Jennifer
BACKGROUND:Self-harm is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. Exposure to community violence is an important and potentially modifiable feature of the social environment that may affect self-harm, but studies to date are limited in the samples and outcomes examined. METHODS:We conducted a population-based, nested case-control study. Cases were all deaths and hospital visits due to self-harm in California, 2006-2013. We frequency-matched California resident population-based controls from the American Community Survey to cases on age, gender, race/ethnicity, and year of survey/injury. We assessed past-year community violence using deaths and hospital visits due to interpersonal violence in the community of residence. We estimated risk difference parameters that were defined to avoid extrapolation and to capture associations between changes in the distribution of community violence and the population-level risk of self-harm. RESULTS:After adjustment for confounders, setting past-year community violence to the lowest monthly levels observed within each community over the study period was associated with a 30.1 (95% confidence interval = 29.6, 30.5) per 100,000 persons per year lower risk of nonfatal self-harm but no difference in the risk of fatal self-harm. Associations for a parameter corresponding to a hypothetical violence prevention intervention targeting high-violence communities indicated a 5% decrease in nonfatal self-harm at the population level. In sensitivity analyses, results were robust. CONCLUSIONS:This study strengthens evidence on the relationship between community violence and self-harm. Future research should investigate reasons for differential associations by age and gender and whether community violence prevention programs have meaningful impacts on self-harm.
PMCID:6066408
PMID: 29889134
ISSN: 1531-5487
CID: 5031312