Faculty Bibliography

OBJECTIVE:Altered hormonal regulation, including cortisol, is a proposed mechanism linking adiposity to obesity-related disorders. We examined the association of anthropometric, adipokine, and body fat distribution measures of adiposity with morning serum cortisol in an African American (AA) cohort. METHODS:We investigated the cross-sectional associations of adiposity measures (BMI, waist circumference, leptin, adiponectin, leptin:adiponectin ratio, subcutaneous and visceral adipose tissue) and liver attenuation with cortisol in the Jackson Heart Study. Linear regression models were used to analyze the association between exposures and cortisol. Models were adjusted for multiple covariates. RESULTS:Among 4,211 participants, a 1-SD higher BMI and waist circumference were associated with a 3.92% and 3.05% lower cortisol, respectively. A 1-SD higher leptin and leptin:adiponectin ratio were associated with a 6.48% and 4.97% lower morning serum cortisol, respectively. A 1-SD higher subcutaneous adipose tissue was associated with a 4.97% lower cortisol (all P < 0.001). There were no associations of liver attenuation or visceral adipose tissue with cortisol. CONCLUSIONS:Several measures of adiposity are associated with lower morning serum cortisol among AAs, with leptin having the greatest magnitude. Future studies examining the role of morning serum cortisol in the pathway from adiposity to cardiometabolic disease in AAs are warranted.

Meeting the mental health needs of our current veteran population is one of the primary challenges facing the Veteran's Health Administration (VHA). Particularly for veterans residing in rural areas, the lack of providers, high provider turnover, and the burden of traveling long distances to VHA facilities may contribute to difficulties accessing mental health care. Telemental Health (TMH) services help bridge the geographic gap between mental health providers and veterans who need mental health services. The VHA TMH Hub initiative has attempted to leverage changes in technology-facilitated care by developing a model in which a facility "hub" could expand mental health resources to remote "spoke" clinics and veterans' residences. This paper describes the implementation of the VA New York Harbor Health care System (VA NYH) TMH Hub, which was one of 6 programs funded by the VHA Office of Rural Health (ORH) in September 2016. We will describe the structure of the program, services provided, veterans served, and our efforts to integrate quality improvement, research, and clinical training into the operations of the program. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Diabetes and hypertension are socially patterned by individual race/ethnicity and by neighborhood economic context, but distributions among Asian subgroups are undercharacterized. We examined variation in prevalence for both conditions, comparing between US Asian subgroups, including within South Asian nationalities, and comparing within subgroups by neighborhood economic context. We obtained data on a non-probability sample of 633,664 patients ages 18-64 in New York City, NY, USA (2014-2017); 30,138 belonged to one of seven Asian subgroups (Asian Indian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Filipino). We used electronic health records to classify disease status. We characterized census tract economic context using the Index of Concentration at the Extremes and estimated prevalence differences using multilevel models. Among Asian men, hypertension prevalence was highest for Filipinos. Among Asian women, hypertension prevalence was highest for Filipinas and Bangladeshis. Diabetes prevalence was highest among Pakistanis and Bangladeshis of both genders, exceeding all other Asian and non-Asian groups. There was consistent evidence of an economic gradient for both conditions, whereby persons residing in the most privileged neighborhood tertile had the lowest disease prevalence. The economic gradient was particularly strong for diabetes among Pakistanis, whose prevalence in the most deprived tertile exceeded that of the most privileged by 9 percentage points (95% CI 3, 14). Only Koreans departed from the trend, experiencing the highest diabetes prevalence in the most privileged tertile. US Asian subgroups largely demonstrate similar neighborhood economic gradients as other groups. Disaggregating Asian subgroups, including within South Asian nationalities, reveals important heterogeneity in prevalence.

BACKGROUND:Telemedicine use rapidly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study assessed quality aspects of rapid expansion of a virtual urgent care (VUC) telehealth system and the effects of a secondary telephonic screening initiative during the pandemic. METHODS:A retrospective cohort analysis was performed in a single health care network of VUC patients from March 1, 2020, through April 20, 2020. Researchers abstracted demographic data, comorbidities, VUC return visits, emergency department (ED) referrals and ED visits, dispositions, intubations, and deaths. The team also reviewed incomplete visits. For comparison, the study evaluated outcomes of non-admission dispositions from the ED: return visits with and without admission and deaths. We separately analyzed the effects of enhanced callback system targeting higher-risk patients with COVID-like illness during the last two weeks of the study period. RESULTS:A total of 18,278 unique adult patients completed 22,413 VUC visits. Separately, 718 patient-scheduled visits were incomplete; the majority were no-shows. The study found that 50.9% of all patients and 74.1% of patients aged 60 years or older had comorbidities. Of VUC visits, 6.8% had a subsequent VUC encounter within 72 hours; 1.8% had a subsequent ED visit. Of patients with enhanced follow-up, 4.3% were referred for ED evaluation. Mortality was 0.20% overall; 0.21% initially and 0.16% with enhanced follow-up (p = 0.59). Males and black patients were significantly overrepresented in decedents. CONCLUSION/CONCLUSIONS:Appropriately deployed VUC services can provide a pragmatic strategy to care for large numbers of patients. Ongoing surveillance of operational, technical, and clinical factors is critical for patient quality and safety with this modality.

RATIONALE & OBJECTIVE:Current dietary guidelines recommend that patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) restrict individual nutrients, such as sodium, potassium, phosphorus, and protein. This approach can be difficult for patients to implement and ignores important nutrient interactions. Dietary patterns are an alternative method to intervene on diet. Our objective was to define the associations of 4 healthy dietary patterns with risk for CKD progression and all-cause mortality among people with CKD. STUDY DESIGN:Prospective cohort study. SETTING & PARTICIPANTS:and dietary data in the Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort (CRIC) Study. EXPOSURES:Healthy Eating Index-2015, Alternative Healthy Eating Index-2010, alternate Mediterranean diet (aMed), and Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet scores were calculated from food frequency questionnaires. OUTCOMES:(1) CKD progression defined as≥50% estimated glomerular filtration rate decline, kidney transplantation, or dialysis and (2) all-cause mortality. ANALYTICAL APPROACH:Cox proportional hazards regression models adjusted for demographic, lifestyle, and clinical covariates to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% CIs. RESULTS:There were 855 cases of CKD progression and 773 deaths during a maximum of 14 years. Compared with participants with the lowest adherence, the most highly adherent tertile of Alternative Healthy Eating Index-2010, aMed, and DASH had lower adjusted risk for CKD progression, with the strongest results for aMed (HR, 0.75; 95% CI, 0.62-0.90). Compared with participants with the lowest adherence, the highest adherence tertiles for all scores had lower adjusted risk for all-cause mortality for each index (24%-31% lower risk). LIMITATIONS:Self-reported dietary intake. CONCLUSIONS:Greater adherence to several healthy dietary patterns is associated with lower risk for CKD progression and all-cause mortality among people with CKD. Guidance to adopt healthy dietary patterns can be considered as a strategy for managing CKD.

SCOPE:Serum metabolomic markers of the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet are previously reported. In an independent study, the similarity of urine metabolomic markers are investigated. METHODS AND RESULTS:In the DASH-Sodium trial, participants are randomly assigned to the DASH diet or control diet, and received three sodium interventions (high, intermediate, low) within each randomized diet group in random order for 30 days each. Urine samples are collected at the end of each intervention period and analyzed for 938 metabolites. Two comparisons are conducted: 1) DASH-high sodium (n = 199) versus control-high sodium (n = 193), and 2) DASH-low sodium (n = 196) versus control-high sodium. Significant metabolites identified using multivariable linear regression are compared and the top 10 influential metabolites identified using partial least-squares discriminant analysis to the results from the DASH trial. Nine out of 10 predictive metabolites of the DASH-high sodium and DASH-low sodium diets are identical. Most candidate biomarkers from the DASH trial replicated. N-methylproline, chiro-inositol, stachydrine, and theobromine replicated as influential metabolites of DASH diets. CONCLUSIONS:Candidate biomarkers of the DASH diet identified in serum replicated in urine. Replicated influential metabolites are likely to be objective biomarkers of the DASH diet.

BACKGROUND:Vitamin D supplementation may prevent falls in older persons, but evidence is inconsistent, possibly because of dosage differences. OBJECTIVE:supplements on falls. DESIGN:2-stage Bayesian, response-adaptive, randomized trial. (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02166333). SETTING:2 community-based research units. PARTICIPANTS:688 participants, aged 70 years and older, with elevated fall risk and a serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25-(OH)D] level of 25 to 72.5 nmol/L. INTERVENTION:doses, and the best noncontrol dose for preventing falls was determined. After dose finding, participants previously assigned to receive noncontrol doses received the best dose, and new enrollees were randomly assigned to receive 200 IU/d or the best dose. MEASUREMENTS:Time to first fall or death over 2 years (primary outcome). RESULTS: = 0.54). Analysis of falls with adverse outcomes suggested greater risk in the experience-with-best-dose group versus the 200-IU/d group (serious fall: HR, 1.87 [CI, 1.03 to 3.41]; fall with hospitalization: HR, 2.48 [CI, 1.13 to 5.46]). LIMITATIONS:per day, not a placebo. Dose finding ended before the prespecified thresholds for dose suspension and dose selection were reached. CONCLUSION:doses of 1000 IU/d or higher. PRIMARY FUNDING SOURCE:National Institute on Aging.

BACKGROUND:Most people with opioid use disorder (OUD) never receive treatment. Medication treatment of OUD in primary care is recommended as an approach to increase access to care. The PRimary Care Opioid Use Disorders treatment (PROUD) trial tests whether implementation of a collaborative care model (Massachusetts Model) using a nurse care manager (NCM) to support medication treatment of OUD in primary care increases OUD treatment and improves outcomes. Specifically, it tests whether implementation of collaborative care, compared to usual primary care, increases the number of days of medication for OUD (implementation objective) and reduces acute health care utilization (effectiveness objective). The protocol for the PROUD trial is presented here. METHODS:PROUD is a hybrid type III cluster-randomized implementation trial in six health care systems. The intervention consists of three implementation strategies: salary for a full-time NCM, training and technical assistance for the NCM, and requiring that three primary care providers have DEA waivers to prescribe buprenorphine. Within each health system, two primary care clinics are randomized: one to the intervention and one to Usual Primary Care. The sample includes all patients age 16-90 who visited the randomized primary care clinics from 3 years before to 2 years after randomization (anticipated to be > 170,000). Quantitative data are derived from existing health system administrative data, electronic medical records, and/or health insurance claims ("electronic health records," [EHRs]). Anonymous staff surveys, stakeholder debriefs, and observations from site visits, trainings and technical assistance provide qualitative data to assess barriers and facilitators to implementation. The outcome for the implementation objective (primary outcome) is a clinic-level measure of the number of patient days of medication treatment of OUD over the 2 years post-randomization. The patient-level outcome for the effectiveness objective (secondary outcome) is days of acute care utilization [e.g. urgent care, emergency department (ED) and/or hospitalizations] over 2 years post-randomization among patients with documented OUD prior to randomization. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSIONS:The PROUD trial provides information for clinical leaders and policy makers regarding potential benefits for patients and health systems of a collaborative care model for management of OUD in primary care, tested in real-world diverse primary care settings. Trial registration # NCT03407638 (February 28, 2018); CTN-0074 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03407638?term=CTN-0074&draw=2&rank=1.