Washington

The connection between suicide and incarceration is well documented, in particular after recent arrest. Criminal defense attorneys may be one of the few people in meaningful contact with this population, and lawyers have a unique window into their clients' well-being. In this Viewpoint, we explore the experiences of attorneys who work with clients with suicidal thoughts and behaviors. We developed and administered a survey to criminal defense attorneys in the State of Washington, ascertaining their experiences with client suicide...

OBJECTIVE: Firearm violence constitutes a public health crisis in the United States, but comprehensive data infrastructure is lacking to study this problem. To address this challenge, we used natural language processing (NLP) to classify court record documents from alleged violent crimes as firearm-related or non-firearm-related. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We accessed and digitized court records from the state of Washington (n = 1472). Human review established a gold standard label for firearm involvement (yes/no)...

The United States has one of the largest incarcerated populations per capita. Prisons are dangerous environments, with high in-prison and postrelease mortality. The Death in Custody Reporting Acts (DCRAs) of 2000 and 2013 require deaths of people in correctional custody or caused by law enforcement to be reported to the Bureau of Justice Assistance. These deaths must be reported within 3 months of the death and include 10 required fields (eg, age, cause of death). There is no public reporting requirement. Our Third City Mortality project tracks near-real-time data about individual deaths released publicly and prison system metadata, including data completeness and release speed, across (N = 54) US state, federal (N = 2; Bureau of Prisons, Immigration and Customs Enforcement), Washington, District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico prison systems...

PROBLEM: The June 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning affirmative action required medical schools to discontinue considering race/ethnicity in admissions decisions. Medical schools must now identify different strategies if they aim to recruit and admit applicants from groups underrepresented in medicine (URiM; race/ethnicity), as enrolling broadly diverse students remains critical for serving the U.S. population. APPROACH: Washington State University Elson S...

Modern machine learning approaches have led to performant diagnostic models for a variety of health conditions. Several machine learning approaches, such as decision trees and deep neural networks, can, in principle, approximate any function. However, this power can be considered to be both a gift and a curse, as the propensity toward overfitting is magnified when the input data are heterogeneous and high dimensional and the output class is highly nonlinear. This issue can especially plague diagnostic systems that predict behavioral and psychiatric conditions that are diagnosed with subjective criteria...

INTRODUCTION: Pre-operative process optimization can expedite time-to-intervention and reduce overall health care costs. We hypothesized that the longest delay to hemodialysis (HD) access creation would be from pre-operative vessel mapping (mandatory in our practice), and that this would be correlated with increased catheter days. METHODS: One hundred thirty patients (24 inpatients, 106 outpatients) who received initial hemodialysis (HD) access from 01/01/2017 to 12/31/2021, at the Veterans Affairs Puget Sound, Seattle, Washington, were identified...

The risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD) significantly increases in individuals carrying the APOEε4 allele. Elderly cognitively healthy individuals with APOEε4 also exist, suggesting the presence of cellular mechanisms that counteract the pathological effects of APOEε4; however, these mechanisms are unknown. We hypothesized that APOEε4 carriers without dementia might carry genetic variations that could protect them from developing APOEε4-mediated AD pathology. To test this, we leveraged whole-genome sequencing (WGS) data in the National Institute on Aging Alzheimer's Disease Family Based Study (NIA-AD FBS), Washington Heights/Inwood Columbia Aging Project (WHICAP), and Estudio Familiar de Influencia Genetica en Alzheimer (EFIGA) cohorts and identified potentially protective variants segregating exclusively among unaffected APOEε4 carriers...

<b/> Background: Little is known about the quality of media reports on suicide and prevention targeting persons with sexual or gender minority identities (LGBTQ+). Aims: To assess the quality of suicide-related media reporting of LGBTQ+ people and its consistency with media guidelines. Method: We conducted a content analysis of 5,652 media items in two US states (Washington and Oregon) published within 1 year. Results: There were only few differences in the reporting about suicide in LGBTQ+ as compared to non-LGBTQ+ reports...

Career building can be challenging for young surgeons, especially when topics such as lifestyle, work-life balance and subspecialization arise. Suggestions and advice from senior colleagues is very valuable but many young surgeons do not have such opportunities or are limited to a few senior surgeons. The International Microsurgery Club (IMC), in collaboration with the World Society of Reconstructive Microsurgery, organized a combined webinar for this topic and invited world renowned microsurgery masters polled by the IMC members to join, including Prof...

PURPOSE: This study aimed to identify determinants influencing the utilization of early intervention services among young children with sickle cell disease (SCD) based on perspectives from medical and early intervention providers. DESIGN AND METHODS: Early intervention and medical providers from the catchment area surrounding St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and Washington University were recruited (20 total providers). Interviews were completed over the phone and audio recorded...

BACKGROUND: Statistical models of air pollution enable intra-urban characterization of pollutant concentrations, benefiting exposure assessment for environmental epidemiology. The new generation of low-cost sensors facilitate the deployment of dense monitoring networks and can potentially be used to improve intra-urban models of air pollution. OBJECTIVE: Develop and evaluate a spatiotemporal model for nitrogen dioxide (NO2 ) in the Puget Sound region of WA, USA for the Adult Changes in Thought Air Pollution (ACT-AP) study and assess the contribution of low-cost sensor data to the model's performance through cross-validation...

Recognizing the inequities in developmental screening and services for children in immigrant families, a pediatric primary care clinic in partnership with a community-based early childhood program co-created a bicultural, bilingual early childhood developmental (ECD) family navigator program in Seattle, Washington. The primary aim of this study is to explore caregivers' perspectives about this program. Twenty-seven caregivers of young children participated in semi-structured interviews that were thematically analyzed...

BACKGROUND: Immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs) are likely to complicate maternal health. However, literature on patients with IMIDs undergoing pregnancy is scarce and often overlooks the presence of comorbidities. We aimed to evaluate the impact of IMIDs on adverse pregnancy outcomes after assessing and addressing any discrepancies in the distribution of covariates associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes between patients with and without IMIDs. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study using data from an integrated U...

Caring Cards is a peer-adaptation of caring contacts for suicide prevention, in which people with lived experience of suicidal thoughts and behaviors create handmade cards for peers currently experiencing suicidal thoughts and/or behaviors. The present study used data from a feasibility/acceptability study of Caring Cards at a Veterans Affairs Medical Center to explore preferences for this type of recovery-oriented suicide prevention intervention. Participants were 55 Veterans with a past (card makers, n =21) or current (card recipients, n =34) high-risk indication for suicide...

OBJECTIVE: Tumors may be responsible for up to 5% of trigeminal neuralgia (TN) cases. Predictors of long-term pain relief after surgical resection of various cerebellopontine angle (CPA) tumor types are not well understood. Previous studies found that size and extent of resection predict long-term pain status, although resection of tumor involving the trigeminal ganglion (TG) may be associated with high morbidity. This study evaluated predictors of TN pain freedom after resection of a non-acoustic CPA tumor, with avoidance of any portion involving the TG...

BACKGROUND: The prevalence of maxillofacial and head injuries associated with electric scooters (e-scooter, ES) has risen in concordance with its popularity. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to compare maxillofacial and head injury location, type, and severity related to ES and bicycle accidents and to identify factors contributing to injury severity. STUDY DESIGN, SETTING, SAMPLE: The authors implemented a multicenter retrospective cohort study in Seattle, Washington, and enrolled a sample of ES riders and bicyclists who sustained maxillofacial injuries between September 2020 and September 2022...

OBJECTIVE: To identify common themes of the meaning of food among people who identify with a specific religious tradition, particularly focusing on potential applications for nutrition education and professional practice at multiple levels of the Social-Ecological Model. DESIGN: Virtual and in-person focus groups were used to collect qualitative data. SETTING: A midsized city in eastern Washington State. PARTICIPANTS: Nine focus groups (n = 35), each representing a distinct religious congregation...

BACKGROUND: In January of 2019, Washington State (WA) passed Initiative 1639 making it illegal for persons <21 years-old to buy assault weapons (AWs). This study aimed to evaluate the effects of WA-1639 on firearm-related incidents involving AWs by those <21 years-old in WA, hypothesizing a decrease in incidents after WA-1639. METHODS: Retrospective (2016-2021) data on firearm violence (FV) events were gathered from the Gun Violence Archive. The rate of FV was weighted per 100,000 people...

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