Addressing the Challenges of Reporting on Childhood Asthma in a Changing Health Care System: Building Better Evidence for High Performance

Childhood asthma is a serious and costly chronic disease that burdens children and families as well as the health care systems that serve them. A key element to improving asthma outcomes is access to timely and useful data that can improve the quality of care and inform programs and policies to best serve those communities most burdened by asthma. This Policy Brief examines the nation’s data collection framework for childhood asthma and considers steps that might be taken to strengthen it, including the development, collection and refinement of community-level data to inform local health care systems. Through a review of the public health surveillance system related to childhood asthma, including a specific look at existing asthma data, this brief lays out the challenges to the current system and identifies opportunities to develop responsive and timely data collection, monitoring and surveillance systems, harnessing health information technology (HIT) applications to address the many challenges of childhood asthma. This brief includes recommendations for improvements in public health reporting systems including standardization of measures and a focus on the development of real-time local surveillance and mapping technologies to best inform communities working to lessen their childhood asthma burden

UCCE efforts improve quality of and demand for fresh produce at WIC A-50 stores

In 2005, the Institute of Medicine recommended major revisions in the food packages provided by the federal Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), leading to new regulations that allow participants to purchase a wide variety of fruits and vegetables with their vouchers. In support of this policy change, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources Cooperative Extension (UCCE) developed educational materials to promote fresh produce among WIC participants and offered postharvest handling training at WIC-only stores, known as A-50 vendors, in order to improve produce quality. A survey conducted after the educational sessions found that WIC participants had increased knowledge of produce and A-50 vendors showed improved postharvest handling after the education sessions. This research demonstrates that combining nutrition education with postharvest handling curriculum can lead to a successful educational program that supports increased demand among WIC participants for fresh produce

From precision medicine to precision care: Choosing and using precision medicine in the context of multimorbidity

Rapid advances in precision medicine promise dramatic reductions in morbidity and mortality for a growing array of conditions. To realize the benefits of precision medicine and minimize harm, it is necessary to address real-world challenges encountered in translating this research into practice. Foremost among these is how to choose and use precision medicine modalities in real-world practice by addressing issues related to caring for the sizable proportion of people living with multimorbidity. Precision medicine needs to be delivered in the broader context of precision care to account for factors that influence outcomes for specific therapeutics. Precision care integrates a person-centered approach with precision medicine to inform decision making and care planning by taking multimorbidity, functional status, values, goals, preferences, social and societal context into account. Designing dissemination and implementation of precision medicine around precision care would improve person-centered quality and outcomes of care, target interventions to those most likely to benefit thereby improving access to new therapeutics, minimize the risk of withdrawal from the market from unanticipated harms of therapy, and advance health equity by tailoring interventions and care to meet the needs of diverse individuals and populations. Precision medicine delivered in the context of precision care would foster respectful care aligned with preferences, values, and goals, engendering trust, and providing needed information to make informed decisions. Accelerating adoption requires attention to the full continuum of translational research: developing new approaches, demonstrating their usefulness, disseminating and implementing findings, while engaging patients throughout the process. This encompasses basic science, preclinical and clinical research and implementation into practice, ultimately improving health. This article examines challenges to the adoption of precision medicine in the context of multimorbidity. Although the potential of precision medicine is enormous, proactive efforts are needed to avoid unintended consequences and foster its equitable and effective adoption

Acceptance Rates of COVID-19 Vaccine Highlight the Need for Targeted Public Health Interventions

We aimed to examine rates of COVID-19 vaccination to elucidate the need for targeted public health interventions. We retrospectively reviewed the electronic medical files of all adults registered in a central district in Israel from 1 January 2021 to 31 March 2022. The population was characterized by vaccination status against COVID-19 and the number of doses received. Univariate and multivariable analyses were used to identify predictors of low vaccination rates that required targeted interventions. Of the 246,543 subjects included in the study, 207,911 (84.3%) were vaccinated. The minority groups of ultra-Orthodox Jews and Arabs had lower vaccination rates than the non-ultra-Orthodox Jews (68.7%, 80.5% and 87.7%, respectively, p p p p < 0.001) associated with low vaccination rates: minority groups of the ultra-Orthodox sector and Arab population, and underlying conditions of asthma, smoking and diabetes mellitus (odds ratios: 0.484, 0.453, 0.843, 0.901 and 0.929, respectively). Specific targeted public health interventions towards these subpopulations with significantly lower rates of vaccination are suggested

Effect of interleukin-1 antagonist on growth of children with colchicine resistant or intolerant FMF

Abstract Introduction Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF) is the most common monogentic autoinflammatory disease. FMF results from mutations in MEFV, which lead to a pro-inflammatory state and increased production of Interleukin 1 beta subunit (IL-1b) by myeloid cells. Despite the overall positive results obtained with anti-IL-1 agents in FMF patients, little is known about the long-term growth impact of these drugs in the pediatric population. Objectives To assess the long-term body weight and height trajectories in children with FMF treated with anti-IL-1 agents. Methods We conducted a retrospective analysis of 646 pediatric FMF patients followed in our center, of whom 22 were treated with either anakinra (36.3%) and/or canakinumab (90.9%). Patients were assessed for demographic, clinical and genetic characteristics and were followed for a mean of 3.05 ± 1.75 years. Data of height and weight percentiles were recorded before and after treatment. Results The most common indication for IL-1 blockers treatment was colchicine resistance (66.6%). Ninety percent of those patients had a moderate or severe disease according to the Pras score and had higher proportion of M694V homozygosity compared with patients who did not require anti IL-1 agents (95.2% vs. 30.5%, p < 0.001). Overall, anakinra and canakinumab resulted in a complete response in 80% of patients and exhibited low rates of adverse effects. We found a significant increase in height and body weight percentiles following treatment (19.6 ± 16% vs. 30.8 ± 23%, p = 0.007, and 29.5 ± 30% vs. 39.1 ± 36%, p = 0.043, respectively). Conclusion Treatment with anti-IL-1 agents in children with FMF is effective and safe and may potentiate long-term growth