Co-creation using crowdsourcing to promote PrEP adherence in China: study protocol for a stepped-wedge randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Adherent pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) uptake can prevent HIV infections. Despite the high HIV incidence, Chinese key populations have low PrEP uptake and adherence. New interventions are needed to increase PrEP adherence among key populations in China. Co-creation methods are helpful to solicit ideas from the community to solve public health problems. The study protocol aims to describe the design of a stepped-wedge trial and to evaluate the efficacy of co-created interventions to facilitate PrEP adherence among key populations in China. METHODS: The study will develop intervention packages to facilitate PrEP adherence among Chinese key populations using co-creation methods. The study will then evaluate the efficacy of the co-created intervention packages using a stepped-wedge randomized controlled trial. This four-phased closed cohort stepped-wedge design will have four clusters. Each cluster will start intervention at three-month intervals. Seven hundred participants who initiated PrEP will be recruited. Participants will be randomized to the clusters using block randomization. The intervention condition includes receiving co-created interventions in addition to standard of care. The control condition is the standard of care that includes routine clinical assessment every 3 months. All participants will also receive an online follow-up survey every 3 months to record medication adherence and will be encouraged to use a WeChat mini-app for sexual and mental health education throughout the study. The primary outcomes are PrEP adherence and retention in PrEP care throughout the study period. We will examine a hypothesis that a co-created intervention can facilitate PrEP adherence. Generalized linear mixed models will be used for the primary outcome analysis. DISCUSSION: Developing PrEP adherence interventions in China faces barriers including suboptimal PrEP uptake among key populations, the lack of effective PrEP service delivery models, and insufficient community engagement in PrEP initiatives. Our study design addresses these obstacles by using co-creation to generate social media-based intervention materials and embedding the study design in the local healthcare system. The study outcomes may have implications for policy and intervention practices among CBOs and the medical system to facilitate PrEP adherence among key populations. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The study is registered in Clinical Trial databases in China (ChiCTR2100048981, July 19, 2021) and the US (NCT04754139, February 11, 2021)

Introduction and utilization of high priced HCV medicines across Europe; implications for the future

Background: Infection with the Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) is a widespread transmittable disease with a diagnosed prevalence of 2.0%. Fortunately, it is now curable in most patients. Sales of medicines to treat HCV infection grew 2.7% per year between 2004 and 2011, enhanced by the launch of the protease inhibitors (PIs) boceprevir (BCV) and telaprevir (TVR) in addition to ribavirin and pegylated interferon (pegIFN). Costs will continue to rise with new treatments including sofosbuvir, which now include interferon free regimens. de Bruijn et al. HCV Medicines Objective: Assess the uptake of BCV and TVR across Europe from a health authority perspective to offer future guidance on dealing with new high cost medicines. Methods: Cross-sectional descriptive study of medicines to treat HCV (pegIFN, ribavirin, BCV and TVR) among European countries from 2008 to 2013. Utilization measured in defined daily doses (DDDs)/1000 patients/quarter (DIQs) and expenditure in Euros/DDD. Health authority activities to influence treatments categorized using the 4E methodology (Education, Engineering, Economics and Enforcement). Results: Similar uptake of BCV and TVR among European countries and regions, ranging from 0.5 DIQ in Denmark, Netherlands and Slovenia to 1.5 DIQ in Tayside and Catalonia in 2013. However, different utilization of the new PIs vs. ribavirin indicates differences in dual vs. triple therapy, which is down to factors including physician preference and genotypes. Reimbursed prices for BCV and TVR were comparable across countries. Conclusion: There was reasonable consistency in the utilization of BCV and TVR among European countries in comparison with other high priced medicines. This may reflect the social demand to limit the transmission of HCV. However, the situation is changing with new curative medicines for HCV genotype 1 (GT1) with potentially an appreciable budget impact. These concerns have resulted in different prices across countries, with their impact on budgets and patient outcomes monitored in the future to provide additional guidance

The Rise and Fall, and the Rise (Again) of Feminist Research in Music: 'What Goes Around Comes Around'

This article reports from a two-phase study that involved an analysis of the extant literature followed by a three-part survey answered by seventy-one women composers. Through these theoretical and empirical data, the authors explore the relationship between gender and music’s symbolic and cultural capital. Bourdieu’s theory of the habitus is employed to understand the gendered experiences of the female composers who participated in the survey. The article suggests that these female composers have different investments in gender but that, overall, they reinforce the male habitus given that the female habitus occupies a subordinate position in relation to that of the male. The findings of the study also suggest a connection between contemporary feminism and the attitudes towards gender held by the participants. The article concludes that female composers classify themselves, and others, according to gendered norms and that these perpetuate the social order in music in which the male norm dominates

Listen

xvii, 402 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 28 cm

Art of Fugue

Fugue for J. S. Bach was a natural language; he wrote fugues in organ toccatas and voluntaries, in masses and motets, in orchestral and chamber music, and even in his sonatas for violin solo. The more intimate fugues he wrote for keyboard are among the greatest, most infl uential, and best-loved works in all of Western music. They have long been the foundation of the keyboard repertory, played by beginning students and world-famous virtuosi alike. In a series of elegantly written essays, eminent musicologist Joseph Kerman discusses his favorite Bach keyboard fugues—some of them among the best-known fugues and others much less familiar. Kerman skillfully, at times playfully, reveals the inner workings of these pieces, linking the form of the fugues with their many different characters and expressive qualities, and illuminating what makes them particularly beautiful, powerful, and moving. “Beautifully produced and even more beautifully written, suffused with humanistic learning, warmth, generosity, and wit.” —Early Music“Kerman’s hearing is sharp, his thinking precise and original, and his prose elegant and sapid.”—Michael Steinberg, author of The Symphony: A Listener’s Guide “Astonishing, stimulating, marvelous, and accessible.” —Stephen Kovacevich JOSEPH KERMAN (1924–2014) was Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, author of Concerto Conversations, Write All These Down, and Opera as Drama, among other books. He was a founding editor of the journal 19th-Century Music and a regular contributor to the New York Review