From plaster casts to picket lines: Public support for industrial action in the National Health Service in England

Data Availability Statement: Full replication data and code are available through the Harvard Dataverse, at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/SZJSOF .This paper explores public sentiment towards strike action among healthcare workers, as a result of their perceived inadequate pay. By analysing survey data collected in England between 2022 and 2023, the study focuses on NHS nurses and junior doctors, due to their critical role in delivering essential public services. Results indicate higher public support for strikes by nurses and junior doctors compared to other professions such as postal workers, teachers, rail workers, airport workers, civil servants and university lecturers. However, variation in support for strikes by healthcare workers is observed across societal segments. Significant disparities in support are linked to individual political affiliations, left–right ideological positions and trust in the NHS. In short, nonconservative voters, individuals leaning towards left-wing politics and those with greater trust in the NHS demonstrate higher likelihoods of supporting strikes by health workers. These findings carry implications for future strike decisions and highlight specific target groups for enhanced communication efforts to garner increased public support.Economic and Social Research Council. Grant Number: ES/W011913/1; Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Grant Number: JPJSJRP2021170

The role of religion and COVID-19 vaccine uptake in England

Data availability statement: Full replication data and code are available through the Harvard Dataverse, at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/VGA0BK.ICMJE statement: All authors attest they meet the ICMJE criteria for authorship.Background: While many countries have successfully deployed COVID-19 vaccination programmes, there are disparities in their uptake. One factor influencing vaccine coverage is religion. Existing research has found a link between religious beliefs and vaccine hesitancy. This study looks at religion in England to examine its relationship with public health. Methods: This analysis used data from a survey of over 12,000 respondents in England, conducted through the YouGov Online Panel. Respondents were asked whether they identified with a religion, and if so which, and the number of COVID-19 vaccinations they had received. We employed logistic regressions to analyse the data, accounting for age, gender, education, generalised trust, trust in government, and political ideology. Results: We find that respondents who identify as part of the Church of England have had significantly more COVID-19 vaccinations. Conversely, adherents to the Pentecostal Evangelical and Islamic faiths have had significantly fewer COVID-19 vaccinations. These relationships hold even when adjusting for age, education, level of trust, and political affiliation. Conclusion: This research indicates a potential influence of religious affiliation on vaccine uptake, highlighting the need for more carefully-tailored public health programmes. Recognizing the diverse associations of different religious affiliations on health behaviour is important for shaping future vaccination campaigns and policy interventions. Engaging with religious communities and leaders may be one method through which to deal with vaccine hesitancy and improve public health.UKRI/ ESRC (grant number ES/W011913/1) and the JSPS (grant number JPJSJRP 20211704)

The influence of waiting times and sociopolitical variables on public trust in healthcare: A cross-sectional study of the NHS in England

Data availability: Replication code and data are available through the Harvard Dataverse at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/AQYYNK . The data are in the public domain, under the terms of the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal deed.Objectives: This study aims to assess factors influencing public trust in the National Health Service (NHS) in England, focusing on the impact of waiting times in Accident & Emergency (A&E) departments and for GP-to-specialist cancer referrals. Study design: A cross-sectional survey-based research design was employed, covering the period from July 2022 to July 2023. Methods: Data were collected through YouGov surveys, yielding 7415 responses. Our analysis is based on 6952 of these responses which we were able to aggregate to 42 NHS Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) for A&E waiting times and 106 ICB sub-units for cancer referral times. Multiple regression analysis was conducted, with the dependent variable being trust in the NHS. Results: Waiting times for A&E and cancer referrals did not significantly affect trust in the NHS. However, other sociopolitical factors displayed significant influence. Specifically, being a member of an ethnic minority group, or having voted Conservative in the 2019 general election were associated with lower trust scores. Other variables such as age and local unemployment rate were also significant predictors. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that waiting times for healthcare services have no effect on public trust in the NHS. Instead, trust appears to be largely shaped by sociopolitical factors. Policymakers should therefore look beyond operational efficiency when seeking to bolster trust in the healthcare system.UKRI/ESRC (Grant reference ES/W011913/1) and the JSPS (Grant reference JPJSJRP 20211704)

London, you have a problem with women: Trust towards the police in England

Following a series of high-profile incidents of violence against women by serving London Metropolitan Police Officers, questions of standards and the public’s confidence in policing are in the spotlight. Over a fifteen-month period between July 2022 and September 2023 using monthly surveys of representative English samples, this study confirms that women, in general, are more trusting in the police than men. This, however, does not hold true in London. Out of nine regions in England, London is the only region where women’s overall trust in the police is lower than men. Lower levels of trust in the police among women in London hold when controls for age, income, political environment and crime levels are considered. In line with existing literature that considers women being more sensitive to cues about trustworthiness, the concerning incidents of sexual violence by police officers against women are likely to further erode trust in police in the capital, which already ranks last among England’s nine regions in citizen trust of the police.Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JPJSJRP 20211704 ); UK Research and Innovation (ES/W011913/1)

The spectrum of cardiovascular complications related to immune-checkpoint inhibitor treatment : Including myocarditis and the new entity of non inflammatory left ventricular dysfunction.

BACKGROUND: The full range of cardiovascular complications related to the use of Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) is not fully understood. We aim to describe the spectrum of cardiovascular adverse events (cvAEs) by presenting our real-world experience of the diagnosis and management of these complications. METHODS: Two thousand six hundred and forty-seven (2647) patients were started on ICI treatment between 2014 and 2020. Data from 110 patients referred to the cardio-oncology service with a suspected cvAE was collected prospectively and analysed. RESULTS: Eighty-nine patients (3.4%) were confirmed to have cvAEs while on ICI therapy. Myocarditis was the most frequent event (33/89), followed by tachyarrhythmia (27/89), non-inflammatory left ventricular dysfunction (NILVD) (15/89) and pericarditis (7/89). Results from myocarditis and non-inflammatory left ventricular dysfunction cohorts were compared. Myocarditis and NILVD showed significant differences in respect toof troponin elevation, cardiac magnetic resonance abnormalities and ventricular function. Dual ICI therapy and other immune related adverse events were more frequently associated with myocarditis than NILVD. There was a significant difference in the median time from starting ICI treatment to presentation with myocarditis versus NILVD (12 vs 26 weeks p = 0.049). Through early recognition of myocarditis, prompt treatment with steroids and interruption of ICI, there were no cardiovascular in-hospital deaths. NILVD did not require steroid treatment and ICI could be restarted safely. CONCLUSIONS: The full spectrum of cardiovascular complications in patients with immune checkpoint inhibitors is much broader than initially described. Myocarditis remains the most frequent cvAE related to ICI treatment. A novel type of myocardial injury was observed and defined as Atrial tachyarrhythmias and NILVD were also frequent in this cohort. NILVD has a This differs fromdifferent presentation from ICI-related myocarditis, mainly usually presenting afterby the lack of inflammatory features on CMR and biomarkers and a later presentation in time

Neurophysiological evidence for rapid processing of verbal and gestural information in understanding communicative actions

During everyday social interaction, gestures are a fundamental part of human communication. The communicative pragmatic role of hand gestures and their interaction with spoken language has been documented at the earliest stage of language development, in which two types of indexical gestures are most prominent: the pointing gesture for directing attention to objects and the give-me gesture for making requests. Here we study, in adult human participants, the neurophysiological signatures of gestural-linguistic acts of communicating the pragmatic intentions of naming and requesting by simultaneously presenting written words and gestures. Already at ~150 ms, brain responses diverged between naming and request actions expressed by word-gesture combination, whereas the same gestures presented in isolation elicited their earliest neurophysiological dissociations significantly later (at ~210 ms). There was an early enhancement of request-evoked brain activity as compared with naming, which was due to sources in the frontocentral cortex, consistent with access to action knowledge in request understanding. In addition, an enhanced N400-like response indicated late semantic integration of gesture-language interaction. The present study demonstrates that word-gesture combinations used to express communicative pragmatic intentions speed up the brain correlates of comprehension processes – compared with gesture-only understanding – thereby calling into question current serial linguistic models viewing pragmatic function decoding at the end of a language comprehension cascade. Instead, information about the social-interactive role of communicative acts is processed instantaneously

Interleukin-6 gene (IL-6): a possible role in brain morphology in the healthy adult brain

Background: Cytokines such as interleukin 6 (IL-6) have been implicated in dual functions in neuropsychiatric disorders. Little is known about the genetic predisposition to neurodegenerative and neuroproliferative properties of cytokine genes. In this study the potential dual role of several IL-6 polymorphisms in brain morphology is investigated. Methodology: In a large sample of healthy individuals (N = 303), associations between genetic variants of IL-6 (rs1800795; rs1800796, rs2069833, rs2069840) and brain volume (gray matter volume) were analyzed using voxel-based morphometry (VBM). Selection of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) followed a tagging SNP approach (e.g., Stampa algorigthm), yielding a capture 97.08% of the variation in the IL-6 gene using four tagging SNPs. Principal findings/results: In a whole-brain analysis, the polymorphism rs1800795 (−174 C/G) showed a strong main effect of genotype (43 CC vs. 150 CG vs. 100 GG; x = 24, y = −10, z = −15; F(2,286) = 8.54, puncorrected = 0.0002; pAlphaSim-corrected = 0.002; cluster size k = 577) within the right hippocampus head. Homozygous carriers of the G-allele had significantly larger hippocampus gray matter volumes compared to heterozygous subjects. None of the other investigated SNPs showed a significant association with grey matter volume in whole-brain analyses. Conclusions/significance: These findings suggest a possible neuroprotective role of the G-allele of the SNP rs1800795 on hippocampal volumes. Studies on the role of this SNP in psychiatric populations and especially in those with an affected hippocampus (e.g., by maltreatment, stress) are warranted.Bernhard T Baune, Carsten Konrad, Dominik Grotegerd, Thomas Suslow, Eva Birosova, Patricia Ohrmann, Jochen Bauer, Volker Arolt, Walter Heindel, Katharina Domschke, Sonja Schöning, Astrid V Rauch, Christina Uhlmann, Harald Kugel and Udo Dannlowsk

Favorable patient acceptance of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring in a primary care setting in the United States: a cross-sectional survey

BACKGROUND: The use of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) in the diagnosis and management of hypertension in primary care settings in the United States is increasing. Insufficient information is available describing patients' experiences and acceptance of this technology in the United States, where medical insurance coverage of the procedure is often limited. The objective of this study was to describe patient satisfaction with ABPM performed in a primary care office in the United States, using modern ABPM technology. METHODS: Cross-sectional survey performed on consecutive patients referred to the ABPM service of the Family Care Center, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Iowa City, Iowa from January 2001 to July 2003. Measures of patient satisfaction and acceptance with the device, comfort, and overall session were assessed via a 9-question, Likert-scale response survey. RESULTS: Since its inception two and a half years ago, 245 total ABPM sessions have been conducted in 235 unique patients. Of the 235 eligible respondents, 177 returned completed surveys, yielding a 75% response rate. Three-fourths (75%) of patients believed that undergoing the test was worthwhile considering the time and monetary cost involved, while most (90%) reported they thought the information provided by the test would be helpful to their physician in making treatment decisions. Patients reporting that their physician had clearly explained the benefit of undergoing the testing were more likely to report that they thought the results of the test would be more helpful in making treatment decisions. Few patients (20%) found that wearing the monitor was uncomfortable. CONCLUSIONS: When clinically indicated, clinicians should not hesitate to order ABPM testing for fear of subjecting patients to an uncomfortable test, or an uncovered insurance benefit. When ordering ABPM, they should be sure to educate the patient about the potential benefits of undergoing the testing. Most patients believe the test will provide useful information in making treatment decisions, despite probable lack of insurance coverage, and appear willing to experience some discomfort for the overall gain of the results obtained from undergoing the session