Original Research 16-Year Study Indicates Rising Patient Complexity and Fewer Patients Seen Per Day in Alberta Primary Care Background and goal: In this study, researchers examined changes over time in characteristics of adults cared for by family physicians from 2004 to 2020 in Alberta, Canada, along with trends in family physicians and their practice patterns for adults over 18 years old.  Study approach: Using linked administrative health data, including physician billing claims and hospital/ambulatory data, the researchers created annual, population-based snapshots from 2004 to 2020 of adults seeing family physicians providing comprehensive care. They tracked ...

Original Research Practice-Level Metric Provides “Big-Picture” Look That May Reduce Unnecessary  Antibiotic Use in Arkansas Medicaid PCMHs  Background and Goal: In this study, researchers developed, implemented and measured a claims-based, practice-level performance measure to calculate, track and influence antibiotic prescribing variation across Arkansas Medicaid’s patient-centered medical home (PCMH) program.  Study Approach: This retrospective, observational study used 2019–2021 outpatient antibiotic paid claims, attributing each claim ...

Research Brief More Low-Income Adults Reported Having a Usual Source of Care After the Affordable Care Act Background and Goal: Before the Affordable Care Act (ACA), uninsured and low-income adults were less likely to have a usual source of care due to cost, coverage, and access barriers. This study evaluated changes in the prevalence of usual sources of care and the reasons for lacking one before and after ACA implementation.   Study Approach: Researchers analyzed 2010 to 2017 data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey-Household ...

Original Research  Combining Medicare Wellness Visits With Problem-Based Visits Reduces No-Show Rates and Closes Screening Gaps  Background and Goal: A recurrent barrier to Medicare annual wellness visits, which provide preventative medicine guidance for older and disabled patients, occurs when patients introduce medical concerns to physicians during these preventative visits. In this study, researchers scheduled combined visits in a single, longer slot with patients’ regularly seen clinicians and used allowed billing rules so both visits could count to see if they could increase the percentage of ...

Methodology Current Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Differences of Sex Development Measures in Federal Health Surveys Background and Goal: Federal health surveys are a key source for understanding health needs in the U.S., including the needs of people in LGBTQ+ community. This methodology paper characterized the current landscape of measures capturing sexual orientation, gender identity, and differences of sex development in federal health surveys, detailing when and how the information was collected. Approach: ...

Innovations in Primary Care   Penn State Health’s Patient-Centered Quality Metric Reframing Project May Serve as a Model for Presenting Future Quality Metrics  Quality metrics aim to improve patient outcomes by setting evidence-based targets, but many are neither patient centered nor physician centered. A team at Penn State Health’s Department of Family and Community Medicine ran a project across 13 ambulatory clinics to make quality data more meaningful by presenting patient-oriented outcomes in plain, natural language. Using 24 months of electronic health record data, they ...

Original Research Adding Pharmacy Technicians to Primary Care Teams Helps Manage Medication Access  Background and Goal: This study examined whether adding pharmacy technicians to primary care teams relieved clinicians and nurses of medication-access tasks and improved perceptions of burden, quality of care and patient access. Study Approach: Researchers conducted a retrospective, mixed-methods study one year after deploying five primary care pharmacy technicians across 11 clinics in a large urban safety-net network. They analyzed electronic ...

Original Research High Educational Debt and Long Work Hours Are Associated With Burnout Symptoms in Early-Career Family Physicians Background and Goal: This study examined whether higher educational debt among physicians is associated with more hours worked per week and whether both are independently associated with burnout symptoms among early-career family physicians. Study Approach: Researchers linked the American Board of Family Medicine Initial Certification Questionnaire (2017 to 2020) to its National Graduate Survey ...

Special Report CHART Guideline Provides 12 Key Reporting Items for AI Chatbot Health Advice Studies Background and Goal: In response to the growing need for reporting standards for evaluating artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot health advice studies for clinical purposes, researchers created the Chatbot Assessment Reporting Tool (CHART) so stakeholders can interpret results with confidence. Key Insights: CHART was developed through a systematic review; a Delphi consensus process (a series of anonymous expert surveys to build agreement) with 531 international stakeholders; and three consensus meetings with a 48-member expert panel. The CHART statement ...

Scientists, nurses, and researchers in George Mason University’s College of Public Health (CPH) have successfully progressed to the third phase of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) program studying a broad range of early life exposures on child health.  The NIH grant provides more than $157 million in awards for Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO), and George Mason will receive $1.35 million annually until 2030 to conduct the study.  George Mason is one of 45 research sites across the country gathering longitudinal data on more than 30,000 children; 1,059 of those children are enrolled in George Mason’s ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — As the frequency and intensity of heatwaves increase across the U.S., a similar but more striking phenomenon is occurring in American rivers. Analysis of data from nearly 1,500 sites in the contiguous United States between 1980 and 2022 revealed that heatwaves in rivers are accelerating faster than and lasting nearly twice as long air heatwaves, according to a new study by researchers at Penn State.   “Rivers are often thought of as safe and cool havens protected from extreme temperatures,” said Li ...

STRICTLY EMBARGOED UNTIL 8PM UK TIME (3PM EASTERN TIME) ON MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 22   Hidden in plain sight, dried fish are an overlooked yet vital nutrient-packed superfood helping to feed millions of people across Africa, a new study reveals. And new evidence quantifies for the first time the essential nutrients in sun-dried and smoked fish in Africa, suggesting they could play an important role in tackling malnutrition across the tropics – provided the right policies are in place, researchers argue. Dried fish are an affordable and readily available food across the tropics. Yet despite this prevalence, because they are often ...

Tune into American politics today, and you'll hear something far more sinister than simple disagreement. The language has escalated: political parties trash talk each other—blaming rival parties for policy failures or even for causing incidents with national implications. And reducing polarization and "partisan animosity"—the distrust and hatred of the other party—is remarkably difficult, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences evaluating past attempts. The research was led by the Polarization ...

To the point: Conifers use resin to protect themselves against pests. This resin contains diterpenes, which are defensive substances.  Some of these diterpenes originated over 300 million years ago, before conifers evolved. Other diterpenes developed independently in different conifer species much later, presumably to protect against bark beetles. This repeated evolution was only possible because enzymes that produce diterpenes had previously undergone changes that unlocked evolutionary pathways towards certain substances. This is based on a mechanism called “epistasis”, which allows new traits to evolve once preparatory ...

Endocannabinoids are similar to the cannabinoids present in cannabis, but they are found naturally in the body. Endocannabinoids—and cannabinoids—work through a signaling system that supports neurodevelopment, but whether manipulating this system prenatally has long-lasting effects remains unclear. In a new JNeurosci paper, researchers led by Ismael Galve-Roperh, from the Complutense University of Madrid, used mice to explore this unknown.  The researchers decreased expression of an endocannabinoid receptor in the prefrontal cortex of prenatal mice and assessed the impact of this manipulation on gene expression, ...

In a collaboration between Turun yliopisto and the University of Turku, researchers led by Birgitta Paranko and Lauri Nummenmaa explored the immediate effects of bullying on the brain.  As reported in their JNeurosci paper, the researchers measured neural and attentional responses while tweens (aged 11 to 14) and adults watched first-person videos of either people being bullied or more positive social interactions. For participants of all ages, bullying triggered distressful alarm states, activating social and emotional brain networks as well as autonomic threat response systems. Measuring eye-tracking responses and pupil sizes in a separate group of adults during video viewing supported ...

Australian researchers have revealed a clear relationship between stress and increased disease risk in koalas in South East Queensland and on the New South Wales North Coast. A study led by Dr Michaela Blyton at The University of Queensland measured and tracked the level of koala retrovirus (KoRV) in groups of captive and wild koalas. “We wanted to see what happened to their KoRV loads over time and how it related to chlamydial infection and levels of the stress hormones cortisol and corticosterone in their faeces,” Dr Blyton said. “Virus load likely weakens the immune system, so those ...

DALLAS, Sept. 22, 2025 — Daniel T. Lackland, Dr.P.H., FAHA, professor of epidemiology and neurology at the Medical University of South Carolina, will receive this year’s Population Research Prize at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2025. The meeting, to be held Nov. 7-10, 2025, in New Orleans, is a premier global exchange of the latest scientific advancements, research and evidence-based clinical practice updates in cardiovascular science. Dr. Lackland will be presented with the award during the Presidential Session on Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025. Dr. ...

-. The year 2024 broke several temperature records: it was the hottest ever recorded, and its summer was also the warmest to date. A study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by the ”la Caixa” Foundation, has estimated that 62,775 heat-related deaths occurred in Europe between 1 June and 30 September of that year. These mortality figures are 23.6% higher than the approximately 50,800 estimated for the summer of 2023, and 8.1% lower than the nearly 67,900 estimated for the summer of 2022. These results have ...

About The Study: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, an increase in alcohol consumption per capita was associated with an increase in the suicide mortality rate at the population level and that the association was similar across sexes. As such, alcohol consumption per capita may be a useful target to consider within comprehensive national suicide prevention strategies. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Shannon Lange, PhD, email shannon.lange@camh.ca. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this ...

About The Study: The findings of this study underscore the need for routine and consistent screening, monitoring, and treatment of perinatal depression and anxiety. Women who received mental health services had faster reductions in depression over time, highlighting the potential impact for scalable and efficacious interventions during this critical period. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Nili Solomonov, PhD, email nis2051@med.cornell.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our ...

(Toronto, September 22, 2025) JMIR Publications, a leading open access publisher of digital health research, today announced the publication of a scientific news article that marks the formal launch of its "News & Perspectives" section. The article, "Research Implications of Increased Political Oversight in the US," was written by Scientific News Editor, Kayleigh-Ann Clegg, PhD, who will be coordinating the development of JMIR Publications’ digital health news service. Dr. Clegg's ...

Pea-sized brains grown in a lab have for the first time revealed the unique way neurons might misfire due to schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, psychiatric ailments that affect millions of people worldwide but are difficult to diagnose because of the lack of understanding of their molecular basis.   The findings may eventually help doctors reduce human error when addressing those and other mental health disorders that currently can only be diagnosed with clinical judgement and treated with trial-and-error medication approaches.   Details about the insights appear today in APL Bioengineering.   “Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are ...

Despite being at war since February 2022, Ukraine has managed to maintain public services. A new study from Linköping University points to the collaboration between citizens and public authorities as a key factor in this. According to the researchers behind it, there are lessons to be learned for other countries should war or crisis come. “Everyone, right down to the family and the individual, makes crucial decisions in times of deep crisis. It’s important that all actors are mobilised, ...

Background and objectives While metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) is associated with obesity, the cause of its rapidly rising prevalence is not well understood. In this study, we aimed to examine the association between arsenic exposure and MASLD in humans. Methods Urinary inorganic arsenic data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2011–2020, were used. These were combined with death certificate data from the National Death Index of the National Center for Health Statistics to ascertain mortality rates. Weighted linear regression and chi-squared ...