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Emerging Practices that show potential to achieve desirable public health outcomes in a specific real-life setting and produce early results that are consistent with the objectives of the activities and thus indicate effectiveness.
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White Paper/Brief
This article discusses the Foundation for Opioid Response Efforts (FORE) distribution of $1.3 million in grants to organizations studying the potential permanent adoption of COVID-19 care access measures to promote health equity in opioid use disorder treatment. The grants aim to investigate the impact of temporary policies, such as virtual care, on access to care and patient outcomes. The studies will explore how relaxed prescribing policies for buprenorphine, telehealth strategies, and other COVID-19 measures have affected patient access and outcomes, particularly among underserved populations. The research will inform evidence-based policies to sustain access to better care beyond the pandemic and address the ongoing opioid crisis.
Novel Practices that show potential to achieve desirable public health outcomes in a specific real-life setting and are in the process of generating evidence of effectiveness or may not yet be tested.
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Peer Review Study
A retrospective registry-based chart review examined the various demographic and clinical risk factors associated with COVID-19 severity among patients aged 18-29. The study was done within a metropolitan health care system in Houston, TX. In the cohort of 1,853 young adult patients diagnosed with COVID-19 infection at a hospital encounter, including 226 pregnant women, 1,438 (78%) scored 0 on the Charlson Comorbidity Index, and 833 (45%) were obese (≥30 kg/m2). Within 30 days of their diagnostic encounter, 316 (17%) patients were diagnosed with pneumonia, 148 (8%) received other severe disease diagnoses, and 268 (14%) returned to the hospital after being discharged home. In multivariate logistic regression analyses, increasing age, male gender, Hispanic ethnicity, obesity, asthma history, congestive heart failure, cerebrovascular disease, and diabetes were predictive of severe disease diagnoses within 30 days. Non-Hispanic Black race, obesity, asthma history, myocardial infarction history, and household exposure were predictive of 30-day readmission.
Emerging Practices that show potential to achieve desirable public health outcomes in a specific real-life setting and produce early results that are consistent with the objectives of the activities and thus indicate effectiveness.
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Peer Review Study
Youth nationwide face new intensified stressors like illness, death, social isolation, economic stress, food insecurity, family hardship, and increase domestic violence risk. These stressors are associated with outcomes like depression, behavioral problems, anxiety disorders, and worsened existing mental health conditions. School-based health centers (SBHCs) are a cost-effective health care delivery model that increases mental and behavioral health access and use. SBHC patients live in underserved communities and are at a greater risk for mental health issues. The qualitative data from this study highlight increased demand for mental health services and a lack of resources to meet this demand, resources to ensure universal telehealth technology access are needed to improve health care access for youth, and parental buy-in and support are crucial component of sustained care.
Emerging Practices that show potential to achieve desirable public health outcomes in a specific real-life setting and produce early results that are consistent with the objectives of the activities and thus indicate effectiveness.
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Peer Review Study
This study describes harm reduction and health services provided by the U.S. syringe services programs (SSPs) in 2019 and changes in provision of those services in 2020. Many SSPs that offered health services in 2019 and remained operational in 2020 increased telehealth provision of mental health and primary care services, increased MOUD provision, and expanded harm reduction services, but most SSPs reduced or stopped on-site HIV and HCV testing. With the record high opioid overdose fatality rates in 2020, sustaining the trajectory of SSP growth and innovation leading up to and through 2020 requires ensuring adequate and flexible funding to support the life-saving work of SSPs in preventing future overdose deaths and outbreaks of HIV and HCV.
Promising Practices that show evidence of effectiveness in improving public health outcomes in a specific real-life setting, as indicated by achievement of aims consistent with the objectives of the activities, and are suitable for adaptation by other communities.
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Summary Report/Recommendations
This article discusses the preliminary data regarding Syringe Services Program (SSP) operational and service delivery changes during the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and provides key policy and service provision implications for SSPs. There is an emphasis on the distribution of services provided at SSPs and highlights the need for SSP support in providing education, prevention, and strategies to avoid emerging infectious disease outbreaks.