RTI International

Evaluating multiple alternative responses strategies to 911 calls within Durham's Holistic Empathetic Assistance Response Team (HEART) program: A quasi-experimental study

Alternative response programs are designed to bridge the gap between the crisis needs of 911 callers and public safety goals of first responders. Despite widespread implementation, rigorous research on program outcomes remains limited. This study used a quasi-experimental design...

Intra-individual variability of urinary non-persistent chemical concentrations during pregnancy in the ECHO Cohort

Studies of prenatal exposure to non-persistent chemicals often assume biomarker measurements from a single urine sample can represent exposure pregnancy. The validity of this assumption depends on biomarker concentration variability across gestation, which is not well-characteriz...

Comparison of prenatal self-report of tobacco use to direct measurement of umbilical cord cotinine

Abstract Objective This study compared maternal self-reports of prenatal tobacco product use with biochemically confirmed cotinine in umbilical cord tissue in newborns exposed to opioids in utero and unexposed controls. Study design Secondary data analysis on 179 pregnant women a...

Combining Contingency Management With Continuous Glucose Monitoring to Support Type 2 Diabetes Prevention and Care

Diabetes prevention and care require recurring self-management behaviors whose benefits are often delayed and uncertain. Digital contingency management (CM), which arranges incentives contingent on objective evidence of behavior or outcomes, offers a scalable way to strengthen th...

“…If the Doctor Didn't Suggest it, Then I Would Probably Push the Idea Farther in My Head.”: Centering the Diverse Voices of Black Women to Understand PrEP Awareness and Access in the United States South

CONTEXT: In Atlanta, Georgia Black women account for most of new HIV diagnoses among women and 30% of Black women may benefit from pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Yet their PrEP knowledge, awareness, and access are low. METHODS: This study centers the voices of an economically d...

Injecting Pills in the Late Fentanyl Era: A Qualitative Investigation of the Procedures Used to Prepare and Inject Prescription Opioids

Background The current study offers updated information on how PWID prepare and inject prescription and illicit drugs. The main objective was to identify potential pathways and reservoirs of infection associated with the tools and techniques used to inject prescription opioids.Me...

Pharmacokinetics and Physiologically Based Pharmacokinetic Modeling of Mycobacteriophages: Insights into Pulmonary Distribution and Clearance

Abstract Bacteriophage therapy is being explored as an alternate therapeutic approach for treating drug-resistant bacteria, including mycobacteria. However, rational phage dosing remains limited by scarce pharmacokinetic (PK) data and an incomplete understanding of tissue distrib...

Can Structured Detention Screening Reduce Admissions to the Juvenile Legal System?: Evaluating the Impact of the Detention Assessment Tool (DAT)

Aligning with our increased focus on juvenile rehabilitation, actuarial assessment tools have been implemented across the juvenile legal system. While post-conviction tools are intended to identify needs and reduce recidivism, the primary goal of pretrial assessment tools is to r...

HIV service integration in substance use treatment facilities in the fentanyl era, 2015–2023

Illicitly manufactured fentanyl has reshaped the overdose crisis in the United States (US), driving unprecedented mortality while altering injection practices in ways that heighten HIV transmission risk among people who use drugs. Integrated HIV services within substance use diso...

Neuropharmacology of levamisole and its phase I metabolites: lack of evidence for levamisole-cocaine interactions

RATIONALE: The anthelmintic agent, levamisole, is a cocaine adulterant that causes serious adverse effects in humans. A number of hypotheses have been proposed to explain why levamisole is used as an adulterant. Here, we examined whether levamisole might enhance acute pharmacolog...

Recruitment and Engagement in Care to Impact Practice Enhancement for Patients with Sickle Cell Disease: Study Protocol

Abstract Objectives To adapt an evidence-based linkage coordinator model used in HIV care to identify, engage, and link adults with sickle cell disease (SCD) who are unaffiliated from specialty care to SCD specialists, and to assess implementation readiness, processes, outcomes,...

Evaluating sexual violence bystander intervention in alcohol-serving venues: a quasi-experimental protocol for assessing individual, interpersonal, and venue-level intervention effects

Alcohol is a leading risk factor for sexual violence (SV) victimization, perpetration, and reduced bystander intervention. Social environments where heavy drinking occurs (e.g., bars), and the staff who work within them, represent unique targets for SV prevention. Bar-based bysta...

Early Check: The First 5 Years

Evidence of net benefit and feasibility of implementation is necessary for a health condition to become part of routine newborn screening. But acquiring data to support informed decision-making is difficult without a nimble and coordinated research capacity grounded in public hea...

New mechanistic insights into the widely used LiPO2F2 additive enabled by ultra-high-resolution FTICR-MS

Understanding how electrolyte additives influence the formation and evolution of the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) is essential for improving the durability of lithium‑ion batteries. In this work, we investigate the role of lithium difluorophosphate (LiPO2F2, LiDFP) in 1 M L...

A Cigarette Tax and Childcare Mitigate Nicotine Exposure in Young Children

OBJECTIVES The detrimental effects of tobacco smoke on children’s health are well known. Although evidence suggests that cigarette excise taxes can reduce adult smoking, it remains unclear whether they reduce the nicotine levels of infants and toddlers—a developmentally vulnerabl...

Impaired but now diagnosable: Combining analytic frameworks for incorporating symptom weighting in the classification of full‐threshold and subthreshold posttraumatic stress disorder

Abstract Individuals with subthreshold posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) often experience significant impairment yet face barriers to care (e.g., insurance denials and exclusion from clinical trials) due to strict Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ( DSM )–b...

Examining the Validity of Message Evaluation Measures in the Context of Youth E-Cigarette Prevention

Despite the routine use of a variety of message evaluation (ME) measures (e.g., perceived message effectiveness) in formative research for tobacco education campaigns, studies assessing the validity of these measures for predicting actual message effectiveness (AME) (e.g., intent...