UW-CTRI
UW Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention

2024 Report

OVERVIEW: UW-CTRI releases a research update in January and July of each year. This report summarizes manuscripts, presentations, grants, and financials of the Center. Archived reports are available online at: https://ctri.wisc.edu/researchers/published-research/

SUMMARY: In 2024, UW-CTRI has produced:

  • 40 published manuscripts (p. 1)
  • 4 manuscripts in press (p. 11)
  • 23 presentations and posters (p. 12)
  • 7 new studies (p. 14)
  • 4 active studies (p. 18)
  • 7 studies recently completed (p. 19)
  • Financials (p. 22)

 

THANK YOU: UW-CTRI is grateful to all of its partners, including the Wisconsin Tobacco Prevention and Control Program, National Cancer Institute, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Veterans Affairs, Food and Drug Administration, Health Resources and Services Administration, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institute on Aging, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health, the UW Department of Medicine, the UW Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, UW Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, UW Carbone Cancer Center, UW Department of Medicine, UW School of Medicine and Public Health, Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Wisconsin Department of Health Services, Wisconsin Division of Care and Treatment, Wisconsin Partnership Program and Wisconsin Women’s Health Foundation, the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP), and the American Thoracic Society (ATS).

Published Papers

Note: Names in bold are current UW-CTRI employees.

  1. Abraham O, Agoke A, Sanuth K, Fapohunda A, Ogunsanya M, Piper ME, Trentham-Dietz A. (2024) The Need for Culturally Competent and Responsive Cancer Education for African Immigrant Families and Youth Living in the United States. JMIR Cancer. Online July 6, 2024; 10.

Summary: Technology is ripe for culturally tailored digital interventions to improve cancer awareness and prevention. More research is needed to understand the unique experience of cancer among African immigrant families to improve interventions. Through this viewpoint, the authors review the current state of cancer-related research among African immigrant families in the United States.

  1. Berlowitz JB, Xie W, Harlow AF, Kathuria H, Benjamin EJ, Stokes AC. (2024) Association of Cigarette–E-Cigarette Transitions with Respiratory Symptom Resolution. Nicotine & Tobacco Research. Online November 12, 2024.

Summary: Government agencies are increasingly weighing the risks and benefits of attempting to quit smoking by trying vaping. This study provides novel evidence that completely transitioning from smoking to vaping is associated with better resolution of wheezing. However, risk exists with extended dual use because it didn’t reduce cigarette smoking intensity and worsened wheezing.

  1. Betts JM, Cook JW, Kobinsky KH, Baker TB, Jorenby DE, Piper ME. (2024) Understanding the Motivational Mechanisms for Smoking and Vaping Among Dual Users and Exclusive Smokers. Drug and Alcohol Dependence. Online September 23, 2024.

Summary: Based on data from the Exhale study, the authors found that, for dual users, vaping alleviated withdrawal from both cigarettes and vapes. Laboratory use behavior did not differ between dual users vaping and exclusive smokers smoking. Mechanisms that keep people vaping may include: Greater expectancies to relieve craving to vape, the craving to vape itself, heaviness of vaping, and morning product use patterns (aka “relative dependence”).

  1. Bird JE, Chladek JS, D’Angelo H, Minion M, Pauk D, Adsit RT, Conner KL, Zehner M, Fiore M, Rolland B, McCarthy DE. (2024) Specialty Tobacco Treatment Implementation in Oncology: A Qualitative Study. JCO Oncology Practice. Online November 12, 2024.

Summary: Tobacco Treatment Specialists and others involved in specialty tobacco treatment in NCI-designated cancer centers identified ways to improve tobacco treatment access, use, and effectiveness by (1) adapting specialty tobacco treatment delivery to meet patient needs; (2) facilitating referrals and pharmacotherapy coordination; and (3) committing staffing, space, and support resources to tobacco treatment programs. This could expand access for cancer patients to tobacco treatment.

  1. Bontemps AP, Piper ME, Cropsey KL. (2024) Psychometric Properties of the FTCD and Brief WISDM: Support for Validity in a Legal-System-Involved Sample. Nicotine & Tobacco Research. Online January 24, 2024.

Summary: Researchers recruited a unique sample of justice-involved participants and found that the Fagerstrom Test of Cigarette Dependence displayed poor internal consistency, poor fit for a single-factor model, but mixed support for two dual-factor models. The Brief-Wisconsin Index of Smoking Dependence Motives (Brief-WISDM) was found to have strong internal consistency, poor fit for a single-factor model, but mixed fit for an 11-factor model and good item discrimination.

  1. Brandt J, Ramly E, Lim SS, Bao G, Messina ML, Piper ME, Bartels CM. (2024) Implementing a Staff-Led Smoking Cessation Intervention in a Diverse Safety-Net Rheumatology Clinic: A Pre-Post Scalability Study In a Low Resource Setting. Arthritis Care & Research. Online April 15, 2024.

Summary: Quit Connect (QC), a quit-smoking intervention, supports clinic staff to check, advise, and connect willing patients to a state quit line or class. In a safety-net rheumatology clinic with a predominantly Black population, QC improved tobacco screening, readiness-to-quit assessment, and referrals. QC was also feasible and cost-effective. Staff found the intervention feasible and acceptable. Each quit attempt cost approximately $4-10.

  1. Businelle MS, Hébert ET, Shi D, Benson L, Kezbers KM, Tonkin S, Piper ME, Qian T. Project Exemplar: Using a Factorial Design to Determine the Best Practices for Ecological Momentary Assessment. Journal of Medical Internet Research. Online August 12, 2024. 26:e50275.

Summary: The purpose of this study was to use a factorial design to identify optimal study design factors, or combinations of factors, for achieving the highest completion rates for smartphone-based ecological momentary assessments (EMAs). Analyses indicated that older adults, those without a history of substance use problems, and those without current depression tended to complete more EMAs than their counterparts.

  1. Cofresí RU, Upton S, Brown A, Piasecki TM, Bartholow BD, Froeliger B. (2024) Mesocorticolimbic System Reactivity to Alcohol Use-Related Visual Cues as a Function of Alcohol Sensitivity Phenotype: A Pilot fMRI Study. Addiction Neuroscience. Online May 7, 2024.

Summary: This study examined neural alcohol cue reactivity in people with low and high sensitivity to alcohol. Among young adults, alcohol use level was associated with the level of alcohol use disorder in left substantia nigra among males in the low-sensitivity group. Taken together, results suggest elevated mesocorticolimbic alcohol use disorder among participants with low sensitivity, especially those using alcohol at hazardous levels. Future studies with larger samples are warranted.

  1. Correa-Fernández V, Tavakoli N, Motsenbocker M, Kim H, Wetter DW, Blalock JA, Canino G, Piper ME. (2024) Culturally Relevant Acceptance-based Telehealth Wellness Program for Latine Adults Who Smoke and Experience Psychological Distress: Findings from a Feasibility Study. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science. Online May 15, 2024.

Summary: In this study, 23 people completed video and phone counseling during the COVID pandemic with three health counselors from the Latine community. They used a culturally tailored version of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Latine adults who smoked found it helpful. Approximately 35 percent quit smoking. Participants also experienced declines in depression, anxiety, and psychological inflexibility.

  1. Fiore MC, Lathen L, Conner K, Kathuria H, Piper ME, Baker TB. (2024) Helping Black Patients in Wisconsin Quit Smoking: A Call for Clinical Action. Wisconsin Medical Journal, 123(4):252-255. Online September 10, 2024.

Summary: Wisconsin has the largest disparity in smoking between Black and White residents in the nation.  Moreover, Black adults are more likely to want to quit and more likely to try to quit than Whites, but less likely to have the resources to do so. This perspective piece calls on policymakers and clinicians to help Black residents to overcome their dependence upon the leading cause of preventable death in the state and nation—tobacco use.

  1. Flores A, Wiener RS, Hon S, Wakeman C, Howard J, Virani N, Mattus B, Foreman AG, Singh J, Rosen L, Bulekova K, Kathuria H. (2024) Sustainability of an Opt-Out Electronic-Health Record-based Tobacco Treatment Consult Service at a Large Safety-net Hospital: A 6-year Analysis. Nicotine and Tobacco Research. Online February 6, 2024.

Summary: This study shows that opt-out approaches that utilize electronic health records are a sustainable approach to provide evidence-based tobacco treatment to all hospitalized individuals who smoke, regardless of readiness to stop smoking and clinical condition.

  1. Gomes MN, Reid JL, Rynard VL, East KA, Goniewicz ML, Piper ME, Hammond D. (2024) Comparison of Indicators of Dependence for Vaping and Smoking: Trends Between 2017 and 2022 Among Youth in Canada, England and the United States. Nicotine & Tobacco Research. Online March 30, 2024.

Summary: From 2017 to 2022, indicators of vaping dependence increased substantially. By 2022, vaping dependence indices were comparable to those of smoking.

  1. Gorrilla AA, Kaye JT, Pavlik J, Bonniot C, Vijayaraghavan M, Conner KL, Morris CD. (2024) A Call for Health Equity in Tobacco Control and Treatment for the Justice-Involved Population. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Online June 3, 2024.

Summary: The authors assert that prisons and jails are overdue in making systems changes necessary to support incarcerated individuals who use tobacco. People in the justice system deserve tobacco-free policies that eliminate second-hand smoke and e-cigarette vapor exposure while incarcerated. Prisons and jails should provide equal access to tobacco treatment, commensurate with what is offered in the community and in accordance with the standards for treatment of other substance use disorders.

  1. Griffith NB, Baker TB, Heiden BT, Smock N, Pham G, Chen J, Yu J, Reddy J, Lai AM, Hogue EH, Bierut LJ, Chen L-S. (2024) Cannabis, Tobacco Use, and COVID-19 Outcomes. JAMA Network Open, 7(6):e2417977. Online June 21, 2024.

Summary: The findings of this cohort study suggest that current tobacco smoking was significantly associated with increased risk of hospitalization, ICU admission, and all-cause mortality after adjusting for other factors. Cannabis use may be an independent risk factor for COVID-19–related complications, even after considering cigarette smoking, vaccination status, comorbidities, and other risk factors.

  1. Gu D, Ha P, Kaye JT, Fiore MC, Tsoh JY. (2024) Cigarette Smoking Status and COVID-19 Hospitalization in the Context of Cannabis Use: An Electronic Health Record Cohort Study in Northern California.Addictive Behavior Reports, Online December 1, 2024.

Summary: Both current and former cigarette smoking were associated with hospitalization. Former cigarette smoking had higher odds for hospitalization only among people who did not currently use cannabis. Current cigarette smoking yielded higher odds of hospitalization among people whose cannabis use was unknown. Cigarette smoking status was not associated with hospitalization among people who currently used cannabis.

  1. Johnson AL, Doyle S, Gleason CE, Cook JM, Mahoney J, Piper ME. (2024) Qualitative Message Development to Motivate Quitting Smoking in Older Adults: Dementia May Motivate Quitting. Online March 10, 2024.

Summary: Dementia is an important health consequence for older adults who smoke, but the impact of smoking on dementia is unknown to this population and could motivate cessation. The link should be disseminated as a motivating message to quit smoking, and a hope- and fear-based cessation message should be tested for efficacy in motivating cessation attempts among older adults who smoke.

  1. Johnson AL, Chin NA, Piasecki TM, Conner KL, Baker TB, Fiore MC, Slutske WS. (2024) COVID-19 Outcomes Among Patients with Dementia and Age Matched Controls who were Hospitalized in 21 U.S. Healthcare Systems. Alzheimer’s & Dementia. Online July 29, 2004.

Summary: There are many forms of dementia. All-cause dementia was associated with increased mortality risk from COVID-19. However, this risk was much lower than what was found in previous studies, and was not found in the two most common forms of dementia—Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and vascular dementia. However, when discharge to hospice care was included as a mortality equivalent, all forms of dementia were predictive of mortality.

  1. Johnson AL, Popova L, Kaye JT, Mahoney J. (2024) Examination of Hope- and Fear-based Messages Targeting Older Adults Who Smoke: A Randomized Trial. Geriatric Nursing, 60; 533-540. Online October 22, 2024.

Summary: Older adults are less likely to quit smoking than younger counterparts. Linking smoking to dementia may motivate quitting in this population. A fear message showing higher dementia risk from smoking improved quit motivation. A hope message showing lowered risk after quitting didn’t change quit motivation. Neither moved the needle on intention to quit. This is the first study that we are aware of to test a message specifically targeted towards older adults who smoke and their preferred message content.

  1. Johnson AL, Bui TC, Bullen C, Businelle M, Carroll DM, Correa-Fernández V, Pickner W, Spears CA, Vickerman K, Vidrine DJ, Hooper MW, Bold KW. (2024) Engaging Specific Populations with Tobacco-Related Health Disparities in Treatment Research: A summary of a SRNT Treatment Research Network Preconference Workshop. Nicotine and Tobacco Research. Online October 22, 2024.

Summary: The authors provided advice on ways to address tobacco-related health disparities: 1) Develop a community advisory board (CAB). 2) Include appropriate compensation and respect to CAB and other partners. 3) Start early, build trust, stay connected. 4) Share information and resources. 5) Adapt. 6) Make tools and results meaningful and accessible.

  1. Kathuria H, Ewart G, Neptune ER, Upson D. (2024) Unveiling the Tobacco Industry’s Exploitative Legacy: A Call for Racial Equity through a Menthol Ban. Annals of the American Thoracic Society, 21(9), 1245–1246. Online September 1, 2024.

Summary: The tobacco industry’s exploitation of Black Americans traces back to the era of American slavery, when tobacco cultivation relied heavily on enslaved labor. The disproportionate toll menthol cigarettes have taken on Black Americans is not accidental but rather part of a well-documented decades-long marketing campaign to lure Black Americans, in particular Black youth, into nicotine addiction. It’s imperative that the Biden administration continue its commitment to health equity by finalizing the menthol ban.

  1. Kathuria H and Wiener RW. (2024) Towards Racial Equity in Lung Cancer Screening. Journal of Clinical Oncology. Online March 27, 2024.

Summary: In the article that accompanies this editorial, Potter et al proposed new lung cancer screening eligibility criteria that replace the 20-pack year requirement with a >20-year smoking duration requirement. While the proposed smoking duration substitution would mitigate the disparity in screening eligibility between Black and White people, there was a notable decrease in specificity, which could reduce the cost-effectiveness of screening and subject people with a low risk of cancer to the harms of screening.

  1. Kaye JT, Kirsch JA, Bolt DM, Kobinsky KH, Vickerman KA, Mullis K, Fraser DL, Baker TB, Fiore MC, McCarthy DE. (2024) Tobacco Quitline Retreatment Interventions Among Adults With Socioeconomic Disadvantage: A Factorial Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Network Open, 7(11):e2443044. Online November 6, 2024.

Summary: In this randomized clinical trial evaluating enhancements to tobacco quitlines for adults with socioeconomic disadvantage who were smoking after quitline treatment, none of the adaptive treatment strategies (adding medication, calls, texts, or payments) robustly improved long-term abstinence. Strategies are needed to enhance quitline retreatment effectiveness for adults with socioeconomic disadvantage.

  1. Kearney L, Jansen E, Kathuria H, et al. (2024) Informatics and Engagement in a Learning Health System: A Randomized Trial of Digital Outreach Strategies for Reporting Smoking Data. JMIR Formative Research. Online February 9, 2024.

Summary: Researchers evaluated an electronic health records portal questionnaire and a text survey. The questionnaire employed a “helpfulness” message, while the text survey tested frame types informed by behavior economics (“gain,” “loss,” and “helpfulness”) and nudge messaging. Participants were more likely to respond to the text survey (19.1%) compared to the portal questionnaire (6.9%). Across all survey rounds, patients were less responsive to the “helpfulness” frame compared to the “gain” frame and “loss” frame.

  1. Koh HK, Fiore MC. (2024) The Tobacco Endgame Begins. Health Affairs Forefront. Online May 7, 2024.

Summary: This paper explores the promise of Tobacco-Free Generation laws like the one in Brookline, Massachusetts, that bans tobacco sales to anyone born after a certain date. Similar laws have been passed in other towns and are under consideration in other states, countries, and the European Union. The authors advocate for it to become the new normal and eventually end tobacco sales worldwide.

  1. Kohen CB, Cofresí RU, Piasecki TM, Bartholow BD. (2024) Predictive Utility of the P3 Event-related Potential (ERP) Response to Alcohol Cues for Ecologically Assessed Alcohol Craving and Use. Addiction Biology. February 1, 2024.

Summary: Individual differences in neural measures of alcohol cue incentive salience appear to predict the speed and intensity of alcohol consumption but not reports of craving during real-world alcohol use episodes.

  1. McNamara IA, Nance M, Lane SP, Trela CJ, Wood PK, Piasecki TM, Trull TJ, Carpenter RW. (2024) Trait Impulsivity Moderates Rate of Alcohol Consumption in Daily Life. Addictive Behaviors. Online January 28, 2024.

Summary: This study finds that people who are more impulsive tend to drink alcohol faster, putting them at greater risk for negative consequences. This may explain, in part, why impulsivity is linked to experiencing alcohol-related problems.

  1. Mundt MP, Stein JH, Fiore MC, Baker TB. (2024) Economic Evaluation of More Intense vs Standard Varenicline Treatment for Tobacco Cessation. JAMA Network Open, 7(4):e248727. Online April 29, 2024.

Summary: In this economic evaluation of enhanced varenicline treatment for smoking cessation that included 1251 participants, the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio was $4579 per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) for 12-week varenicline monotherapy. This study suggests that standard 12 weeks of varenicline monotherapy is the most cost-effective treatment option for smoking cessation, better than for 24 weeks.

  1. Piasecki TM, Korcarz CE, Hansen KM, Bolt DM, Fiore MC, Stein JH, Baker TB. (2024) Validity of the E-Cigarette Wisconsin Inventory of Smoking Dependence Motives (e-WISDM) in Exclusive E-Cigarette Users: Evidence from a Laboratory Self-Administration Study. Nicotine & Tobacco Research, ntae302. Online December 19, 2024.

Summary: Vaping is addictive. Instruments that measure e-cigarette dependence are necessary to identify users who may have difficulty quitting and risk harm. The four subscales of the e-Cigarette Wisconsin Inventory of Smoking Dependence Motives (e-WISDM) Primary Dependence Motives (PDM) index self-reported heavy vaping, craving, automatic or mindless use, and perceived loss of control over use. The current research supports the validity of the e-WISDM PDM as a measure of vaping dependence.

  1. Piper ME, Stein JH, Lasser KE. E-cigarette Use in Adults. (2024) JAMA Insight. Online August 7, 2024.

Summary: Vaping may cause acute physiological effects, such as increased heart rate, blood pressure and airway obstruction. The long-term health effects of brief or long-term vaping aren’t known. There is evidence that vaping can help adults quit smoking and may be less harmful than combusted cigarettes. Still, first-line treatment for smoking cessation is counseling and FDA-approved medications. Patients should consider quitting smoking, avoiding dual use, and then quitting vaping.

  1. Piper ME, Schlam TR, Donny EC, Kobinsky K, Matthews J, Piasecki TM, Jorenby DE. (2024) The Impact of Three Alternate Nicotine-Delivery Products on Combusted Cigarette Use: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Nicotine & Tobacco Research. Online February 13, 2024.

Summary: This study found that behavioral substitutes for cigarettes, whether or not they delivered nicotine, reduced the number of usual brand cigarettes smoked. Specifically, both vapes delivering nicotine and very-low nicotine cigarettes equally reduce usual-brand cigarettes smoked among adults who smoke daily and do not want to quit.

  1. Ran S, Yang JJ, Piper ME, Lin H-C, Nam JK, Buu A. (2024) Health Risk Associated with Adopting New-Generation Disposable Electronic Cigarettes (E-Cigarettes) Among Young Adults. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Online October 18, 2024.

Summary: Among 650 young adults, when they switched to disposables, their e-cigarette dependence and use of sweet-flavored e-liquids increased. Even after controlling for use frequency, nicotine concentration and flavors, using disposables was related to not only instrumental motives influenced by psychological and environmental contexts but also heavy, automatic use that can operate without environmental cues. It is not device type but rather the frequency of vaping that affects respiratory symptoms.

  1. Schlam TR, Baker TB, Piper ME, Cook JW, Smith SS, Zwaga D, Jorenby DE, Almirall D, Bolt DM, Collins LM, Mermelstein R, Fiore MC. (2024) What to Do After Smoking Relapse? A Sequential, Multiple Assignment, Randomized Trial of Chronic Care Smoking Treatments. Addiction. Online January 28, 2024.

Summary: Researchers tested two different approaches to recovery after a failed attempt to quit smoking. They split 437 participants into two groups. In one group, they recommended waiting at least a month before trying to quit smoking again. The other they told to try to quit ASAP. More than 80 percent of participants told to retry right away made a new quit attempt, whereas only 56 percent of the group who waited did. Most people in the study who didn’t quit smoking were not discouraged and tried again.

  1. Slutske WS, Kirsch JM, Piasecki TM, Conner KL, Williams B, Fiore MC, Bernstein SL. (2024) Correlates of Improved Outcomes In Patients with COVID-19 Treated In US Emergency Departments. American Journal of Emergency Medicine. Online September 14, 2024.

Summary: Operational and clinical outcomes of emergency-department treatment of individuals with COVID-19 improved in the first two years of the pandemic. This improvement is likely multifactorial and includes the development and deployment of SARS-CoV-2-specific vaccines, therapeutic agents, and improved healthcare delivery in the ED and elsewhere addressing management of airway and ventilatory status, as well as increased innate immunity in the general population.

  1. Smith DM, Kaye JT, Walters K, Schlienz NJ, Hyland AJ, Ashare R, Tomko R, Dahne J, McRae-Clark A, McClure E. (2024) Tobacco-Cannabis Co-Use Among Cancer Patients and Survivors: Findings from Two US Cancer Centers. Journal of the National Cancer Institute Monographs.

Summary: Among 1,732 current and former patients with cancer at two cancer centers in states with varying cannabis regulatory policy, current cigarette use was associated with greater rates of cannabis use prior to diagnosis, after diagnosis, during treatment, and after treatment within each center and in pooled analyses across centers. Given previous data indicating harms from co-use and continued tobacco use during cancer treatment, clinicians should screen for use of both at each healthcare visit and support addressing it.

  1. Steiling K, Kathuria H. (2024) Occupational Benzene Exposure: An Unrecognized Threat to Lung Cancer Development. American Journal of Respiratory Critical Care Medicine, 209(2):128-130. Online January 15, 2024.

Summary: This is the largest study to date examining benzene exposure and risk of lung cancer. The pooled analysis included 28,048 subjects. They found higher odds of lung cancer among groups with increasing degrees of benzene exposure. They also found an increasing trend of lung cancer with both longer duration of benzene exposure and shorter duration since last benzene exposure.

  1. Streck JM, Parker MA, Cruz R, Rosen RL, Baker TB, Piper ME, Weinberger AH. (2024) Prevalence and Trends in Cigarette Smoking with and without Tobacco use Disorder Among Adults in the United States: 2010-2021. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 85(3):23. Online June 12, 2024.

Summary: Recent prevalence estimates of tobacco use disorder (TUD) are lacking, likely because studies generally only assess daily smoking or heaviness of smoking. In 2021, the prevalence of daily cigarette smoking with TUD was 10 times higher than the prevalence of daily smoking without TUD. Twice as many US adults with nondaily smoking reported TUD than no TUD, illustrating that daily smoking is not necessary for TUD.

  1. Umucu E, Gooding DC, Granger T, Wyman M, Lambrou N, Summers M, Strong L, Martin W, Carter F, Bouges S, Johnson A, Gleason C. (2024) Ethno-Racial Differences in Depressive Symptom Endorsement: Evaluation of Brief Forms of the Geriatric Depression Scale in Older Adults. Journal of Affective Disorders, 364:274-278. Online November 1, 2024.

Summary: Depression among older adults is a pressing public health concern, necessitating accurate assessment tools. Ethno-racial group differences in depressive symptom endorsement were evident, with Black participants consistently reporting higher levels of symptoms. American Indian/Alaska Native participants endorsed significantly fewer symptoms than Black participants in one version of the Geriatric Depression Scale. The study highlights the importance of considering ethno-racial differences in depressive symptomatology when assessing older adults.

  1. Williams BS, Kaye JT. (2024) Addressing Substance Use in the Adolescent Transplant Population. Pediatric Transplantation. Online June 24, 2024.

Summary: Given the close relationship that many pediatric transplant providers have with their patients and families, transplant care teams are in an excellent position to help their patients by addressing adolescent substance use. By providing effective screening, targeted behavioral interventions and referrals to treatment, transplant providers can play an integral role in helping their patients avoid the consequences of substance use.

  1. Williams BS, Piasecki TM, Fiore MC, Conner KL, Slutske WS. (2024) Hospital Outcomes for Young Adults With COVID-19. Global Epidemiology. Online July 5, 2024.

Summary: Young adults who were hospitalized with symptomatic COVID-19 had a mortality rate of 2.6%. A cancer diagnosis was associated with a 2.1 times increased odds of death during hospitalization. Young adults who received a COVID-19 vaccination had a less than 40 percent lower odds of ICU admission compared to those without a history of vaccination. The highest percentage of admissions of young adults with symptomatic COVID-19 occurred during the Delta Wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

  1. Yang JJ, Piper ME, Premananda I, Buu A. (2024) Statistical Methods for Predicting E-Cigarette Use Events Based On Beat-To-Beat Interval (BBI) Data Collected from Wearable Devices. Statistics in Medicine. Online May 30, 2024.

Summary: Using wearable devices to collect data from participants, researchers developed novel analytic strategies to examine how heart rate changes when participants were getting ready to vape. They found that the average heart rate increased before a vaping event. Importantly, the development of increasing heart rate observed in this study suggested that there may be time to intervene in real time before someone relapsed back to vaping.