This article provides a brief introduction (or recapitulation) of what variable types are and how the choice of the variable type may affect which research questions can be answered and the data analysis. The nine-item Patient Health Questionnaire and a simulated data-set are used as an illustration throughout.

Dengue, the most prevalent urban arbovirus in the world, has triggered recurrent epidemics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, since the 1980s. This study aimed to describe the spatial–temporal patterns of dengue spread during the epidemic years of 2002, 2008, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2024 in Rio de Janeiro. This is an ecological study using secondary data on notified confirmed dengue cases aggregated by neighbourhood. The incidence rates were estimated via the local empirical Bayes method. The local spatial autocorrelation indicators assessed incidence clusters, and the monthly geographic trajectory was outlined for each year. The results revealed changes in the spatial distribution of dengue over time, with clusters of high incidences predominating in the northern and central neighbourhoods in 2002 and 2008, and in the western zone in 2011, 2012, and 2013. In 2024, the distribution was predominant throughout the city, with emphasis in the central and western zones. The monthly geographic centre of dengue cases shifted from the west to the north during the peak of the epidemic. These results highlight the heterogeneous nature of dengue transmission in Rio de Janeiro. The incorporation of spatial and temporal analyses in epidemiological studies can enhance targeted and localized dengue control strategies.

This article raises some questions about the intuitionist response to skepticism developed by Michael Bergmann in Radical Skepticism and Epistemic Intuition, with a focus on Bergmann’s contention that epistemic intuitions serve as justifying evidence in support of anti-skepticism. It raises three main concerns: that an intuitionist conception of evidence is overly narrow, that it has undesirable implications for cases of disagreement, and that the evidential role that epistemic intuitions play in Bergmann’s version of anti-skepticism undercuts his claim that an intuitionist particularist response to skepticism is superior to disjunctivist responses.

This article explores the social history of Sandakan and Jesselton (Kota Kinabalu) by studying how their urban environments were organized and navigated. Although the neighbourhood was not officially recognized as a category of space, it argues that analogous quarters existed within the towns during the early twentieth century. As the commercial capitals of British North Borneo, the towns contained migrant people of various ethnicities that formed separate communities. The socio-spatial boundaries of these quarters were nevertheless permeable, enabling cross-communal interactions. Life in Sandakan and Jesselton was characterized by a contingency and complexity suitable for comparison with larger colonial cities.

Global food security worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Nigeria, food security indicators increased in the first months of the pandemic and then decreased slightly but never returned to their pre-pandemic levels. We assess if savings groups provided household coping mechanisms during COVID-19 in Nigeria by combining the in-person LSMS-ISA/GHS-2018/19 with four rounds of the Nigerian Longitudinal Phone Survey collected during the first year of the pandemic. A quasi-difference-in-differences analysis setup leveraging the panel nature of the data indicates that savings group membership reduces the likelihood of skipping a meal but finds no statistically significant effect on the likelihood of running out of food or eating fewer kinds of food. Given theoretical priors and other literature positing a relationship, we also implement an OLS regression analysis controlling for baseline values finding that having at least one female household member in a savings group is associated with a 5–15% reduction in the likelihood of reporting skipping meals, running out of food, and eating fewer kinds of food. This analysis is not able to establish causality, however, and may in fact overestimate the effects. Together, the results indicate that savings group membership is positively associated with food security after COVID-19, but the causal effect is statistically significant for only one of the three food security indicators. To conclude, considering the interest in savings groups and expectations of continued food security shocks, the importance of collecting better gender-disaggregated longitudinal household data combined with experimental designs and institutional data on savings groups.

This study assessed beta-lactam allergy labels in 300 hospitalized adults using validated scores. Over 50% with penicillin and 21% with cephalosporin allergies were classified as low risk. Among those receiving alternative antibiotics due to inappropriate allergy labels, 44% were low-risk. Findings support structured allergy delabeling programs to enhance antimicrobial stewardship.

Adolescents face increased vulnerability to mental health conditions, particularly when exposed to multidimensional poverty and trauma and pronounced treatment gaps. Waves for Change, a Sport for Development (SfD) intervention, employs task-sharing through its ‘5-Pillar Method’ to build resilience and prevent mental health conditions among at-risk adolescents in South Africa. This study assessed the implementation outcomes of this Method using a mixed-methods design, incorporating interviews, focus groups, self-report questionnaires, document reviews and routine site assessments, with 69 stakeholders including staff, peer coaches, mental healthcare providers, social workers, teachers, and adolescents. A thematic analysis revealed key facilitators to successful implementation, including: a year-long preventative approach, creation of safe spaces for learning self-regulation skills, employment of youth coaches from local communities, incorporation of fun, group-based physical activities, modelling and repetition of desired skills, provision of transport and meals, government partnerships, and consistent weekly training and supervision. Implementation challenges included coach capacity, due to their education levels and own trauma experiences, measurement of fidelity to the Method and of adolescents’ emotional experiences, and some concerns around ocean safety. These findings provide valuable insights for implementing community-based SfD interventions for adolescents facing adversity, and contributes towards global evidence supporting task-shared mental health approaches in LMICs.

This paper describes the development and initial implementation of the Compendium of D&I Catalogs, a tool created by a Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) consortium working group to streamline navigation of the proliferating online resources, catalogs and interactive tools designed to guide application of dissemination and implementation (D&I) science. The Compendium is a curated, dynamically-updated list of 35 D&I resource catalogs organized into eight categories: comprehensive resources; frameworks, theories, and models; methods and measures; funding; practitioner resources; training; CTSA infrastructure; health equity. Eight CTSA hubs volunteered to serve as “early adopters” for the tool and completed an evaluation of its initial implementation. Among these “early adopters,” half had implemented the Compendium within their websites, describing the web implementation process as “easy.” Remaining “early adopter” respondents cited institutional web development capacity concerns and competing priorities as reasons for delayed implementation. All respondents valued the Compendium’s dynamic updates. Among implementing sites, roughly two-thirds directly embedded the Compendium into their institutional websites, with the others providing a link to the Compendium. For CTSAs striving to meet the rising demand for D&I expertise and resources, the Compendium of D&I Catalogs represents a simple, low-cost tool to enhance accessibility of D&I capacity-building resources.

This study investigates screening practices for antimicrobial-resistant organisms (AROs) in seventy-five hospitals participating in the Canadian Nosocomial Infection Surveillance Program (CNISP). Screening practices varied with widespread MRSA screening, selective carbapenemase-producing organisms (CPO) screening, and limited vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE) screening. These findings may help interpret ARO rates within CNISP hospitals and inform screening practices.

The proliferation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is significantly transforming conventional legal practice. The integration of AI into legal services is still in its infancy and faces challenges such as privacy concerns, bias, and the risk of fabricated responses. This research evaluates the performance of the following AI tools: (1) ChatGPT-4, (2) Copilot, (3) DeepSeek, (4) Lexis+ AI, and (5) Llama 3. Based on their comparison, the research demonstrates that Lexis+ AI outperforms the other AI solutions. All these tools still encounter hallucinations, despite claims that utilizing the Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) model has resolved this issue. The RAG system is not the driving force behind the results; it is one component of the AI architecture that influences but does not solely account for the problems associated with the AI tools. This research explores RAG architecture and its inherent complexities, offering viable solutions for improving the performance of AI-powered solutions.

We examine whether decriminalization of suicide in India following the 2017 Mental Health Act corresponds with changes in suicide mortality overall and by level of state development. Our study utilizes counts of suicides from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) across 35 Indian states from 2001 to 2020. The exposure variable is a binary indicator for the decriminalization of suicide following 2018. We use fixed-effect Poisson regression models that include population offsets and adjust for time trends, literacy, gross state domestic product and infant mortality. We find no relation between decriminalization of suicides and overall suicide mortality (Incidence Rate Ratio (IRR): 1.037; 95% CI (0.510–2.107)). Stratification by level of state development shows that less developed states saw an increase in suicide mortality by 1.9 times following decriminalization, compared to prior years (IRR: 1.859; 95% CI (1.028–3.364)). Our findings thus indicate that decriminalization did not coincide with a decline in suicide mortality in the country, thereby highlighting the need for improved mental health infrastructure and support in India, especially in less developed states.

This article introduces item response models for rating relational data. The relational data are obtained via ratings of senders and receivers in a directed network. The proposed models allow comparisons of senders and receivers on a one-dimensional latent scale while accounting for unobserved homophilic relationships. We show that the approach effectively captures reciprocity and clustering phenomena in the relational data. We estimate model parameters using a Bayesian specification and utilize Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods to approximate the full conditional posterior distributions. Simulation studies demonstrate that model parameters can be recovered satisfactorily even when the dimensionality of the network is small. We also present an extensive empirical application to illustrate the usefulness of the proposed models for complete and incomplete networks.