Leveraging Administrative Data to Better Understand and Address Child Maltreatment: A Scoping Review of Data Linkage Studies.

BACKGROUND: This scoping review aimed to overview studies that used administrative data linkage in the context of child maltreatment to improve our understanding of the value that data linkage may confer for policy, practice, and research. METHODS: We searched MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and ERIC electronic databases in June 2019 and May 2020 for studies that linked two or more datasets (at least one of which was administrative in nature) to study child maltreatment. We report findings with numerical and narrative summary. RESULTS: We included 121 studies, mainly from the United States or Australia and published in the past decade. Data came primarily from social services and health sectors, and linkage processes and data quality were often not described in sufficient detail to align with current reporting guidelines. Most studies were descriptive in nature and research questions addressed fell under eight themes: descriptive epidemiology, risk factors, outcomes, intergenerational transmission, predictive modelling, intervention/service evaluation, multi-sector involvement, and methodological considerations/advancements. CONCLUSIONS: Included studies demonstrated the wide variety of ways in which data linkage can contribute to the public health response to child maltreatment. However, how research using linked data can be translated into effective service development and monitoring, or targeting of interventions, is underexplored in terms of privacy protection, ethics and governance, data quality, and evidence of effectiveness.

A Highly Selective Turn-On Biosensor for Measuring Spermine/Spermidine in Human Urine and Blood.

Spermine and spermidine serve as the key biomarkers for early-stage cancer diagnosis. This work reports a rapid, highly selective, and noninvasive sensing platform for spermine/spermidine. The hybrid material, developed in this work, has been characterized by UV-vis, IR, powder XRD, SEM, EDX, and rheological studies. Storage modulus (G') and loss modulus (G″) measurements infer that embedding boronic acid integrated coumarin softens the agarose gel fibers at room temperature. Stress resistance measurement and subsequent imaging further confirms the softness of the hybrid hydrogel over pure agarose gel and homogeneous distribution of the dye in the hybrid matrix as well. The soft hydrogel with a limit-of-detection (LOD) value of 6 µM showed a nearly 27-fold fluorescence enhancement for spermine. The hybrid hydrogel matrix can be useful within a wide concentration window (6 µM-2.5 mM spermine). Response time (≤7 s) confirms rapid detection ability of the material. Noninterference from various metal ions, common anions, monosaccharides, nucleobases, and amino acids, particularly, histidine, arginine, lysine, ornithine, glutamine, etc.,  makes the hybrid hydrogel suitable for the real-time measurement of spermine in human urinary and blood samples. Furthermore, noninterference from other biogenic amines supports the highly selective nature of the hybrid gel. The ability to measure spermine in urinary samples by the probe offers a noninvasive nature of the sensing platform. Overall, we envisioned that the hybrid material formulation would be useful for diagnosing early-stage tumors and assessing the recovery of patients undergoing chemotherapeutic treatment.