Chaplaincy, Judaism, Ukraine, COVID-19 and JORH Jubilee.

This first issue of JORH for 2023 considers (1) the ministry of chaplains, (2) Judaism, (3) the people of war-torn Ukraine, (4) the ongoing saga of COVID-19 and, on a happier note, (5) we celebrate a belated jubilee by presenting a bibliometric analysis of the Journal of Religion and Health (1961-2021). To conclude this issue, a book review is presented, "The Desperate Hours" by award winning journalist Marie Brenner, focusing on one hospital's fight to save New York City during COVID-19. A reminder is also provided to readers on the call for papers regarding a future issue on religion, spirituality, suicide and its prevention.

The Enduring Association of a First Pregnancy Abortion with Subsequent Pregnancy Outcomes: A Longitudinal Cohort Study.

Introduction: Multiple abortions are consistently associated with adverse health consequences. Prior abortion is a known risk factor for another abortion. Objective: To determine the persistence of the association of a first-pregnancy abortion with the likelihood of subsequent pregnancy outcomes. Methods: Data was extracted for a study population of 5453 continuously eligible Medicaid beneficiaries in states which funded and reported elective abortions 1999-2015. Women age 16 in 1999 were organized into three cohorts based upon the first pregnancy outcome: abortion, birth, natural loss. Results: Women in the abortion cohort are more likely than those in the birth cohort to experience another abortion rather than a birth or natural loss, and less likely to experience a live birth rather than an abortion or natural loss, for every subsequent pregnancy. The tendency toward abortion (OR 2.99, CL 2.02-4.43) and away from birth (OR 0.49, CL 0.39-0.63) peaks at the sixth pregnancy, but persists throughout the reproductive period ages 16-32. The pattern is reversed, but similarly consistent, for women in the birth cohort. They remain likelier to have another birth rather than an abortion or natural loss in subsequent pregnancies. Compared to the birth cohort, the abortion cohort had 1.35 times as many pregnancies: 4.31 times the abortions, 1.53 times the natural losses, but only 0.52 times the births. They were 4.3 and 5.0 times as likely to have 2-plus and 3-plus abortions, but only 0.47 times and 0.31 times as likely to have 2-plus and 3-plus births. Of the abortion cohort, 37.1% had no births. By contrast, 73.6% of the birth cohort had no abortions. Conclusion: The first-pregnancy abortion maintains a strong and persistent association with the likelihood of another abortion in subsequent pregnancies, enabling a cascade of adverse events associated with multiple abortions.

A Longitudinal Cohort Study of Emergency Room Utilization Following Mifepristone Chemical and Surgical Abortions, 1999-2015.

INTRODUCTION: Existing research on postabortion emergency room visits is sparse and limited by methods which underestimate the incidence of adverse events following abortion. Postabortion emergency room (ER) use since Food and Drug Administration approval of chemical abortion in 2000 can identify trends in the relative morbidity burden of chemical versus surgical procedures. OBJECTIVE: To complete the first longitudinal cohort study of postabortion emergency room use following chemical and surgical abortions. METHODS: A population-based longitudinal cohort study of 423 000 confirmed induced abortions and 121,283 subsequent ER visits occurring within 30 days of the procedure, in the years 1999-2015, to Medicaid-eligible women over 13 years of age with at least one pregnancy outcome, in the 17 states which provided public funding for abortion. RESULTS: ER visits are at greater risk to occur following a chemical rather than a surgical abortion: all ER visits (OR 1.22, CL 1.19-1.24); miscoded spontaneous (OR 1.88, CL 1.81-1.96); and abortion-related (OR 1.53, CL 1.49-1.58). ER visit rates per 1000 abortions grew faster for chemical abortions, and by 2015, chemical versus surgical rates were 354.8 versus 357.9 for all ER visits; 31.5 versus 8.6 for miscoded spontaneous abortion visits; and 51.7 versus 22.0 for abortion-related visits. Abortion-related visits as a percent of total visits are twice as high for chemical abortions, reaching 14.6% by 2015. Miscoded spontaneous abortion visits as a percent of total visits are nearly 4 times as high for chemical abortions, reaching 8.9% of total visits and 60.9% of abortion-related visits by 2015. CONCLUSION: The incidence and per-abortion rate of ER visits following any induced abortion are growing, but chemical abortion is consistently and progressively associated with more postabortion ER visit morbidity than surgical abortion. There is also a distinct trend of a growing number of women miscoded as receiving treatment for spontaneous abortion in the ER following a chemical abortion.

Estimating the Period Prevalence of Mothers Who Have Abortions: A Population Based Study of Inclusive Pregnancy Outcomes.

INTRODUCTION: The prevalence of induced abortion among women with children has been estimated indirectly by projections derived from survey research. However, an empirically derived, population-based conclusion on this question is absent from the published literature. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to describe the period prevalence of abortion among all other possible pregnancy outcomes within the reproductive histories of Medicaid-eligible women in the U.S. METHODS: A retrospective, cross-sectional, longitudinal analysis of the pregnancy outcome sequences of eligible women over age 13 from the 17 states where Medicaid included coverage of most abortions, with at least one identifiable pregnancy between 1999 and 2014. A total of 1360 pregnancy outcome sequences were grouped into 8 categories which characterize various combinations of the 4 possible pregnancy outcomes: birth, abortion, natural loss, and undetermined loss. The reproductive histories of 4,884,101 women representing 7,799,784 pregnancy outcomes were distributed into these categories. RESULTS: Women who had live births but no abortions or undetermined pregnancy losses represented 74.2% of the study population and accounted for 87.6% of total births. Women who have only abortions but no births constitute 6.6% of the study population, but they are 53.5% of women with abortions and have 51.5% of all abortions. Women with both births and abortions represent 5.7% of the study population and have 7.2% of total births. CONCLUSION: Abortion among low-income women with children is exceedingly uncommon, if not rare. The period prevalence of mothers without abortion is 13 times that of mothers with abortion.

Validation and Utilisation of the Spiritual Well-Being Questionnaire: SHALOM.

The Spiritual Well-Being Questionnaire (SWBQ) was developed from a theoretical understanding that spiritual well-being (SWB) is expressed in the quality of relationships that each person has across one or more of four domains, namely with self, others, environment and/or with a transcendent other. Based on the SWBQ, the Spiritual Health And Life-Orientation Measure (SHALOM) is unique in that it compares each person's lived experience with their ideals on the 20 items reflecting the four domains of SWB. This paper builds on previous reviews of the SWBQ-SHALOM, by providing breadth and depth of data and their validity, from a wide range of sources, and expressing the instrument's usefulness in a variety of settings. It provides an overview with details from 60 studies that started with the SWBQ-SHALOM. Presented herein are ideas on what can be done with further investigations of this vital aspect of life.

Estimating the Period Prevalence of Publicly Funded Abortion to Space Live Births, 1999 to 2014.

INTRODUCTION/OBJECTIVES: Although a majority of women who have an abortion report having 1 or more children, there is no published research on the number of abortions which occur between live births, after a first child but before the last. The objectives of this research, therefore, were to estimate the period prevalence of an induced abortion separating live births in a population of Medicaid eligible enrollees and to identify the characteristics of enrollees significantly associated with the use of abortion to enable child spacing. METHODS: A retrospective, cross-sectional, longitudinal analysis of the pregnancy outcome sequences of eligible enrollees over age 13 from the 17 states where Medicaid included coverage of all abortions, with at least one identifiable pregnancy outcome between 1999 and 2014. Eligibles with a defined sequence of birth-abortion-birth within up to 5 consecutive pregnancies were identified to estimate the number of eligibles who could have practiced birth spacing by abortion. Logistic regression was applied to identify the significant predictor variables of the birth-abortion-birth sequence. RESULTS: There were 50 012 (1.02%) of 4 875 511 Medicaid eligible enrollees exhibited a birth-abortion-birth sequence. Eligibles with the birth-abortion-birth sequence are more likely to be Black than White (OR 2.641, CL 2.581-2.702), less likely to be Hispanic than White (OR 0.667, CL 0.648-0.687), and more likely to have received contraceptive counseling (OR 1.14, CL 1.118-1.163). Increases in months of Medicaid eligibility (OR 1.004, CL 1.003-1.004) and months from first pregnancy to second live birth (OR 1.015, CL 1.015-1.016) are associated with the likelihood of undergoing live births separated by one or more induced abortions. Increases in the age at first pregnancy are associated with a decreased likelihood of the birth-abortion-birth sequence (OR 0.962, CL 0.959-0.964). CONCLUSION: Birth spacing via abortion is uncommon among a low-income population for whom the financial barriers to abortion are somewhat alleviated.

Perceiving and Addressing the Pervasive Racial Disparity in Abortion.

Black women have been experiencing induced abortions at a rate nearly 4 times that of White women for at least 3 decades, and likely much longer. The impact in years of potential life lost, given abortion's high incidence and racially skewed distribution, indicates that it is the most demographically consequential occurrence for the minority population. The science community has refused to engage on the subject and the popular media has essentially ignored it. In the current unfolding environment, there may be no better metric for the value of Black lives.

Pregnancy Outcome Patterns of Medicaid-Eligible Women, 1999-2014: A National Prospective Longitudinal Study.

INTRODUCTION: The number and outcomes of pregnancies experienced by a woman are consequential determinants of her health status. However, there is no published research comparing the patterns of subsequent pregnancy outcomes following a live birth, natural fetal loss, or induced abortion. OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to describe the characteristic patterns of subsequent pregnancy outcomes evolving from each of three initiating outcome events (birth, induced abortion, natural fetal loss) occurring in a Medicaid population fully insured for all reproductive health services. METHODS: We identified 7,388,842 pregnancy outcomes occurring to Medicaid-eligible women in the 17 states which paid for abortion services between 1999-2014. The first known pregnancy outcome for each woman was marked as the index outcome which assigned each woman to one of three cohorts. All subsequent outcomes occurring up to the fifth known pregnancy were identified. Analyses of the three index outcome cohorts were conducted separately for all pregnancy outcomes, three age bands (<17, 17-35, 36+), and three race/ethnicity groups (Hispanic, Black, White). RESULTS: Women with index abortions experienced more lifetime pregnancies than women with index births or natural fetal losses and were increasingly more likely to experience another pregnancy with each subsequent pregnancy. Women whose index pregnancy ended in abortion were also increasingly more likely to experience another abortion at each subsequent pregnancy. Both births and natural fetal losses were likely to result in a subsequent birth, rather than abortion. Women with natural losses were increasingly more likely to have a subsequent birth than women with an index birth. All age and racial/ethnic groups exhibited the characteristic pattern we have described for all pregnancy outcomes: abortion is associated with more subsequent pregnancies and abortions; births and fetal losses are associated with subsequent births. Other differences between groups are, however, apparent. Age is positively associated with the likelihood of a birth following an index birth, but negatively associated with the likelihood of a birth following an index abortion. Hispanic women are always more likely to have a birth and less likely to have an abortion than Black or White women, for all combinations of index outcome and the number of subsequent pregnancies. Similarly, Black women are always more likely to have an abortion and less likely to experience a birth than Hispanic or White women. CONCLUSION: Women experiencing repeated pregnancies and subsequent abortions following an index abortion are subjected to an increased exposure to hemorrhage and infection, the major causes of maternal mortality, and other adverse consequences resulting from multiple separation events.

Spiritual Wellbeing of Cancer Patients: What Health-Related Factors Matter?

This study aimed to determine the predictors of spiritual wellbeing of non-terminal stage cancer patients hospitalized in oncology units in Lithuania. An exploratory cross-sectional study design was employed. During structured face-to-face interviews, 226 cancer patients hospitalized in oncology units responded about their spiritual wellbeing, perception of happiness, satisfaction with life, pain intensity, levels of education and physical functioning, and length of inpatient stay. A set of standardized tools were used: spiritual wellbeing scale SHALOM, brief multidimensional life satisfaction scale, Oxford Happiness Questionnaire, Barthel Index questionnaire, and verbal pain intensity scale. Additionally, social- and health-related factors were included in data analyses. Structural equation modeling was adapted for a comprehensive assessment of the mediating effect of spiritual wellbeing on the relationship between different health- and value-related factors. The overall fit of the structural model was generally good: [Formula: see text] = 66.94 (χ2/df = 2.31), CFI = 0.94, RMSEA = 0.08, and SRMR = 0.06. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (IBM SPSS Statistics) version 24.0 and Mplus version 8.2. Level of happiness, life satisfaction, and spiritual wellbeing scored in the moderate upper range. The communal domain of spiritual wellbeing rated with the highest mean score and transcendental domain with the lowest score. Education (b = 0.208, p = 0.004), physical functioning (b = 0.171, p = 0.025), and hospital duration (b = - 0.240, p = 0.001) were significant predictors of spiritual wellbeing. Happiness and life satisfaction were negatively influenced by pain intensity, which ranged from mild to moderate. Levels of education, physical functioning, and length of hospital stay predict spiritual wellbeing of non-terminally ill cancer patients. Happiness, as well as life satisfaction, was negatively predicted by pain intensity but had no direct influence on spiritual wellbeing of cancer patients. Spiritual wellbeing positively influences emotional wellbeing (happiness and life satisfaction), and its influence is stronger than the negative influence of physical pain has on emotional wellbeing.

Human exploitation of nocturnal felines at Diepkloof Rock Shelter provides further evidence for symbolic behaviours during the Middle Stone Age.

Within the animal kingdom, carnivores occupied a unique place in prehistoric societies. At times predators or competitors for resources and shelters, anthropogenic traces of their exploitation, often for non-nutritional purposes, permeate the archaeological record. Scarce but spectacular depictions in Palaeolithic art confirm peoples' fascination with carnivores. In contrast with the European record, research on hominin/carnivore interactions in Africa has primarily revolved around the hunting or scavenging debate amongst early hominins. As such, the available information on the role of carnivores in Anatomically Modern Humans' economic and cultural systems is limited. Here, we illustrate a particular relationship between humans and carnivores during the MIS5-4 Still Bay and Howiesons Poort techno-complexes at Diepkloof Rock Shelter, South Africa. The recovery of numerous felid remains, including cut-marked phalanges, tarsals and metapodials, constitutes direct evidence for carnivore skinning and, presumably, pelt use in the southern African Middle Stone Age. Carnivore exploitation at the site seems to have focused specifically on nocturnal, solitary and dangerous felines. The lines of evidence presented here suggest the capture and fur use of those felines in the context of highly codified and symbolically loaded cultural traditions.

Improving the Metrics and Data Reporting for Maternal Mortality: A Challenge to Public Health Surveillance and Effective Prevention.

BACKGROUND: The current measuring metric and reporting methods for assessing maternal mortality are seriously flawed. Evidence-based prevention strategies require consistently reported surveillance data and validated measurement metrics. Main Body: The denominator of live births used in the maternal mortality ratio reinforces the mistaken notion that all maternal deaths are consequent to a live birth and, at the same time, inappropriately inflates the value of the ratio for subpopulations of women with the highest percentage of pregnancies ending in outcomes other than a live birth. Inadequate methods for identifying induced or spontaneous abortion complications assure that most maternal deaths associated with those pregnancy outcomes are unlikely to be attributed. Absent the ability to identify all maternal deaths, and without the ability to differentiate those deaths by specific pregnancy outcomes, existing variations in pregnancy outcome-specific maternal deaths are masked by the use of an aggregated (all outcome) numerator. Under these circumstances, clear and accurate data is not available to inform evidence-based preventive strategies. As the result, algorithms applied for analyzing maternal mortality data may return distorted results Conclusion: Improvement in the effectiveness of maternal mortality surveillance will require: mandatory certification of all fetal losses; linkage of death, birth and all fetal loss (induced and natural) certificates; modification of the structure of the overall maternal mortality ratio to enable pregnancy outcome-specific ratio calculations; development of the appropriate ICD codes which are specific to induced and spontaneous abortions; education for providers on identifying and reporting early pregnancy losses; and, flexible information systems and methods which integrate these capabilities and inform users.

Atypical behaviour and connectivity in SHANK3-mutant macaques.

Mutation or disruption of the SH3 and ankyrin repeat domains 3 (SHANK3) gene represents a highly penetrant, monogenic risk factor for autism spectrum disorder, and is a cause of Phelan-McDermid syndrome. Recent advances in gene editing have enabled the creation of genetically engineered non-human-primate models, which might better approximate the behavioural and neural phenotypes of autism spectrum disorder than do rodent models, and may lead to more effective treatments. Here we report CRISPR-Cas9-mediated generation of germline-transmissible mutations of SHANK3 in cynomolgus macaques (Macaca fascicularis) and their F1 offspring. Genotyping of somatic cells as well as brain biopsies confirmed mutations in the SHANK3 gene and reduced levels of SHANK3 protein in these macaques. Analysis of data from functional magnetic resonance imaging revealed altered local and global connectivity patterns that were indicative of circuit abnormalities. The founder mutants exhibited sleep disturbances, motor deficits and increased repetitive behaviours, as well as social and learning impairments. Together, these results parallel some aspects of the dysfunctions in the SHANK3 gene and circuits, as well as the behavioural phenotypes, that characterize autism spectrum disorder and Phelan-McDermid syndrome.

Doctors Who Perform Abortions: Their Characteristics and Patterns of Holding and Using Hospital Privileges.

Controversy exists regarding whether doctors who perform abortions should be required to hold hospital admitting privileges, but no research exists as to the extent to which they actually hold and use such privileges. Extensive Internet and government data sources were used to identify and verify abortionists in Florida. All medical and osteopathic abortion doctors who were licensed to practice at any time during the period 2011 to 2016 were included in the study (n = 85). Every abortionist hospital admission of a female patient aged 15 to 44 occurring during the 6-year study period was identified (n = 21 502). Abortionist physicians are 74.1% male, 62% have been in practice for 30 years or longer, 27.1% are graduates of foreign medical schools, and 55.3% are board certified. Nearly half (48.2%) of the abortionists had at least 1 malpractice claim, public complaint, disciplinary action, or criminal charge. Half (50.6%) of the abortionists reported hospital privileges, but only 32 (37.6%) admitted at least 1 patient to a hospital. Seven physicians accounted for 68.2% of all the admissions, and 79.6% of all admissions were related to a live birth. Black was the modal race (47.6%) and Medicaid the most frequent (64.9%) pay source. Nearly one-fifth (19.4%) of admissions came through the emergency department. Physicians who hold hospital privileges are significantly (P < .05) more likely to be board certified and to be approved for Medicaid payment than their colleagues without privileges. Of those doctors who hold and use hospital privileges, the lowest admission volume physicians are significantly less likely to be involved in live births, more likely to admit commercially insured and white inpatients, and much more likely to use the emergency room as the route to hospital admissions for their Medicaid-eligible and black patients. Further study of abortionist physicians is indicated regarding their heterogeneous personal and professional characteristics; their career pathways and practice concentrations; their relative integration with or isolation from peers and the professional network; the importance of black and poor induced abortion patients in their total caseload; and, especially for abortionists without hospital privileges, the means by which their patients requiring emergency care and hospitalization are accommodated.

Validation of the Persian Version of Spiritual Well-Being Questionnaires.

BACKGROUND: Spiritual well-being is an important issue in health sciences, hence the need for validated instruments to assess this aspect of health in the Iranian population. The aim of the current study was to determine the validity of the Persian versions of 2 most common measures of spiritual health (Spiritual Well-Being Questionnaire [SWBQ] or Spiritual Health and Life-Orientation Measure [SHALOM] and Spiritual Well-Being Scale [SWBS]). METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study via a convenience sampling method in Iran University of Medical Sciences with 170 participants aged above 18 years comprising students, teachers, and administrative staff and managers. The study was conducted from September 7, 2014 to September 20, 2015 in Tehran. Four questionnaires, namely the SWBQ, SWBS, General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), and Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (OHQ), were used. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS 18 and LISREL (version 8.2). Cronbach's alpha, intra-class correlation coefficient, Pearson correlation, and confirmatory factor analysis were employed to assess the validity and reliability of the questionnaires. RESULTS: Cronbach's alpha for the SWBQ and the SWBS was greater than 0.85. The repeatability of both questionnaires was between 0.88 and 0.98. The Pearson correlation for the SWBQ and the SWBS ranged from 0.33 to 0.53; and all the correlations were significant. The respondents who indicated a higher spiritual well-being also reported better general health and happiness. CONCLUSION: The Persian versions of the SWBS and the SWBQ have good reliability, repeatability, and validity to assess spiritual health in the Iranian population.

The Manhattan Frame Model-Manhattan World Inference in the Space of Surface Normals.

Objects and structures within man-made environments typically exhibit a high degree of organization in the form of orthogonal and parallel planes. Traditional approaches utilize these regularities via the restrictive, and rather local, Manhattan World (MW) assumption which posits that every plane is perpendicular to one of the axes of a single coordinate system. The aforementioned regularities are especially evident in the surface normal distribution of a scene where they manifest as orthogonally-coupled clusters. This motivates the introduction of the Manhattan-Frame (MF) model which captures the notion of an MW in the surface normals space, the unit sphere, and two probabilistic MF models over this space. First, for a single MF we propose novel real-time MAP inference algorithms, evaluate their performance and their use in drift-free rotation estimation. Second, to capture the complexity of real-world scenes at a global scale, we extend the MF model to a probabilistic mixture of Manhattan Frames (MMF). For MMF inference we propose a simple MAP inference algorithm and an adaptive Markov-Chain Monte-Carlo sampling algorithm with Metropolis-Hastings split/merge moves that let us infer the unknown number of mixture components. We demonstrate the versatility of the MMF model and inference algorithm across several scales of man-made environments.

A cross-sectional retrospective analysis of the regionalization of complex surgery.

BACKGROUND: The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) system has assigned a surgical complexity level to each of its medical centers by specifying requirements to perform standard, intermediate or complex surgical procedures. No study to similarly describe the patterns of relative surgical complexity among a population of United States (U.S) civilian hospitals has been completed. DESIGN: single year, retrospective, cross-sectional. SETTING/PARTICIPANTS: the study used Florida Inpatient Discharge Data from short-term acute hospitals for calendar year 2009. Two hundred hospitals with 2,542,920 discharges were organized into four quartiles (Q 1, 2, 3, 4) based on the number of complex procedures per hospital. The VHA surgical complexity matrix was applied to assign relative complexity to each procedure. The Clinical Classification Software (CCS) system assigned complex procedures to clinically meaningful groups. For outcome comparisons, propensity score matching methods adjusted for the surgical procedure, age, gender, race, comorbidities, mechanical ventilator use and type of admission. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: in-hospital mortality and length-of-stay (LOS). RESULTS: Only 5.2% of all inpatient discharges involve a complex procedure. The highest volume complex procedure hospitals (Q4) have 49.8% of all discharges but 70.1% of all complex procedures. In the 133,436 discharges with a primary complex procedure, 374 separate specific procedures are identified, only about one third of which are performed in the lowest volume complex procedure (Q1) hospitals. Complex operations of the digestive, respiratory, integumentary and musculoskeletal systems are the least concentrated and proportionately more likely to occur in the lower volume hospitals. Operations of the cardiovascular system and certain technology dependent miscellaneous diagnostic and therapeutic procedures are the most concentrated in high volume hospitals. Organ transplants are only done in Q4 hospitals. There were no significant differences in in-hospital mortality rates and the longest lengths of stay were found in higher volume hospitals. CONCLUSIONS: Complex surgery in Florida is effectively regionalized so that small volume hospitals operating within the range of complex procedures appropriate to their capabilities provide no increased risk of post surgical mortality.

Determining Community Health Status Priorities in an Online Analytic Processing (OLAP) Environment.

INTRODUCTION: The determination of priorities is an essential component of community health status assessment. Yet, there is an acknowledged need for a systematic method which will utilize data in standardized comparisons to yield priorities based on objective analyses. METHOD: We have deployed a web-based system with: a flexible online analytic processing (OLAP) interface; multiple sources of event-level data conformed to common definitions in a data warehouse structure; and, centralized technical infrastructure with distributed analytical capabilities. The PRIORITIZATION TOOL integrated into the system takes full advantage of the granularity of multidimensional sources of data to: apply a series of defined objective criteria; vary the weight of those criteria and detect the reordering of the rankings in real-time; and, apply the prioritization algorithm to different categories of health status outcomes. RESULTS: In our example, mortality outcomes for Miami-Dade County, Florida, were considered with three different weighting combinations of the four primary ranking criteria. The resultant analyses return markedly different mortality priority rankings based upon the selection and weighting of the criteria. CONCLUSION: Rankings of community health outcomes based on a static set of criteria with fixed weighting factors may not provide sufficient information necessary for priority setting and may, in fact, be misleading.