Tie Decay and Dissolution: Contentious Prescribing Practices in the Prescription Drug Epidemic.

Although a substantial body of work has investigated drivers of tie formation, there is growing interest in understanding why relationships decay or dissolve altogether. The networks literature has tended to conceptualize tie decay as driven by processes similar to those underlying tie formation. Yet information that is revealed through ongoing interactions can exert different effects on tie formation and tie decay. This paper investigates how tie decay and tie formation processes differ by focusing on contentious practices. To the extent that information about dissimilarities in contentious practices is learned through ongoing interactions, it can exert diverging effects on tie formation and tie decay. Using a longitudinal data set of 141,543 physician dyads, we find that differences in contentious prescribing led ties to weaken or dissolve altogether but did not affect tie formation. The more contentious the practice and the more information available about the practice, the stronger the effect on tie decay and dissolution. Collectively, these findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of relationship evolution as an unfolding process through which deeper-level differences are revealed and shape the outcome of the tie.

The How Matters: How Primary Care Provider Communication With Team Relates to Patients' Disease Management.

BACKGROUND: Investigating primary care provider (PCP)-team communication can provide insight into how colleagues work together to become high-functioning teams more able to address an increasingly complex set of tasks associated with chronic disease management. OBJECTIVE: To assess how PCP communication with their care team relates to patients' health. RESEARCH DESIGN: Longitudinal study of how 3 aspects of PCP-care team communication-participation, time spent listening, and uninterrupted speaking length-relate to disease management of patients with hypertension or diabetes, and the effect of these team communication behaviors on PCP-patient communication as a pathway by which this relationship might exist. We used multilevel regression models. SUBJECTS: Twenty-seven PCPs and 98 team members, and 18,067 patients with hypertension and 8354 patients with diabetes affiliated with a federally qualified health center with 12 practice sites. MEASURES: Primary data on communication collected using sociometric sensors worn by PCPs and team members, patient-PCP communication data collected with surveys, and patient health, PCP and patient characteristics extracted from electronic records. RESULTS: PCPs participated in 75% of care team conversations, spent 56% of conversation time listening, and had an average uninterrupted speaking length of 2.42 seconds. PCP participation, listening, and length of uninterrupted speaking time were associated with significantly higher odds that their patients had controlled hypertension and diabetes and improvements in disease control over time. PCP-patient communication mediates this relationship. CONCLUSIONS: PCP-team communication is associated with patient health management. How team members speak with one another may be as important as the content of their communication.

Socioeconomic Status and the Increased Prevalence of Autism in California.

The prevalence of autism has increased precipitously-roughly 10-fold in the past 40 years-yet no one knows exactly what caused this dramatic rise. Using a large and representative dataset that spans the California birth cohorts from 1992 through 2000, we examine individual and community resources associated with the likelihood of an autism diagnosis over time. This allows us to identify key social factors that have contributed to increased autism prevalence. While individual-level factors, such as birth weight and parental education, have had a fairly constant effect on likelihood of diagnosis over time, we find that community-level resources drive increased prevalence. This study suggests that neighborhoods dynamically interact with the people living in them in different ways at different times to shape health outcomes. By treating neighborhoods as dynamic, we can better understand the changing socioeconomic gradient of autism and the increase in prevalence.

Estimated autism risk and older reproductive age.

OBJECTIVES: We sought to estimate the risk for autism associated with maternal and paternal age across successive birth cohorts. METHODS: We linked birth records and autism diagnostic records from the California Department of Developmental Services for children born in California between 1992 and 2000 to calculate the risk associated with maternal and paternal age for each birth cohort as well as for the pooled data. RESULTS: The categorical risks associated with maternal age over 40 years ranged from a high of 1.84 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.37, 2.47) to a low of 1.27 (95% CI = 0.95, 1.69). The risk associated with paternal age ranged from 1.29 (95% CI = 1.03, 1.6) to 1.71 (95% CI = 1.41, 2.08). CONCLUSIONS: Pooling data across multiple birth cohorts inflates the risk associated with paternal age. Analyses that do not suffer from problems produced by pooling across birth cohorts demonstrated that advanced maternal age, rather than paternal age, may pose greater risk. Future research examining parental age as a risk factor must be careful to avoid the paradoxes that can arise from pooling data, particularly during periods of social demographic change.

ADHD remission, inclusive special education, and socioeconomic disparities.

To understand how institutional environments and socioeconomic backgrounds may influence health outcomes, we examined the relationship among special education environments, socioeconomic status (SES), and likelihood of ADHD remission in children. While the majority of children experience remission by adulthood, the likelihood of remission varies across different SES levels and education environments. We find that for low SES children the likelihood of remission is higher in states that have more inclusive special education regimes. In contrast, for more advantaged children, the odds of remission do not depend on the level of special education inclusivity. Our findings suggest that providing more inclusive education can reduce disparities in behavioral disorders and are particularly important for less advantaged children. In doing so, this study contributes to the fundamental cause and health inequality literature by adding to a growing body of work showing how institutional environments can affect socioeconomic gradients in health treatment and outcomes.

Association Between Organ Procurement Organization Social Network Centrality and Kidney Discard and Transplant Outcomes.

BACKGROUND: Given growth in kidney transplant waitlists and discard rates, donor kidney acceptance is an important problem. We used network analysis to examine whether organ procurement organization (OPO) network centrality affects discard and outcomes. METHODS: We identified 106,160 deceased donor kidneys recovered for transplant from 2000 to 2010 in Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients. We constructed the transplant network by year with each OPO representing a node and each kidney-sharing relationship between OPOs representing a directed tie between nodes. Primary exposures were the number of different OPOs to which an OPO has given a kidney or from which an OPO has received a kidney in year preceding procurement year. Primary outcomes were discard, cold-ischemia time, delayed graft function, and 1-year graft loss. We used multivariable regression, restricting analysis to the 50% of OPOs with highest discard and stratifying remaining OPOs by kidney volume. Models controlled for kidney donor risk index, waitlist time, and kidney pumping. RESULTS: An increase in one additional OPO to which a kidney was given by a procuring OPO in a year was associated with 1.4% lower likelihood of discard for a given kidney (odds ratio, 0.986; 95% confidence interval, 0.974-0.998) among OPOs procuring high kidney volume, but 2% higher likelihood of discard (odds ratio, 1.021; 95% confidence interval, 1.006-1.037) among OPOs procuring low kidney volume, with mixed associations with recipient outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: Our study highlights the value of network analysis in revealing how broader kidney sharing is associated with levels of organ acceptance. We conclude interventions to promote broader inter-OPO sharing could be developed to reduce discard for a subset of OPOs.

Age of diagnosis for autism: individual and community factors across 10 birth cohorts.

BACKGROUND: The incidence of autism rose dramatically between 1992 and 2001, while the age at which children were first diagnosed declined. During this period the size and composition of the autism caseload has changed, but little is known about whether the factors associated with the timing of diagnosis may also have shifted. Using a multilevel analysis strategy, the individual and community-level factors associated with age of diagnosis were modelled across 10 birth cohorts of California children. METHODS: Linked birth and administrative records on 17,185 children with diagnoses of autistic disorder born in California between 1992 and 2001 and enrolled with the California Department of Developmental Services (DDS) were analysed. Information on cases, their parents and their residential location were extracted from birth and DDS records. Zip codes of residence were matched to census data to create community-level measures. Multilevel linear models were estimated for each birth cohort, with individual-level effects for sex, race, parental characteristics, poverty status, birth order and symptom expression. At the community level measures of educational and economic composition, local autism prevalence and the presence of a child psychiatrist were included. RESULTS: Children with highly educated parents are diagnosed earlier, and this effect has strengthened over time. There is a persistent gap in the age of diagnosis between high and low socioeconomic status (SES) children that has shrunk but not disappeared over time. CONCLUSION: Routine screening for autism in early childhood for all children, particularly those of low SES, is necessary to eliminate disparities in early intervention.