Comparative effectiveness of missed dose protocols of opioid agonist treatment in British Columbia, Canada: protocol for a population-based target trial emulation.

Introduction: Methadone and buprenorphine/naloxone are effective medications for people with opioid use disorder; however, interruptions in daily dosing are common and diminish the benefits of these medications. While clinical guidelines in most North American jurisdictions, including British Columbia (BC), recommend dose adjustment after treatment interruptions to varying levels of specificity, the evidence to support these recommendations is limited. We aim to estimate the comparative effectiveness of alternative dose adjustment strategies on subsequent overdose-related acute care visits and discontinuation of opioid agonist treatment in BC, Canada.

The direct and urinary electrolyte-mediated effects of ambient temperature on population blood pressure: A causal mediation analysis.

High ambient heat can directly influence blood pressure (BP) through the vasodilation of the skin vasculature and indirectly by affecting urinary volume and electrolyte levels. We evaluated the direct and urine electrolyte-mediated effects of ambient temperature on BP. We pooled 5,624 person-visit data from a community-based stepped-wedge randomized control trial in southwest coastal Bangladesh from December 2016 to May 2017.

Towards Robust Causal Inference in Epidemiological Research: Employing Double Cross-fit TMLE in Right Heart Catheterization Data.

Within epidemiological research, estimating treatment effects from observational data presents notable challenges. Targeted Maximum Likelihood Estimation (TMLE) emerges as a robust method, addressing these challenges by accurately modeling treatment effects. This approach uniquely combines the precision of correctly specified models with the versatility of data-adaptive, flexible machine learning algorithms.

Sex-Specific Association of Ambient Temperature With Urine Biomarkers in Southwest Coastal Bangladesh.

Introduction: Men are vulnerable to ambient heat-related kidney disease burden; however, limited evidence exists on how vulnerable women are when exposed to high ambient heat. We evaluated the sex-specific association between ambient temperature and urine electrolytes, and 24-hour urine total protein, and volume.

Methods: We pooled a longitudinal 5624 person-visits data of 1175 participants' concentration and 24-hour excretion of urine electrolytes and other biomarkers (24-hour urine total protein and volume) from southwest coastal Bangladesh (Khulna, Satkhira, and Mongla districts) during November 2016 to April 2017.

Achieving equitable uptake of handwashing and sanitation by addressing both supply and demand-based constraints: findings from a randomized controlled trial in rural Bangladesh.

Background: Supply driven programs that are not closely connected to community demand and demand-driven programs that fail to ensure supply both risk worsening inequity. Understanding patterns of uptake of behaviors among the poorest under ideal experimental conditions, such as those of an efficacy trial, can help identify strategies that could be strengthened in routine programmatic conditions for more equitable uptake. WASH Benefits Bangladesh was a randomized controlled efficacy trial that provided free-of cost WASH hardware along with behavior change promotion.

Quantitative assessment of fecal contamination in multiple environmental sample types in urban communities in Dhaka, Bangladesh using SaniPath microbial approach.

Rapid urbanization has led to a growing sanitation crisis in urban areas of Bangladesh and potential exposure to fecal contamination in the urban environment due to inadequate sanitation and poor fecal sludge management. Limited data are available on environmental fecal contamination associated with different exposure pathways in urban Dhaka. We conducted a cross-sectional study to explore the magnitude of fecal contamination in the environment in low-income, high-income, and transient/floating neighborhoods in urban Dhaka.

Bias-reduced and separation-proof GEE with small or sparse longitudinal binary data.

Generalized estimating equation (GEE) is a popular approach for analyzing correlated binary data. However, the problems of separation in GEE are still unknown. The separation created by a covariate often occurs in small correlated binary data and even in large data with rare outcome and/or high intra-cluster correlation and a number of influential covariates.