Parachute Study revisited - by scientists who actually carried it out

Curtail your skepticism, please, and be a good scientist and read the details first:

Parachute Study Revisited - NPR Story

Justine Dee's research in Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation

Congratulations to Justine Dee, PT, MS, Assistant Professor of Movement Science, on the recent publication of her work on Medicare policies about physical and occupational therapy for chronic conditions. 

Justine Dee, Benjamin Littenberg. Did Clarification of Medicare Guidelines Change Outpatient Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy Usage? A Retrospective Analysis. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Volume 100, Issue 1,2019, Pages 78-85,

Objective: To determine if there was a change in the number of outpatient physical therapy (PT) and occupational therapy (OT) visits for Medicare beneficiaries, and in the number of beneficiaries receiving extended courses of >12 therapy visits, after the Jimmo vs Sebelius settlement.

Design: Cross-sectional analysis of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) comparing calendar years 2011-2012 to 2014-2015.

Setting: Community in-home survey.

Participants: Medicare Part-B recipients who received outpatient PT/OT (N=1183, median age 70.8) during pre–Jimmo settlement (2011-2012) and post–Jimmo settlement (2014-2015) time periods.

Intervention: Not applicable.

Main Outcome Measures: Number of therapy visits/patient/year and number of subjects who received >12 therapy visits/year estimated by linear and logistic regressions controlling for potential confounders (age, body mass index [BMI], and geographic region).

Results: The unadjusted median number of therapy visits/year increased from 7 to 8 after the settlement. Linear regression estimated a 1.02 increase in the number of therapy visits after the settlement (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.23, 1.80; P=.01). The odds of having >12 therapy visits/year increased (odds ratio=1.41; 95% CI 1.02,1.96; P=.04). We observed a significant interaction between race and the effect of the settlement on the odds of having >12 therapy visits (OR 3.64; 95% CI 1.58, 8.39). Non-Hispanic white subjects saw an increase in utilization while a combined group of black, Hispanic and Asian subjects’ utilization declined.

Conclusion: Utilization of outpatient PT/OT changed after the 2013 Jimmo settlement. Further research is needed to determine the effect on patient outcomes and cost.

The full article is available here: https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1YGNIwCfyeCb

NIH K-awards

The NIH just released this year's K-award announcement. The K-series allow for 3 to 5 years of protected time to develop the skills and portfolio needed to succeed as a PI. There are specific grants for various levels of training and backgrounds from postdoc to junior faculty to mid-career investigator. You can sort out which one is right for you at  https://researchtraining.nih.gov/programs/career-development

K-awards are just about the best grants you can get because they support a large fraction of your effort (typically 75% to 100%) for a fairly long time. Protected time being one of the 5 magic ingredients of a successful research career, this is a really good thing! I had a K23 and it made a big difference. They are just about the best way to transition from wannabe investigator to successful independent career PI.

Let me know if you have any questions.

- Ben Littenberg

Fwd: IPUMS Research Awards | Job Openings

If you have been using IPUMS, maybe you can win an award. If you haven't, you ought to be! They have all the big medical and social data sets available in well-curated formats.

- Ben Littenberg

IPUMS Census and Survey Data  Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. Dear IPUMS User, We are entering our favorite season, one filled with merriment and good cheer. That's right, it's IPUMS Research Award season! We are also looking for new data analysts to join our intrepid team. Please read on for details about both. 2018 IPUMS Research Awards We are pleased to announce the 11th annual IPUMS Research Awards competition. We are looking for papers that use innovative approaches, comparative analyses, and multiple IPUMS datasets. In short, we are looking for papers that use the data to its full potential. We have two new categories this year with awards for published papers and graduate student papers in each category.  USA: Best paper using data from IPUMS USA and/or IPUMS CPS International: Best paper using data from IPUMS International and/or the North Atlantic Population Project (NAPP) Health Surveys: Best paper using data from IPUMS NHIS or IPUMS MEPS Spatial: Best paper using data from IPUMS NHGIS and/or IPUMS Terra Global Health: Best paper using data from IPUMS DHS and/or IPUMS PMA Time Use: Best paper using data from IPUMS Time Use Deadline for submission is February 13, 2018. For more information on eligibility and the submission process, visit the IPUMS Research Awards page.  se it for good! The IPUMS Team IPUMS | University of Minnesota Copyright © 2018 University of Minnesota, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: IPUMS 225 19th Ave South Minneapolis, MN 55455

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Fwd: New NSOC and NHATS Data Released

Beta data! 

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: NHATS Data <nhatsdata@westat.com>
Date: Thu, Dec 13, 2018, 3:21 PM
Subject: New NSOC and NHATS Data Released
To: NHATS Data <nhatsdata@westat.com>

We are pleased to announce that new data from the National Study of Caregiving (NSOC) have been released. This beta data release consists of a cross-sectional file of informal helpers identified in the round 7 National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS). New in this round of NSOC, caregivers to NHATS respondents who died are interviewed about end of life caregiving.

 

We also are re-releasing the NSOC II (2015) file with three updates:

 

·         recoding and replacing the race and ethnicity variables

·         revisions to 3 derived variables related to children of NSOC respondents (any living children; number of living children; number of living children under age 18).

·         revised weights based on removing a small number of ineligible cases from control totals

 

NSOC data are available under our sensitive data procedures; the application can be accessed at https://www.nhatsdata.org/Home/ResDataFiles. Documentation, including a user guide, annotated data collection instruments, and a crosswalk between the instruments and the codebook can be found at https://www.nhats.org.

 

Additional NSOC files, including a longitudinal file following all participants in the 2015 NSOC and a time diary file, will be released at a later date.

 

A final NHATS Round 7 file is also being released at this time and can be downloaded at https://www.nhatsdata.org.

 

Fwd: UVM Student Research Conference Announcement

                                                                Save the Date:    Wednesday, April 17^th,2019,  9:00am-5:00pm, Davis Center, University of Vermont

 

 

Faculty colleagues:

 

I would like to invite you and your students to actively participate in the UVM Student Research Conference (SRC) on April 17, 2019. The SRC is a University-wide event with about 400 students participating across all disciplines from every College  at UVM.

https://www.uvm.edu/four/student-research-conference

 

If you have any questions or if you need assistance please contact Lily Fedorko at lily.fedorko@uvm.edu.

 

Sincerely, 
 
Richard Galbraith, MD, PhD
Vice President for Research