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Objectives: To assess outcomes for Veterans Health Administration (VHA) patients following calls to the Veterans Crisis Line (VCL)., Methods: 158,927 VHA patients had an initial VCL call in 2010-2015 with documented identifiers. Multivariable proportional hazards regressions assessed risks of suicide and suicide-related behavior through 12 months. Covariates included age, sex, region, mental health encounters in the prior year, time of day, weekday/weekend status, call outcome, and responder determination of caller risk., Results: Annualized suicide rates per 100,000 within 1, 3, 6, and 12 months were 797, 520, 387, and 298, respectively. Average age was 49.9 (SD = 15.2), 86.5% were male, 68.6% received mental health encounters in the prior year, and 5.9% had calls categorized as at high risk. Adjusting for covariates, suicide risk was greater among male callers and those with calls categorized as at high or moderate risk., Conclusions: Veterans Crisis Line serves a high-risk population at a critical time. Rates were particularly high within one month and remained substantially elevated through 12 months. Findings have directly informed ongoing efforts to enhance coordination between VCL and VHA to support suicide prevention., (© Published 2020. This article has been contributed to by US Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA.)

Based on an analysis of relevant laws and policies, regulator data portals, and information requests, we find that clinical data, including clinical study reports, submitted to the European Medicines Agency and Health Canada to support approval of medicines are routinely made publicly available.

Objective: To examine the relation between county-level income inequality and rates of child maltreatment., Methods: Data on substantiated reports of child abuse and neglect from 2005 to 2009 were obtained from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System. County-level data on income inequality and children in poverty were obtained from the American Community Survey. Data for additional control variables were obtained from the American Community Survey and the Health Resources and Services Administration Area Resource File. The Gini coefficient was used as the measure of income inequality. Generalized additive models were estimated to explore linear and nonlinear relations among income inequality, poverty, and child maltreatment. In all models, state was included as a fixed effect to control for state-level differences in victim rates., Results: Considerable variation in income inequality and child maltreatment rates was found across the 3142 US counties. Income inequality, as well as child poverty rate, was positively and significantly correlated with child maltreatment rates at the county level. Controlling for child poverty, demographic and economic control variables, and state-level variation in maltreatment rates, there was a significant linear effect of inequality on child maltreatment rates (P < .0001). This effect was stronger for counties with moderate to high levels of child poverty., Conclusions: Higher income inequality across US counties was significantly associated with higher county-level rates of child maltreatment. The findings contribute to the growing literature linking greater income inequality to a range of poor health and well-being outcomes in infants and children.

The Department of Education, the Association of Schools of Public Health, and national professional societies dedicated to teaching and dissemination of information for health and education in the public sector can form a clearinghouse on information and manpower on Homeland Security by affiliation with Centers for Public Health Preparedness (CPHP). The state licensed or regional societies can contribute further information and guidelines. In the HPS the Science Teacher Workshop (STW) and Public Education (PEC) Committees can assist a CPHP on radiation issues.

The broad based mission statements of public institutions whose charters are to educate the public is analyzed so that common threads pertinent to homeland security action items can be correlated with the public education scope. The intent of the coordination is to ensure that the prevention component in addition to the preparedness issues of homeland security is incorporated into the educational system with short and long term goals.