About The Study: In this repeated cross-sectional study of cross-national mortality, the U.S. had substantially higher death rates than other high-income countries between 1999 and 2022, despite having similar access to advanced medical technology. Many of these excess U.S. deaths could likely be avoided by adopting health and social policies that have benefited other high-income countries. These descriptive findings should be interpreted in light of uncertainty arising from differences in death coding, data completeness, and other aspects of data comparability across countries.

About The Study: In this qualitative study, older adults were motivated to use cannabis as an alternative approach to address health concerns. These findings highlight the importance of physician awareness of older adults’ motivations and concerns to support informed counseling and resources.

About The Study: In this nationwide cohort study conducted in Sweden, bidirectional associations were found between premenstrual disorders and psychiatric disorders and conditions, highlighting the need for sex- and menstrual cycle–informed care in psychiatry. Further research is needed to understand the underlying mechanisms shared between premenstrual disorders and psychiatric disorders.

About The Study: In this cluster randomized trial of a clinical decision support system for chronic kidney disease in primary care, both the intervention and control groups demonstrated comparable improvements in 6-month outcomes, with no independent effect of the clinical decision support system detected.

A new study in JAMA Network Open found that between 1999-2022, the annual number of excess US deaths—deaths that would not have occurred had the mortality rate in the US been the same as in other HICs—increased steadily through 2019 and then rose rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic. By 2022, all-cause mortality rates in the US were 38 percent higher than in other HICs. An estimated 12.7 million US deaths could have been averted during this period if US mortality rates mirrored those of its peers. The authors refer to these excess US deaths as “missing Americans.”

A new study explored whether women visualised a vaccine would have a positive or negative impact on their babies, and if that affected their decision to be vaccinated. The findings, published in the journal Social Science & Medicine, showed that mental images were common and – depending on whether that mental image was a positive or negative one, and about the impacts of diseases or the vaccine itself – could be used in some cases to predict if and when the women ultimately became vaccinated during pregnancy.