Objectives To assess the accuracy and usefulness of novel software evaluating change over time in Fluorodeoxyglucose (FGD) PET/CT imaging for metastatic cancer patients. Methods Serial FGD avid PET/CT scans for 25 patients with metastatic cancer were retrospectively analyzed using a novel algorithm-based software that includes quantification of change for identified lesions as well as spatial location, visualization, and classification (new, increasing, unchanged, decreasing, disappeared) of each detected lesion. The software also quantifies the change in overall disease and provides an overall positive (new or worsening) or a negative (diminishing or disappearing) percentile. Oncologists identified clinically significant lesions for each patient, and an independent radiologist reviewed every lesion contour, matching precision and treatment response for accuracy. The final software-generated report was compared to existing original PET/CT radiology reports for clinical interpretation. To assess usefulness, 2 medical oncologists and 2 gynecologic oncologists reviewed specialty-specific cases and completed a usefulness questionnaire after comparing the algorithm-based reports to the PET/CT scans. Descriptive statistics evaluated patient demographics, clinical outcomes, report findings, and usefulness. Results Patients had a mean age of 67 years old, and a majority were White (92%), female (64%), and had stage III (36%) or stage IV (56%) disease at diagnosis. Seven primary cancers were included: cervical (28%), melanoma (20%), lymphoma (28%), vulvar (12%), vaginal (4%), uterine (4%), and urothelial (4%). Of the 150 lesions identified, there was an average of 6 lesions (SD 5.8) per patient, with 98 determined to be clinically significant. Accuracy of lesion contours, matching, and classification was 97.6% (96/98). The second PET/CT led to a change in management in 12/25 (48%) of the cases with progression in 6 patients, partial response in 8, complete response in 6, and a mixed response in 5 patients. The software reported an overall worsening of disease in 6 patients (positive score), improvement in 18 patients (negative score), and 1 patient with no lesions reported. In 28% of the reviewed cases, the algorithm-based report had distinctions from the FGD PET/CT reports. Overall, 56% of the reports were deemed useful. Among cases reviewed, the 4 oncologists found the reports useful in 100%, 92%, 33%, and 0% of cases. Perceived usefulness was highest for lesion spatial location information (78%) followed by systemic treatment decision making and patient education (56%), and limited usefulness for targeted treatment decisions (32%). Conclusions The algorithm-based service which quantifies and classifies change in lesions from serial PET/CT images was highly accurate but had a wide range of perceived usefulness among practicing oncologists. Designed to be used alongside standard of care radiology reports, this analysis provides novel data to better understand how this technology can be used, although clinical judgement is required when interpreting the analysis for management decisions (Fig. 1). Objectives Implantable venous access ports are commonly used for treatment administration for patients with cancer. While they can assist with treatment administration and frequent blood draws, ports are not required for many ovarian cancer treatments and can lead to complications such as thrombosis and infection. However, data regarding patient experiences with ports are limited. Our objective was to describe the experiences of individuals with ovarian cancer with implantable ports to further guide patient-centered care. Methods We surveyed individuals diagnosed with ovarian cancer regarding their experience with ports. This was conducted as part of the UNTOLD (Understanding The experience of Ovarian cancer-Life after Diagnosis) study which aims to comprehensively document the survivorship experience of individuals with ovarian cancer. This cross-sectional survey was developed through partnership with patient advocates, and a pilot test with 15 ovarian cancer survivors was conducted to ensure development of a robust, survivor-informed survey. Individuals were recruited in the United States through advocacy groups for this study; recruitment is ongoing. Results A total of 55 individuals with ovarian cancer have participated in the study as of 10/14/2025. The median age of respondents was 57 (range 29-84) with a median time since diagnosis of 4 years (range 0-20). Most (67.3%) were diagnosed with stage III or IV disease, 34.6% had recurrent disease, and 40% were receiving treatment for ovarian cancer at the time of the survey. Three-quarters (76.4%; 42/ Abstracts / Gynecologic Oncology 205 (2026) S11-S33 S12

<p>Partial enactment of women’s rights is at the crux of this analysis, which identifies factors associated with the adoption of some global women’s rights scripts but not others. Women who partially enact global principles are an important group, and focusing on them provides clues into when, where, and how institutionalized scripts are in competition. To explore this issue, Demographic and Health Survey data from 25 low- and middle-income countries across two time periods are used, with a focus on two dimensions of women’s empowerment: a woman’s household decision-making power and her attitudes toward intimate partner violence. Multinomial regressions reveal that exposure to global culture is associated with dual enactment of the two dimensions. Among partial adopters, enactment privileging physical integrity is mediated through local community institutions, including religions, whereas partial-enactment privileging decision making is associated with women’s household bargaining power.</p>

Women in Africa may have experienced conflicting pressures during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the unpredictable nature of the pandemic was prompting some women to delay pregnancies, the pandemic was potentially limiting access to reproductive health services due to supply shortages, fears of virus exposure, and mobility restrictions. In this study, we used longitudinal data from Kenya and Burkina Faso and applied a multilevel perspective to better understand the factors contributing to change or persistence in contraceptive use during the early months of the pandemic. We found a marginal increase in contraceptive uptake in the early days of the pandemic. Multilevel logistic regression results revealed that interpersonal trust and accurate knowledge of COVID-19 precautions were associated with a greater likelihood of initiating contraception. These factors appeared to have provided women with confidence to navigate the complicated COVID-19 landscape. At the same time, we observed a decrease in contraceptive use in regions with high COVID-19 cases, suggesting the virus was limiting access to contraception in some contexts. These findings highlighted the need for public health officials to ensure that women have the necessary knowledge and ability to safely access contraception during public health crises, when overall demand for contraception may be increasing.

This study examines how trust was associated with social distancing during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in Burkina Faso and Kenya. It fills gaps in previous research on trust and health by 1) simultaneously considering the relationship of individual- and aggregate-level indicators of trust, and 2) evaluating trust in local government and national government separately. Performance Monitoring for Action (PMA) data on COVID-precautionary measures and individual-level trust measures were spatially linked with aggregated trust data from the Afrobarometer to create a multilevel dataset. PMA data show that women in Kenya were generally more likely to report taking COVID-precautionary measures relative to Burkinabé women, although levels of these measures were high in both countries. Hierarchical logistic models for each country show levels of interpersonal trust mattered more in Burkina Faso. Although the association between individual-level trust in government and social distancing was not statistically significant, overall levels of trust in the region where an individual lived were associated with social distancing. We found a significant interaction effect between regional trust in the national government and regional trust in local government: individuals in regions where trust was high in both national and local government were the most likely to socially distance; individuals in regions with low local government trust but high national government trust were less likely to report social distancing. We unpack possible implications of these findings; they point to the importance of a unified government front within African countries in promoting health safety measures during a pandemic.

Contraceptive use has substantial implications for women’s reproductive health, motivating research on the most effective approaches to minimize inequalities in access. When women prefer to limit or delay fertility but are not using contraception, this potentially reflects demand for contraception that is not being satisfied. Current literature emphasizes a nuanced integration of supply and demand factors to better understand this gap. In this research, we examine the interconnectedness of supply and demand factors both conceptually and methodologically by augmenting existing measures of local supply with a demand-side factor—community-level preferences for contraceptive methods. Using novel data from Performance Monitoring for Action (PMA) in seven sub-Saharan African countries, we test whether the available supply of locally preferred methods at nearby service delivery points (SDP) explains variation in women’s uptake of contraception beyond the more typical measure of contraceptive stockouts. Findings from logistic regression analyses (N = 32,282) suggest that demand and supply can be understood as tightly interconnected factors which are directly affected by local social preferences. The odds of women using modern contraception increase significantly when locally preferred methods are available, and this is true even after controlling for the availability of methods in general. The new measure tested in this research centers women and their specific desires in a manner consistent with the promotion of contraceptives as an important human right.

The Trump administration reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy (MCP) in 2017 as the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance (PLGHA) policy, forbidding international organizations recei...

Seasonal shifts in community-level agricultural production and their impact on the severity of the annual hunger season and household coping behaviors are important themes in climate change–health ...

Examining what we call “crimmigrating narratives,” we show that US immigration court criminalizes non-citizens, cements forms of social control, and dispenses punishment in a non-punitive legal setting. Building on theories of crimmigration and a sociology of narrative, we code, categorize, and describe third-party observations of detained immigration court hearings conducted in Fort Snelling, Minnesota, from July 2018 to June 2019. We identify and investigate structural factors of three key crimmigrating narratives in the courtroom: one based on threats (stories of the non-citizen’s criminal history and perceived danger to society), a second involving deservingness (stories of the non-citizen’s social ties, hardship, and belonging in the United States), and a third pertaining to their status as “impossible subjects” (stories rendering non-citizens “illegal,” categorically excludable, and contradictory to the law). Findings demonstrate that the courts’ prioritization of these three narratives disconnects detainees from their own socially organized experience and prevents them from fully engaging in the immigration court process. In closing, we discuss the potential implications of crimmigrating narratives for the US immigration legal system and non-citizen status.

Sterilization is endorsed as a method of family planning by international governmental organizations; abortion is not. Focusing on policy development for these two issues in a single country, Peru, we ask how power and inequality operate under conditions of global consensus or dissensus. The case of sterilization unfolded the way many previous research studies would predict, with Peruvian state actions corresponding to a global diffusion process. We find that global consensus provided cover for top-down actions that violated the human rights of indigenous women in the country, who were predominantly poor, non-Spanish speakers, and residents of the mountainous, sparsely populated parts of the country. With respect to abortion in Peru, in the absence of global consensus, the state resisted calls for change, advocacy networks have worked at cross-purposes, and a powerful local actor, the Catholic Church, has effectively blocked liberalization efforts. As with sterilization, however, marginalized indigenous women and their interests were rendered invisible.

Our aim in this conceptual article is to theoretically reimagine the concept of ‘healthy prisons’ in a way that more thoroughly grounds it in the everyday experiences of prisoners. Our point of departure is the observation that there seems to be an intriguing conceptual and theoretical overlap between first-person oriented empirical studies of two spheres of human experience that are normally seen as separate: serious illness and imprisonment. Our analysis leads us to reimagine the term ‘healthy prisons’ in a way that increases its usefulness for anyone interested in making prisons healthier and more constructive and reinventive institutions.

The Collaborative Cohort of Cohorts for COVID-19 Research (C4R) is a national prospective study of adults at risk for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) comprising 14 established United States (US) prospective cohort studies. For decades, C4R cohorts have collected extensive data on clinical and subclinical diseases and their risk factors, including behavior, cognition, biomarkers, and social determinants of health. C4R will link this pre-COVID phenotyping to information on SARS-CoV-2 infection and acute and post-acute COVID-related illness. C4R is largely population-based, has an age range of 18-108 years, and broadly reflects the racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and geographic diversity of the US. C4R is ascertaining severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection and COVID-19 illness using standardized questionnaires, ascertainment of COVID-related hospitalizations and deaths, and a SARS-CoV-2 serosurvey via dried blood spots. Master protocols leverage existing robust retention rates for telephone and in-person examinations, and high-quality events surveillance. Extensive pre-pandemic data minimize referral, survival, and recall bias. Data are being harmonized with research-quality phenotyping unmatched by clinical and survey-based studies; these will be pooled and shared widely to expedite collaboration and scientific findings. This unique resource will allow evaluation of risk and resilience factors for COVID-19 severity and outcomes, including post-acute sequelae, and assessment of the social and behavioral impact of the pandemic on long-term trajectories of health and aging.

Objectives This study considers whether orphans' experiences with physically and psychologically violent discipline differ from non-orphans in sub-Saharan Africa, and to what extent national, community, household, caretaker, and child characteristics explain those differences. Methods We use cross-sectional Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) administered between 2010-2017 in 14 sub-Saharan African countries. The sample included 125,197 children, of which 2,937 were maternal orphans, 9,113 were paternal orphans, and 1,858 were double orphans. We estimate the difference between orphans and non-orphans experience of harsh discipline using multivariable logistic regressions with country fixed effects and clustered standard errors. Results Findings show that orphaned children experience less harsh discipline in the home. With the exception of double orphans' experience with physically violent discipline, these differences persisted even after controlling for a rich set of child, household, and caretaker characteristics. Conclusions We propose two alternative explanations for our surprising findings and provide a supplementary analysis to help arbitrate between them. The evidence suggests that orphaned children (especially those with a deceased mother) are less likely to experience harsh discipline because of lower caretaker investment in their upbringing. We encourage future research to draw on in-depth interviews or household surveys with discipline data from multiple children in a home to further unpack why orphans tend to experience less harsh punishment than other children.

The Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) are the most important source of comparative information on the health of women and young children in low- and middle-income countries and are well-suited for studies of the relationship between environmental factors and health. However, barriers have limited the use of the DHS for these purposes. IPUMS DHS, an online data dissemination tool, overcomes these barriers, simplifying comparative analyses with DHS. IPUMS DHS recently incorporated environmental variables that can easily be attached to individual or household records, facilitating the use of DHS data for the study of population and environment issues. We provide a brief introduction to IPUMS DHS, describe the current and anticipated environmental variables and how to use them, and provide an example of the novel research possibilities facilitated by this latest IPUMS DHS development. IPUMS-DHS is available free online at dhs.ipums.org.

Fecundity, the biologic capacity to reproduce, is essential for the health of individuals and is, therefore, fundamental for understanding human health at the population level. Given the absence of a population (bio)marker, fecundity is assessed indirectly by various individual-based (e.g. semen quality, ovulation) or couple-based (e.g. time-to-pregnancy) endpoints. Population monitoring of fecundity is challenging, and often defaults to relying on rates of births (fertility) or adverse outcomes such as genitourinary malformations and reproductive site cancers. In light of reported declines in semen quality and fertility rates in some global regions among other changes, the question as to whether human fecundity is changing needs investigation. We review existing data and novel methodological approaches aimed at answering this question from a transdisciplinary perspective. The existing literature is insufficient for answering this question; we provide an overview of currently available resources and novel methods suitable for delineating temporal patterns in human fecundity in future research.