Playing with kids could help improve the mental wellbeing of retirement home residents

Study of older women in South Africa links interactions with greater sense of belonging, purpose

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

 

IMAGE: YOUNG AND OLD HANDS. view more 

CREDIT: AL.EYAD, FLIKR, CC-BY 2.0 (HTTPS://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/LICENSES/BY/2.0/)

A study conducted at a retirement home in South Africa suggests that programs promoting interaction between residents and children may provide mental health benefits and could help manage common mental health conditions, such as anxiety and depression. Elizabeth Jane Earl and Debbie Marais of Stellenbosch University, South Africa, present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on July 5, 2023.

Prior research suggests that common mental health conditions are often undiagnosed and untreated in retirement homes. Standard treatment for such conditions typically involves a combination of medication and non-pharmacological interventions. Some evidence suggests that programs enabling older adults to interact regularly with kids may boost mental health. However, most of that research has been conducted outside of retirement homes, and few studies have addressed such programs within South African facilities.

To deepen understanding of potential benefits of intergenerational interactions, Earl and Marais conducted a study at a retirement home in South Africa where residents can interact regularly with children who attend an onsite preschool. Activities include playing games, doing puzzles, reading, or singing with the children. The program is in line with a philosophy of elder care called the Eden Alternative, which aims to minimize factors that contribute to anxiety and depression.

The researchers invited residents to complete a questionnaire evaluating their anxiety and depression levels and asking them to describe their experiences with the children. Ten women participated, with four screening as possibly having anxiety, depression, or both. All women had some interactions with the preschool children, though some had more than others.

Overall, the participants reported positive experiences with the children. Analysis of their responses suggested that the interactions promoted a sense of belonging and purpose, fond recollection of their own childhood, and positive effects on mood and emotions. Participants had varying preconceptions of children, which could have influenced their individual experiences with the program.

On the basis of these findings, the researchers conclude that intergenerational interaction programs have the potential to help manage common mental health conditions for retirement home residents. They outline recommendations for implementing such programs and call for larger studies to further explore the potential benefits.

The authors add: “Interactions with children promote a sense of belonging and purpose, evoke reminiscence, and positively influence the mental wellbeing of older persons.”

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In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0287369

Citation: Earl EJ, Marais D (2023) The experience of intergenerational interactions and their influence on the mental health of older people living in residential care. PLoS ONE 18(7): e0287369. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287369

Author Countries: South Africa

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0287369 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

The experience of intergenerational interactions and their influence on the mental health of older people living in residential care

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

5-Jul-2023

“Telekinesis”: Scientists develop new technology for targeted cancer therapy

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES HEADQUARTERS

 

IMAGE: SCHEMATIC DIAGRAM OF IN VIVO MANIPULATION OF CELLS USING PAHAT view more 

CREDIT: SIAT

Acoustic tweezers can control target movement through the interaction of momentum between an acoustic wave and an object. Due to their high tissue penetrability and strong acoustic radiation force, such tweezers overcome the limitations of optical and magnetic tweezers, thus making them suitable for in-vivo cell manipulation.

A research team led by Prof. ZHENG Hairong from the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology (SIAT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has recently developed a new type of acoustic tweezers—the phased-array holographic acoustic tweezers (PAHAT) system—which is based on a high-density planar array transducer capable of generating tunable three-dimensional bulk acoustic waves. The researchers hope this system can realize a pharmacological version of "telekinesis."

The study was published in Nature Communications on June 6.

The in vivo environment is extremely complex, due to the different characteristics of various tissues, organs, bones, blood vessels, and blood flow. Such a complex environment creates a huge challenge: How can acoustic methods be used to "trap" bacteria so they can produce therapeutic effects on tumors? 

The team investigated dynamic target manipulation in complex environments using holographic acoustic fields. They subsequently developed a high-density ultrasound transducer array, which made it possible to generate a strong gradient acoustic field and exert precise spatiotemporal control.

The researchers then used gene editing to create sub-micrometer gas vesicles in bacterial cells, enhancing their acoustic sensitivity. These genetically engineered bacteria formed clusters under the influence of the radiation force in the acoustic field. By combining microscopic imaging with PAHAT, the researchers were able to achieve precise manipulation of bacterial clusters in live mice, thus demonstrating a promising approach for targeted drug delivery and cellular therapy in cancer treatment.

Prof. MA Teng, co-corresponding author of the study, said that the researchers could "precisely control bacteria to reach the lesion according to the predetermined path," while Prof. YAN Fei, co-corresponding author of the study, said that the manipulation technology improved cluster aggregation within tumors, thus effectively slowing tumor growth.

According to Prof. ZHENG, "PAHAT enables precise non-contact manipulation of cells in living organisms. Combining with functional cells and cell spheroids, it has great potential in immunotherapy, tissue engineering, targeted drug delivery, and other fields."

Schematic diagram of phased-array holographic acoustic tweezers (PAHAT) system

Setup diagram for in vivo manipulation of cells using PAHAT

CREDIT

SIAT

JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-023-38814-w 

ARTICLE TITLE

In-vivo programmable acoustic manipulation of genetically engineered bacteria

A robot that performs genetic manipulations of the roundworm C. elegans

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PNAS NEXUS

 

VIDEO: THE WORMPICKER IN ACTION. view more 

CREDIT: LI ET AL.

A robotic system capable of imaging and transferring the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans could replace hours of tedious lab work, according to a recent study. Laboratory workers spend untold hours every year manipulating C. elegans, a tiny nematode worm used in genetics research that reproduces quickly and is optically transparent. Often, the labor required to manage and manipulate the animals is a major bottleneck for using the worms to address questions in biology. Fang-Yen, Zihao (John) Li, Anthony Fouad and colleagues developed WormPicker, a robotic system capable of handling routine tasks, increasing the productivity of human researchers. WormPicker’s imaging system autonomously detects nematode age, sex, shape, expression of fluorescent reporters, and other phenotypes. A robot arm holding a wire loop can pluck selected individuals out of a petri dish and transfer the animals to another dish—electrically sterilizing itself with heat between each transfer. The authors put the robot through several standard tasks, including genetic crossing, genetic mapping, and genomic integration of a transgene. The authors show that the robot performs a fluorescent C. elegans sorting task at a rate comparable to that of human researchers. The authors expect the robotic system to accelerate studies in diverse areas of C. elegans biology. To make WormPicker as accessible as possible, the authors are providing a list of components and have made all the design files and system software freely available online.

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JOURNAL

PNAS Nexus

DOI

10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad197 

ARTICLE TITLE

A robotic system for automated genetic manipulation and analysis of Caenorhabditis elegans

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

5-Jul-2023

COI STATEMENT

Anthony D Fouad and Christopher Fang-Yen are shareholders in Tau Scientific Instruments LLC, which aims to commercialize the innovations described in this work.

Webb locates dust reservoirs in two supernovae

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NASA/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER

 

IMAGE: IMAGES FROM NASA’S JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE REVEAL LARGE AMOUNTS OF DUST WITHIN SUPERNOVA 2004ET AND SUPERNOVA 2017EAW. THESE SUPERNOVAE ARE LOCATED IN SPIRAL GALAXY NGC 6946, 22 MILLION LIGHT-YEARS AWAY FROM EARTH. THE HEXAGONAL SHAPE OF SN 2004ET IN WEBB’S IMAGE IS AN ARTIFACT OF THE TELESCOPE’S MIRROR AND STRUTS — WHEN THE BRIGHT LIGHT OF A POINT SOURCE IS OBSERVED, THE LIGHT INTERACTS WITH THE SHARP EDGES OF THE TELESCOPE, CREATING DIFFRACTION SPIKES. IN THESE IMAGES, BLUE, GREEN, AND RED WERE ASSIGNED TO WEBB’S MIRI DATA AT 10; 11.3, 12.8, AND 15.0; AND 18 AND 21 MICRONS (F1000W; F1130, F1280W, AND F1500; AND F1800W AND F2100W, RESPECTIVELY). view more 

CREDIT: CREDITS: NASA, ESA, CSA, ORI FOX (STSCI), MELISSA SHAHBANDEH (STSCI), ALYSSA PAGAN (STSCI)

Researchers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have made major strides in confirming the source of dust in early galaxies. Observations of two Type II supernovae, Supernova 2004et (SN 2004et) and Supernova 2017eaw (SN 2017eaw), have revealed large amounts of dust within the ejecta of each of these objects. The mass found by researchers supports the theory that supernovae played a key role in supplying dust to the early universe.

Dust is a building block for many things in our universe – planets in particular. As dust from dying stars spreads through space, it carries essential elements to help give birth to the next generation of stars and their planets. Where that dust comes from has puzzled astronomers for decades. One significant source of cosmic dust could be supernovae – after the dying star explodes, its leftover gas expands and cools to create dust.

 

“Direct evidence of this phenomenon has been slim up to this point, with our capabilities only allowing us to study the dust population in one relatively nearby supernova to date – Supernova 1987A, 170,000 light-years away from Earth,” said lead author Melissa Shahbandeh of Johns Hopkins University and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. “When the gas cools enough to form dust, that dust is only detectable at mid-infrared wavelengths provided you have enough sensitivity.”

 

For supernovae more distant than SN 1987A like SN 2004et and SN 2017eaw, both in NGC 6946 about 22 million light-years away, that combination of wavelength coverage and exquisite sensitivity can only be obtained with Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument).

 

The Webb observations are the first breakthrough in the study of dust production from supernovae since the detection of newly formed dust in SN 1987A with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope nearly a decade ago. 

Another particularly intriguing result of their study isn’t just the detection of dust, but the amount of dust detected at this early stage in the supernova’s life. In SN 2004et, the researchers found more than 5,000 Earth masses of dust.

“When you look at the calculation of how much dust we’re seeing in SN 2004et especially, it rivals the measurements in SN 1987A, and it’s only a fraction of the age,” added program lead Ori Fox of the Space Telescope Science Institute. “It’s the highest dust mass detected in supernovae since SN 1987A.”

 

Observations have shown astronomers that young, distant galaxies are full of dust, but these galaxies are not old enough for intermediate mass stars, like the Sun, to have supplied the dust as they age. More massive, short-lived stars could have died soon enough and in large enough numbers to create that much dust.

 

While astronomers have confirmed that supernovae produce dust, the question has lingered about how much of that dust can survive the internal shocks reverberating in the aftermath of the explosion. Seeing this amount of dust at this stage in the lifetimes of SN 2004et and SN 2017eaw suggests that dust can survive the shockwave – evidence that supernovae really are important dust factories after all.

 

Researchers also note that the current estimations of the mass may be the tip of the iceberg. While Webb has allowed researchers to measure dust cooler than ever before, there may be undetected, colder dust radiating even farther into the electromagnetic spectrum that remains obscured by the outermost layers of dust.

 

The researchers emphasized that the new findings are also just a hint at newfound research capabilities into supernovae and their dust production using Webb, and what that can tell us about the stars from which they came.

 

“There’s a growing excitement to understand what this dust also implies about the core of the star that exploded,” Fox said. “After looking at these particular findings, I think our fellow researchers are going to be thinking of innovative ways to work with these dusty supernovae in the future.”

 

SN 2004et and SN2017eaw are the first of five targets included in this program. The observations were completed as part of Webb General Observer program 2666. The paper was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society on July 5.

 

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world's premier space science observatory. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency), and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

  

This image of NGC 6946 highlighting two supernovae, SN 2004et and SN 2017eaw, by Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Camera), shows compass arrows, scale bar, and color key for reference.The north and east compass arrows show the orientation of the image on the sky. The scale bar is labeled 2,600 light-years.This image shows invisible mid-infrared wavelengths of light that have been translated into visible-light colors. The color key shows which MIRI filters were used when collecting the light. The color of each filter name is the visible light color used to represent the infrared light that passes through that filter.In these images, blue, green, and red were assigned to Webb’s MIRI data at 10; 11.3, 12.8, and 15.0; and 18 and 21 microns (F1000W; F1130W, F1280W, and F1500W; and F1800W and F2100W, respectively).

CREDIT

Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ori Fox (STScI), Melissa Shahbandeh (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

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JOURNAL

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

First ultraviolet data collected by ESA’s JUICE mission

SwRI-led UVS instrument demonstrated en route to Jupiter system

Business Announcement

SOUTHWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE

 

IMAGE: THE SWRI-LED ULTRAVIOLET SPECTROGRAPH (UVS) ABOARD ESA’S JUPITER ICY MOONS EXPLORER, JUICE, HAS SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED ITS INITIAL COMMISSIONING FOLLOWING THE SPACECRAFT’S APRIL 14 LAUNCH. THIS SEGMENT OF JUICE-UVS DATA SHOWS A SWATH OF THE SOUTHERN SKY, REVEALING MANY UV-BRIGHT STARS IN THE MILKY WAY NEAR THE SOUTHERN CONSTELLATION CARINA ON THE LEFT. THE CLOUD-LIKE STRUCTURE ON THE RIGHT IS A NEARBY GALAXY CALLED THE LARGE MAGELLANIC CLOUD. view more 

CREDIT: ESA/NASA/SWRI/P. MOLYNEUX/M. VERSTEEG/S. FERRELL/T. GREATHOUSE/M. DAVIS

SAN ANTONIO — July 5, 2023 —The Southwest Research Institute-led Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) aboard ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) spacecraft has successfully completed its initial commissioning following the April 14 launch. The UVS instrument is one of three instrument projects comprising NASA’s contribution to the JUICE mission. The mission’s science goals focus on Jupiter and its system, making multiple flybys of the planet’s large, ocean-bearing satellites with a particular emphasis on investigating Ganymede as a potentially habitable planetary body.

UVS is one of 10 science instruments and 11 investigations for the JUICE spacecraft. The mission has overarching goals of investigating potentially habitable worlds around the gas giant and studying the Jupiter system as an archetype for gas giants in our solar system and beyond. As it begins a roundabout 4.1-billion-mile (6.6-billion-kilometer), eight-year journey to the Jupiter system, the spacecraft has been busy deploying and activating its antennas, booms, sensors and instruments to check out and commission all its important subsystems. SwRI’s UVS instrument is the latest to succeed in this task.

“Our team of SwRI scientists traveled to Darmstadt, Germany, to put JUICE-UVS through its paces,” said Dr. Randy Gladstone, JUICE-UVS principal investigator. “On June 20, we opened the UVS aperture door to collect UV light from space for the first time. Soon after, we observed a swath of the sky to verify the instrument was performing well.” The team imaged a segment of this data, as the instrument scanned a swath of the Milky Way.

SwRI has provided ultraviolet spectrographs for other spacecraft, including ESA’s Rosetta comet orbiter, as well as NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission in orbit around the Moon and Juno mission to Jupiter.

“JUICE-UVS is the fifth in this series, and it benefits greatly from the design experience gained by our team from the Juno-UVS instrument, launched in 2011, as it pertains to operating in Jupiter’s harsh radiation environment," said Steven Persyn, program manager for UVS. “Each successive instrument we build is more capable than its predecessor.”

Weighing just over 40 pounds and drawing only 7.5 watts of power, UVS is smaller than a microwave oven, yet this powerful instrument will determine the relative concentrations of various elements and molecules in the atmospheres of Jupiter’s moons once in the Jovian system. A similar instrument, Europa-UVS, will launch in 2024 aboard NASA’s Europa Clipper, which will take a more direct route to arrive at the Jupiter system 15 months before JUICE and focus on studying the potential habitability of Europa.

“Having two UVS instruments making measurements in the Jupiter system at roughly the same time will offer exciting complementary science possibilities,” said Dr. Kurt Retherford, principal investigator of Europa-UVS and deputy PI for JUICE-UVS.

Aboard JUICE, UVS will get close-up views of the Galilean moons Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, all thought to host liquid water beneath their icy surfaces. UVS will record ultraviolet light emitted, transmitted and reflected by these bodies, revealing the composition of their surfaces and tenuous atmospheres and how they interact with Jupiter and its giant magnetosphere. Additional scientific goals include observations of Jupiter itself as well as the gases from its volcanic moon Io that spread throughout the Jovian magnetosphere.

JUICE is the first large-class mission in ESA’s Cosmic Vision 2015–2025 program. The spacecraft and science instruments were built by teams from 15 European countries, Japan and the United States. SwRI’s UVS instrument team includes additional scientists from the University of Colorado Boulder, the SETI institute, the University of Leicester (U.K.), Imperial College London (U.K.), the University of Liège (Belgium), the Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden) and the Laboratoire Atmosphères, Milieux, Observations Spatiales (France). The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center oversees the UVS contribution to ESA through the agency’s Solar System Exploration Program. The JUICE spacecraft was developed by Airbus Defence and Space.  

For more information, visit https://www.swri.org/planetary-science.

Stressed for a bit? Then don’t click it, cybersecurity experts advise

Phishing psychology study explores what makes workers vulnerable

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DOE/PACIFIC NORTHWEST NATIONAL LABORATORY

 

IMAGE: WORKERS WHO ARE FEELING DISTRESSED ARE MORE LIKELY TO CLICK ON A PHISHING EMAIL, ACCORDING TO NEW HUMAN FACTORS RESEARCH AT PACIFIC NORTHWEST NATIONAL LABORATORY. view more 

CREDIT: ILLUSTRATION BY TIMOTHY HOLLAND | PACIFIC NORTHWEST NATIONAL LABORATORY

RICHLAND, Wash.—Workers feeling a specific form of stress are more likely than others to become the victims of a phishing attack, according to a study at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

 

While most—if not all—of us feel stress in the workplace, scientists identified a specific form of stress that indicates who is more vulnerable to clicking on bogus content that could lead to malware and other cyber ills. The work could help workers and their employers increase their cybersecurity defenses by recognizing the warning signs when someone is about to make a risky click.

 

The team’s results from a study of 153 participants were published recently in the Journal of Information Warfare. The researchers noted that while the relatively small sample size limited their ability to tease out all of the relationships among more than two dozen variables they studied, the relationship between stress and response to the simulated phishing email was statistically significant.

 

The costs of phishing attacks are enormous. An analysis sponsored by Proofpoint and conducted by the Ponemon Institute estimates that large U.S. businesses lost, on average, $14.8 million apiece to fraudsters via phishing in 2021 alone.

 

Defenses include not just better technology but also improved awareness by would-be victims.

 

“The first step to defend ourselves is understanding the complex constellation of variables that make a person susceptible to phishing,” says PNNL psychologist Corey Fallon, a corresponding author of the study. “We need to tease out those factors that make people more or less likely to click on a dubious message.”

 

In their study, Fallon and colleagues found that people who reported a high level of work-related distress were significantly more likely to follow a phony phishing email’s link. Every one-point increase in self-reported distress increased the likelihood of responding to the simulated phishing email by 15 percent.

 

The scientists describe distress as a feeling of tension when someone on the job feels they’re in a difficult situation and unable to tackle the task at hand. Distress might stem from feeling their workload is too high, or they might be questioning whether they have adequate training or time to accomplish their work.

 

 

Fancy phish to explore phishing psychology

 

The 153 participants had agreed to take part in a study, but they were unaware that the phishing email sent a few weeks later was part of the planned study into human factors research.

 

As far as phishes go, this was a fancy phish. There was no mention of a large sum of money from an African prince, for example, and there were no outright spelling mistakes or gross grammatical errors.

 

“These were well-crafted emails deliberately designed to trick people and tailored to the organization,” said Jessica Baweja, a psychologist and an author of the study. “It was much harder to detect than the average phish.”

 

Each participant received one of four different versions of a message about an alleged new dress code to be implemented at their organization. The team tested three common phishing tactics separately and together. Here’s what they found:

• Urgency. 49 percent of recipients clicked on the links. Sample text: “This policy will go into effect 3 days from the receipt of this notice...acknowledge the changes immediately.”
• Threat. 47 percent clicked. “…comply with this change in dress code or you may be subject to disciplinary action.”
• Authority. 38 percent clicked. “Per the Office of General Counsel…”
• The three tactics together: 31 percent clicked.

 

While the team had expected that more tactics used together would result in more people clicking on the message, that wasn’t the case.

 

“It’s possible that the more tactics that were used, the more obvious it was a phishing message,” said author Dustin Arendt, a data scientist. “The tactics must be compelling, but there’s a middle ground. If too many tactics are used, it may be obvious that you’re being manipulated.”

 

In day-to-day operations, PNNL tests its staff with fake phishing emails periodically. Typically around just 1 percent of recipients will click. Far more employees spot the phish early on and provide crowd-sourced alerting to the Laboratory’s cybersecurity experts, said Joseph Higbee, PNNL’s chief information security officer. When a real phishing email is detected, the Laboratory purges the system of all instances of the email immediately. The information is frequently shared with other DOE laboratories.

 

Human-machine teaming to reduce cybersecurity risk

How can companies and employees use this data to reduce the risk?

 

“One option is to help people recognize when they are feeling distressed,” said Fallon, “so they can be extra aware and cautious when they’re especially vulnerable.”

 

In the future, one option might be human-machine teaming. If an algorithm notes a change in a work pattern that might indicate fatigue or inattention, a smart machine assistant could suggest a break from email. Automated alerts are becoming more common, for instance, when a driver drifts unexpectedly and the car issues a warning about fatigue. The researchers noted that the potential benefits of input from a machine assistant would need to be weighed against employee privacy concerns.

 

“It can be hard to see email as a threat,” said Baweja. “Our ancient brains aren’t wired to equate email with scary things. You’re working through emails all day and it’s routine; there’s little reason to think they could harm you or our organization.

 

“Organizations need to be thinking about how to encourage people to make good choices. People overestimate their ability to detect phishing emails,” she added.

 

PNNL researchers are continuing the work, but with a twist. Instead of asking what makes people more vulnerable to phishing, they will conduct a small study of people who resisted the bait, to learn more about their traits and state of mind as they monitor their email.

 

The work is part of a broader program in human-machine teaming and human factors research at PNNL, which recently hosted a Symposium on Human Factors.

 

The work was funded by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security. In addition to Arendt, Baweja and Fallon, authors include Ji Young Yun and Nick Thompson of PNNL and Zhuanyi Shaw, formerly of PNNL.

 

# # #

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METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Phishing in the Wild: An Ecologically Valid Study of the Phishing Tactics and Human Factors that Predict Susceptibility to a Phishing Attack

Medical cannabis laws have negligible impact on opioid prescribing

Peer-Reviewed Publication

WEILL CORNELL MEDICINE

State laws allowing medical cannabis use did not reduce prescriptions for opioids or other therapies for chronic, non-cancer pain, according to a policy analysis by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators.

Dr. Beth McGinty, chief of the Division of Health Policy and Economics at Weill Cornell Medicine, used a study design that emulates a clinical trial to analyze the effects of medical cannabis laws on treatment for people with chronic non-cancer pain. The results, published July 4 in Annals of Internal Medicine, challenge the results of previous studies that suggested medical cannabis laws might reduce opioid prescribing, helping curb the ongoing opioid crisis in the United States.

“Some research suggests that perhaps medical cannabis laws reduce opioid prescribing for chronic non-cancer pain because some people may substitute cannabis,” said Dr. McGinty, who was recruited as a professor of population health sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine. “We found no effects of these laws on opioid prescribing or any types of treatment for chronic non-cancer pain that we looked at.”

Public health authorities and policymakers hoping to stem the ongoing opioid overdose crisis in the United States have taken various approaches, including recommending more judicious opioid prescribing. Some have suggested allowing medical cannabis to give patients with chronic non-cancer pain an option with a lower risk of overdose. But many questions remain about this approach.

“The science is very much still evolving on how effective cannabis is for chronic non-cancer pain,” Dr. McGinty said. Questions remain about how effective cannabis is at treating chronic non cancer pain compared with evidence-backed therapies, including non-opioid pain medications and physical therapy.

To understand how medical cannabis laws affect chronic non-cancer pain treatment, Dr. McGinty and her colleagues used commercial insurance claims data to analyze opioid prescribing, non-opioid pain medication prescribing, and delivery of chronic non-cancer pain procedures like physical therapy in 12 states with medical cannabis laws and 17 states without such laws. The team used statistical adjustments to correct for any pre-law differences between pain treatment outcomes in medical cannabis states and their comparison states.  

“It’s an observational study, but we set it up in a way that mimics a clinical trial as closely as possible,” she said.

The study did not find a significant impact on the number of patients with chronic non-cancer pain receiving any prescription opioid, any non-opioid prescription pain medication, or on procedures used to relieve chronic pain. Dr. McGinty said the results were consistent across states with medical cannabis laws.

“Medical cannabis laws do not appear to be associated with changes in the prescription opioid or other non-cannabis, non-opioid treatments for chronic non-cancer pain,” she said.

Dr. McGinty acknowledged that the study has limited statistical power, in part because there are only 50 states, a limitation in any study of the effects of state policies. Investigators could also examine the effects of medical cannabis laws on chronic pain treatment using a data source that captures medical cannabis use in addition to data on other chronic pain treatments, for example state prescription drug monitoring programs that are in some cases starting to include medical cannabis as well as opioid prescriptions.  

In the meantime, the study may provide valuable information for policymakers looking to understand how medical cannabis laws influence prescribing of prescription opioids and delivery of other treatments for chronic non-cancer pain.

“Our study findings suggest that medical cannabis laws do not significantly reduce opioid prescribing,” Dr. McGinty said. “Policy makers trying to curb excess opioid prescribing and overdoses should focus on other strategies.”

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JOURNAL

Annals of Internal Medicine

ARTICLE TITLE

Effects of U.S. State Medical Cannabis Laws on Treatment of Chronic Noncancer Pain

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

4-Jul-2023