JMIR Public Health and Surveillance

High-cost (HC) patients, typically defined as the top 10% or 5% of patients with the highest healthcare costs, are responsible for over half of all healthcare-related spending. In China, approximately 95% of rural residents are covered by Urban and Rural Resident Basic Medical Insurance (URRBMI). In parallel, increasing population mobility has made it more common for rural residents to seek medical treatment and claim reimbursements across provincial boundaries. These trends underscore the importance of identifying and understanding high-cost patients within this group.

Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) are effective tools for pandemic containment but often impose significant socioeconomic consequences that intensify over time. Public support and compliance to NPIs are crucial to ensure their effectiveness.

As a potent opioid analgesic, fentanyl transdermal patches (FTDs) have been widely used in patients with moderate to severe pain. However, increasing concerns about the opioid epidemic have made it important to strengthen the rational use and management of FTDs.

Health education could be an effective way to increase knowledge regarding behavioral changes to prevent the recurrence of stroke; however, the evidence is ambiguous. A lack of both knowledge and compliance with treatment to control modifiable risk factors and unhealthy lifestyles increases the risk of stroke recurrence.

Sexual and gender minority (SGM) individuals represent 2-5% of the US population, yet continue to account for more than two-thirds of new HIV infections annually.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, several United States jurisdictions began to regularly report levels of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater as a proxy for SARS-CoV-2 incidence. Despite the promise of this approach for improving COVID-19 situational awareness, the degree to which wastewater surveillance data agree with other data has varied, and better evidence is needed to understand the situations in which wastewater surveillance data tracks closely with traditional surveillance data.

Converging evidence indicates an adolescent mental health crisis in Western societies that has developed and exacerbated over the past decade. The proposed driving factors of this trend include more screen time, physical inactivity, and social isolation but their causal influence on mental health is insufficiently understood.

Hepatitis B is an important public health challenge facing China, Understanding the long-term epidemiological trends and evolving spatial distribution patterns is critical for optimizing prevention strategies and achieving the WHO's 2030 hepatitis elimination targets.

Social network data are essential and informative for public health research and implementation as they provide details on individuals and their social context. For example, health information and behaviors, such as HIV-related prevention and care, may disseminate within a network, or across society. By harmonizing egocentric and digital networks, researchers may construct a sociocentric-like “fuzzy” network based on a subgroup of the population.

Unemployment is a risk factor for the development and perpetuation of psychological distress. Finding support for affected individuals can be particularly challenging, which causes a vicious cycle of psychological distress and unemployment.

While survival among pediatric cancer patients has advanced, disparities persist. Public health tools such as the Area Deprivation Index, Child Opportunity Index, and the Social Vulnerability Index are potential proxies for social determinants of health and could help researchers, public health practitioners, and clinicians identify neighborhoods or populations most likely to experience adverse outcomes. However, evidence regarding their relationship with healthcare utilization, especially in the pediatric cancer population remains mixed.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) and diabetes share many common lifestyle risk factors, such as obesity. However, it remains largely unknown how different factors interact to influence the risk of CRC development among diabetes patients.