{"title":"Advancing Development of LRRK2-Targeted Therapeutics for Parkinson's Disease: Conference Proceedings and Roadmap for Research.","authors":"Zachary Predmore, Shannon D Donofry","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In June 2025, the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research (MJFF) hosted an in-person workshop, LRRK2-Targeted Therapeutics Roundtable: Advancing Clinical Development for Parkinson's Disease, convening researchers, clinicians, industry representatives, and funders to discuss opportunities for communication, coordination, and collaboration to advance the development of therapeutics that target leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2). The purpose of this multistakeholder workshop was to create a collaborative platform for researchers, clinicians, industry representatives, and funders to discuss the trade-offs and opportunities in using various clinical trial strategies, including trade-offs and opportunities related to target populations, endpoints, treatment durations, and target labels. By fostering precompetitive dialogue on clinical development for LRRK2-targeted therapies, MJFF sought to ensure that sponsors design robust and informative clinical trials that can accelerate drug development and meaningfully advance efforts to deliver effective treatments to patients. In this study, the authors highlight the topics discussed in the workshop and outline the roundtable participants' immediate- and medium-term goals for advancing LRRK2-targeted research and therapeutic development. Key immediate actions mentioned during the roundtable include developing a comprehensive inventory of existing LRRK2 cohorts and their associated clinical and biologic data and biospecimens to find opportunities for data acquisition and harmonization. The authors also discuss what participants cited as the need to develop and validate LRRK2 pathway biomarkers to facilitate population identification and assessment of therapeutic efficacy, and to use these biomarkers to identify \"LRRK2-like\" individuals with idiopathic Parkinson's disease who exhibit LRRK2 pathway dysfunction.</p>","PeriodicalId":74637,"journal":{"name":"Rand health quarterly","volume":"13 2","pages":"2"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12978670/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147446272","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Julia Rollison, Zara Fatima Abdurahaman, Lisa H Jaycox, Viviana Mercado
{"title":"Developing a Research Agenda to Improve Rural Health Access and Quality in West Virginia.","authors":"Julia Rollison, Zara Fatima Abdurahaman, Lisa H Jaycox, Viviana Mercado","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study presents West Virginia's rural health challenges-workforce shortages, chronic disease, infrastructure gaps, and access barriers-and describes a preliminary research agenda to guide improvements. The authors identify practical research priorities, highlight promising programs, and emphasize culturally responsive, community-engaged approaches to improve health outcomes in rural health services throughout the state.</p>","PeriodicalId":74637,"journal":{"name":"Rand health quarterly","volume":"13 2","pages":"3"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12978671/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147446347","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alex R Dopp, Lora L Passetti, Robert M Vincent, Christin M L Bair, Karen Day, Marc de Giere, Shelly Weizman, Sarah B Hunter
{"title":"Aligning Policy to Support the Use of Evidence-Based Practices Equitably and at Scale in Youth Substance Use Services: Proceedings from a Roundtable at the 2025 Joint Meeting on Youth Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery.","authors":"Alex R Dopp, Lora L Passetti, Robert M Vincent, Christin M L Bair, Karen Day, Marc de Giere, Shelly Weizman, Sarah B Hunter","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Evidence-based practices (EBPs) integrate clinical experience, recipient preferences, and the best available research evidence into best practices for health and human services. The use of EBPs plays an important role in delivering high-quality substance use services that improve youth outcomes. Yet there are many challenges to EBP implementation. During a March 2025 roundtable that was hosted at the Joint Meeting on Youth Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery national conference, policy actors with key roles in supporting state service systems discussed how to support the implementation of EBPs for youth substance use equitably and at scale. State service systems include a network of community-based prevention, treatment, and recovery programs for youth substance use that are primarily supported by public funds. Main topics of discussion included the role of federal and state policymakers in supporting the use of EBPs, opportunities and challenges in implementing and sustaining EBPs, and opportunities for partnerships to encourage the use of EBPs. Given the complexity of the topic, partnerships were viewed as key to successful progress in achieving policy action that supports EBP use. These proceedings should be of interest to federal, state, and local policymakers and other related groups, such as policy advocates, youth and their caregivers, and other individuals who are interested in improving the quality of substance use services.</p>","PeriodicalId":74637,"journal":{"name":"Rand health quarterly","volume":"13 1","pages":"1"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12711337/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145783899","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Aman J Patel, Thomas Milton, Andrew Graham, Samuel Reynolds, Ulrik Horn, John Tarangelo, Saskia Popescu, McKelvey Greg
{"title":"Physical Approaches to Civilian Biodefense: Identifying Potential Preparedness Measures for Challenging Biological Threats.","authors":"Aman J Patel, Thomas Milton, Andrew Graham, Samuel Reynolds, Ulrik Horn, John Tarangelo, Saskia Popescu, McKelvey Greg","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Although progress in biological sciences and technologies will offer more opportunities to improve human well-being in the coming decades, this progress may also lower barriers that are blocking bad actors from engineering pathogens to cause destruction. In severe cases, the harms of future biological attacks may approach the magnitudes of the worst plagues of history-from the devastation wrought by the Black Death to the epidemics that decimated Mesoamerican societies after initial European contact. In this study, the authors offer initial frameworks for thinking about how the United States could achieve resilience against three biological threat scenarios: (1) a fast scenario, challenging countermeasures with a rapidly spreading outbreak of a lethal human-to-human-transmissible pathogen; (2) a silent scenario, challenging detection with a pathogen that infects much of the population before infected people display visible symptoms; and (3) a saturating scenario, challenging countermeasures involving a pathogen that replicates and persists in the environment. The authors recommend actions that governments and civil society can take to work toward resilience, including more in-depth research to better understand these scenarios and possible defenses.</p>","PeriodicalId":74637,"journal":{"name":"Rand health quarterly","volume":"13 1","pages":"9"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12711340/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145783780","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Joanne Nicholson, Priya Gandhi, Kristina Novakovic, Daniel Marns
{"title":"Increasing the Impact of Dental Program Accreditation Processes: Identifying Strengths and Opportunities for Improvement.","authors":"Joanne Nicholson, Priya Gandhi, Kristina Novakovic, Daniel Marns","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study documents the second phase of a project undertaken by the Australian Dental Council (ADC) to develop a framework for understanding and evaluating the impact of its dental education program-accreditation activities. This research builds on a first phase in which an impact framework, as well as a logic model undergirding it, were developed. The second phase captures and elevates key stakeholders' perspectives around the ADC's accreditation activities and proposed logic model for generating impact in greater detail. The applicability of the ADC's impact mechanisms, specified in the first research phase, is also examined. The authors developed recommendations for how these impact mechanisms can be leveraged in light of stakeholder perceptions and feedback so that the ADC can improve its impact according to its strategic and accreditation objectives that are aligned with public health outcomes.</p>","PeriodicalId":74637,"journal":{"name":"Rand health quarterly","volume":"13 1","pages":"6"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12711344/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145783619","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Robert Bozick, Shannon D Donofry, Katherine M Rancaño
{"title":"New Weight Loss Drugs: GLP-1 Agonist Use and Side Effects in the United States.","authors":"Robert Bozick, Shannon D Donofry, Katherine M Rancaño","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Prescriptions made for GLP-1 agonists under various brand names (e.g., Ozempic, Wegovy) have more than tripled since 2020. However, research on their use and their side effects at the population level is in its infancy. This study presents descriptive findings from a 2025 survey fielded to a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults as part of RAND's American Life Panel that show prevalence rates of GLP-1 agonist use and side effects.</p>","PeriodicalId":74637,"journal":{"name":"Rand health quarterly","volume":"13 1","pages":"3"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12711338/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145783810","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Louis Abramson, Sarah B Hunter, Jason M Ward, Michelle Bongard, Rick Garvey
{"title":"Annual Trends Among the Unsheltered in Three Los Angeles Neighborhoods: The Los Angeles Longitudinal Enumeration and Demographic Survey (LA LEADS) 2024 Annual Report.","authors":"Louis Abramson, Sarah B Hunter, Jason M Ward, Michelle Bongard, Rick Garvey","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Since fall 2021, RAND researchers have conducted ongoing enumerations and surveys of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness in three Los Angeles, California, neighborhoods: Hollywood, Skid Row, and Venice. These data were obtained to provide policymakers with a deeper understanding of trends in the number of, demographics of, and services being provided to unsheltered people in areas known to be epicenters of the homelessness crisis in Los Angeles. The most recent full year of results from the ongoing Los Angeles Longitudinal Enumeration and Demographic Survey (LA LEADS) study revealed a meaningfully different picture of unsheltered homelessness in 2024 compared with past years. The number of unsheltered people declined, likely driven by increased throughput to interim and permanent housing assets. However, multiple measures of acuity among people remaining on the street appear worse, suggesting that extending the past year's progress may require additional strategies.</p>","PeriodicalId":74637,"journal":{"name":"Rand health quarterly","volume":"13 1","pages":"8"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12711341/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145783910","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Inpatient Medicaid Utilization at Select Children's Hospitals.","authors":"Colleen M McCullough","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program together provide health insurance for 78.6 million low-income Americans, including 37.3 million children. This study describes inpatient utilization at select U.S. children's hospitals by Medicaid-insured patients. Legislation passed in July 2025 changed Medicaid eligibility requirements. For this study, RAND researchers processed hospital cost report data for policymakers to analyze.</p>","PeriodicalId":74637,"journal":{"name":"Rand health quarterly","volume":"13 1","pages":"5"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12711342/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145783633","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Veteran Access to Multiple Forms of Health Care Coverage: Veterans' Issues in Focus.","authors":"Erin A Taylor","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Of the U.S. veterans enrolled with the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), 84 percent also have other sources of health care coverage. The author describes the most common other sources of coverage, why veterans may have multiple coverage options, and how other coverage interacts with VHA health care services. She discusses situations that may result in overpayments for coverage and presents future directions for research and policy options.</p>","PeriodicalId":74637,"journal":{"name":"Rand health quarterly","volume":"13 1","pages":"7"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12711336/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145783892","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Julia Rollison, Sara G McCleskey, Melissa Davoust, Mekdes Shiferaw, Armenda Bialas
{"title":"Evaluation of the BOLD Public Health Center of Excellence on Dementia Caregiving.","authors":"Julia Rollison, Sara G McCleskey, Melissa Davoust, Mekdes Shiferaw, Armenda Bialas","doi":"","DOIUrl":"","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study presents an evaluation of the University of Minnesota's BOLD Public Health Center of Excellence on Dementia Caregiving, which supports public health agencies in implementing dementia caregiving initiatives. The evaluation covers the Center's activities from 2021 to 2025, focusing on resources provided, usage by public health agencies, partnerships, equitable access, and agency capacity improvements.</p>","PeriodicalId":74637,"journal":{"name":"Rand health quarterly","volume":"13 1","pages":"2"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12711343/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145783393","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}