Dr. Melanie A Sutton

In 2024, Google rolled out AI Overviews, placing an AI chatbot in front of every user during Google searches. Given the public's awareness of these AI tools, it is important for public health professionals to incorporate these tools into their data visualization workflows to create effective visualizations for public-facing communications.
Compare methods for effective priming of AI tools to generate improvement suggestions for created maps. Demonstrate tips and tricks to attain the full potential of AI tools in the map-making process for epidemiological data. The Department of Public Health formed a multidisciplinary faculty/student team to explore the capabilities of a suite of AI tools in designing and evaluating epidemiological maps derived from data coded at country, state, city, and census tract-level levels. Representative data sets included variables for crime, disease occurrence, and medical testing facility locations.
Strategies for effectively using Chat GPT 3.5 and Google Gemini were developed based on several map types created by faculty and students using Google Geo Charts or Excel 3D Maps. Tips for priming AI tools in the process of designing and interpreting public-facing epidemiological maps to ensure equity and accessibility were created, alongside guidance on recognizing AI hallucinations.
Epidemiological data is commonly visualized with publicly distributed maps, and utilizing AI tools in the map-making process will ensure thorough, well-designed displays. Incorporating AI tools into data visualization workflows provides students, faculty, and public health professionals with additional foundational knowledge to ensure generated maps contribute to building trust in public health.

Background: Although a quarter of Americans are estimated to have multiple chronic conditions, information on the impact of chronic disease dyads and triads on use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is scarce. The purpose of this study is to: 1) estimate the prevalence and odds of CAM use among participants with hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, diabetes, and obesity; and 2) examine the effects of chronic condition dyads and triads on the use of CAM modalities, specifically manipulative and body-based methods, biological treatments, mindbody interventions, energy therapies, and alternative medical systems.

Methods: Data were obtained from the 2012 National Health Interview Survey and the Adult Alternative Medicine supplement. Statistical analyses were restricted to persons with self-reported hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, diabetes, or obesity (n = 15,463).

Results: Approximately 37.2% of the participants had just one of the four chronic conditions, while 62.4% self-reported multiple comorbidities. CAM use among participants was as follows (p<0.001): hypercholesterolemia (31.5%), hypertension (28.3%), diabetes (25.0%), and obesity (10.8%). All combinations of disease dyads and triads were consistently and significantly associated with the use of mind-body interventions (2–4%, p < 0.001). Two sets of three dyads were associated with use of manipulative methods (23–27%, p < 0.05) and energy therapies (0.2–0.3%, p<0.05). Use of biological treatments (0.04%, p<0.05) and alternative systems (3%, p < 0.05) were each significant for one dyad. One triad was significant for use of manipulative methods (27%, p < 0.001).

Conclusions: These findings point to future directions for research and have practical implications for family practitioners treating multimorbid patients.

Some sea snakes and sea kraits (family Elapidae) can dive for upward of two hours while foraging or feeding, largely because they are able to absorb a significant percentage of their oxygen demand across their skin surfaces. Although cutaneous oxygen uptake is a common adaptation in marine elapids, whether its uptake can be manipulated in response to conditions that might alter metabolic rate is unclear. Our data strongly suggest that Yellow-Lipped Sea Kraits, Laticauda colubrina (Schneider, 1799), can modify cutaneous uptake in response to changing pulmonary oxygen saturation levels.When exposed to stepwise 20% decreases in aerial oxygen saturation from 100% to 40%, Yellow-Lipped Sea Kraits spent more time emerged but breathed less frequently. A significant graded increase in cutaneous uptake was seen between 100% and 60% saturation, likely attributable to subcutaneous capillary recruitment. The additional increase in oxygen uptake between 60% and 40% was not significant, indicating capillary recruitment is likely complete at pulmonary saturations of 60%. During a pilot trial, a single Yellow-Lipped Sea Krait exposed to an aerial saturation of 25% became severely stressed after 20 min, suggesting a lower saturation tolerance level between 40% and 25% for the species. Reducing subcutaneous perfusion could optimize swimming performance during foraging, whereas redirecting blood to skin surfaces would maximize dive times when subduing prey or avoiding aerial predators.

Objectives: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 50 million Americans have been diagnosed with arthritis and other musculoskeletal diseases. The purpose of the current study was to (1) estimate the prevalence of overall complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use and (2) examine the role of body mass index (BMI) on CAM use among normal weight, overweight, and obese persons with chronic lower back pain, chronic neck pain, chronic/rheumatoid arthritis, or musculoskeletal diseases, while controlling for other covariates.

Design: Cross-sectional design using secondary data for 9724 adults from the 2007 National Health Interview Survey. Data were weighted and analyzed by using Stata 12 for Windows (Stata Corp., College Station, TX). Descriptive, bivariate, and multivariate logistic regression statistics were computed.

Participants: The participants were randomly surveyed from U.S. households.

Outcome measures: CAM use was measured as reported use of any modality within the five National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health domains.

Results: CAM use was statistically significantly associated with female sex; race/ethnicity; having chronic neck pain, lower back pain, or chronic/rheumatoid arthritis; having limitations due to chronic disease; and geographic region ( p < 0.05). Factors significantly associated with decreased odds of CAM use included age 50–64 years, income categorized as ‘‘other/missing,’’ and having musculoskeletal diseases. Stratification by body mass index suggested increased odds of CAM use among normal/underweight persons with chronic neck pain but decreased odds for those with chronic musculoskeletal diseases. For overweight patients, increased odds of CAM use were significant for chronic lower back pain, musculoskeletal diseases, and chronic/rheumatoid arthritis.

Conclusions: Musculoskeletal diseases and arthritis represent important public health problems with economic implications for the well-being of individuals and society. Identifying CAM use trends by patient weight can be used to improve strategies to increase awareness and access to CAM as part of comprehensive and costeffective approaches for the management and treatment of these conditions.

Objective: The use of complimentary and integrative medicines has emerged as significant area of research both in the United States and internationally. However, much remains to be learned about the true magnitude of these products/this practice and the rationale for their use, especially among persons with a combination of health problems. The purpose of our study is twofold: 1) estimate the prevalence of CAM use in menopausal women with a concurrent cancer diagnosis.

Methods: Data was for 19,241 adult American women from the 2012 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and CAM supplement. The outcome variable was ever use of CAM and CAM use in the women who reported either menopausal problems in 12 months prior, cancer diagnosis or both. Data were weighted and analyzed using Stata software version 14 for Windows. In addition to descriptive and bivariate statistics, multivariate logistic regression was performed to estimate the odds of CAM use by selected covariates and disease dyads.

Results: The average age of the women in the study was 48.9 years (SD = 18.58). Approximately 35.7% of the women experienced menopausal problems in the preceding 12 months, 9% of them had a cancer diagnosis. Overall CAM use was reported in 30.7% of respondents. At the multivariate level, age,
race, marital status, education, income, region of residence, high cholesterol, having insurance, smoking, and alcohol consumption were significant (p <0.05). However, the concurrent presence of menopausal problems and cancer diagnosis did not appear to influence CAM use, when adjusting for other covariates (p>0.05).

Conclusion: Health care professionals should be aware of CAM use in this segment of the population due to potential for treatment compliance challenges such as potential drug/CAM interaction

Objective: The use of complimentary and integrative medicines has emerged as significant area of research both in the United States and internationally. However, much remains to be learned about the true magnitude of these products/this practice and the rationale for their use, especially among persons with a combination of health problems. The purpose of our study is twofold: 1) estimate the prevalence of CAM use in menopausal women with a concurrent cancer diagnosis.

Methods: Data was for 19,241 adult American women from the 2012 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and CAM supplement. The outcome variable was ever use of CAM and CAM use in the women who reported either menopausal problems in 12 months prior, cancer diagnosis or both. Data were weighted and analyzed using Stata software version 14 for Windows. In addition to descriptive and bivariate statistics, multivariate logistic regression was performed to estimate the odds of CAM use by selected covariates and disease dyads.

Results: The average age of the women in the study was 48.9 years (SD = 18.58). Approximately 35.7% of the women experienced menopausal problems in the preceding 12 months, 9% of them had a cancer diagnosis. Overall CAM use was reported in 30.7% of respondents. At the multivariate level, age, race, marital status, education, income, region of residence, high cholesterol, having insurance, smoking, and alcohol consumption were significant (p <0.05). However, the concurrent presence of menopausal problems and cancer diagnosis did not appear to influence CAM use, when adjusting for other covariates (p>0.05).

Conclusion: Health care professionals should be aware of CAM use in this segment of the population due to potential for treatment compliance challenges such as potential drug/CAM interaction.