Jeff Dennis

Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock, United States · Public Health

This study considers how low birth weight (LBW) prevalence varies by race/ethnicity and maternal age and explores mechanisms that explain disparities. Results show that maternal age patterns in LBW risk for African Americans differ from Whites and foreign- and U.S.-born Hispanics. Background socioeconomic disadvantage, together with current socioec...

Foreign- and U.S.-born Hispanic health deteriorate with increasing exposure and acculturation to mainstream U.S. society. Because these associations are robust to (static) socioeconomic controls, negative acculturation has become their primary explanation. This overemphasis, however, has neglected important alternative structural explanations. Exam...

There is a tremendous need for coordinated, accessible mental health services for people with serious mental illness who are in contact, or at high risk of involvement, with the criminal justice system. Despite inadequate equipment and personnel, the Texas criminal justice system increasingly provides care for individuals with serious mental illnes...

Substance use disorder (SUD) stigma persists in society despite a movement toward people-first language in the mental health field. Stigma creates barriers to treatment and marginalizes already at-risk populations. Opioid use disorder (OUD) is of particular relevance to this discussion because recent increases in OUD can be traced to iatrogenic ori...

Background Global 12-month psychosis prevalence is estimated at roughly 0.4%, although prevalence of antipsychotic use in the U.S. is estimated at roughly 1.7%. Antipsychotics are frequently prescribed for off label uses, but have also been shown to carry risk factors for certain comorbid conditions and with other prescription medications. The stud...

Introduction Approximately half of adult Americans suffer from musculoskeletal disorders (MSD). Significant risk factors for musculoskeletal disorders include poor diet, obesity, and insufficient physical activity. Studies show that lifestyle change education and interventions reduce MSD risk factors. However, little is known about the relationship...

Introduction: Homeless individuals lack resources for primary healthcare and as a result use the emergency department (ED) as a social safety net. Our primary objective in this study was to identify the differences between features of visits to United States (US) EDs made by patients without a home and patients who live in a private residence prese...

Diversion programs aim to reduce time in jail for individuals with mental illness, particularly those arrested for minor offenses, and work to connect individuals with resources to reduce recidivism risk. Pretrial diversion for individuals with mental illness takes a variety of forms across the criminal justice and legal sectors, and generally invo...

Objectives Understanding vaccine intentions and attitudes of health professionals is critical as the Pfizer-BioNTech and the Moderna COVID19 vaccines are being administered throughout the United States. This study estimates the level of vaccine hesitancy at a health sciences center in West Texas prior to the distribution of the vaccines. Methods A...

This study aimed to assess gender differences in hospitalization incidence, 30-day mortality, and 30-day readmission rates for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in a Southwestern US medical center. Hospital billing records for AMI admissions were compiled from January 2013 to June 2019, resulting in a sample size of 2394. Billing data included gend...

Introduction: Benefits, risks, and the increasing popularity of yoga use warrant assessing yoga practice prevalence and users' profiles. This study describes trends in yoga practice exclusively among American adults from 2002 to 2017, compares the profile of yoga users, and identifies factors related to yoga use over time. Materials and Methods: T...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 8,916 cases of tuberculosis in 2019. Reducing the number of cases of active tuberculosis requires identification of patients with latent tuberculous infections (LTBI). Optimal screening for LTBI requires information about the demographics and characteristics of people who are more likely to ha...

Objectives: This study explores sex differences in ischemic stroke hospitalization incidence, 30-day mortality, and 30-day readmission in a southwestern US medical center. Methods: Ischemic stroke admissions in a regional medical center in the southwestern United States were obtained for a 6.5-year time frame (N = 1968). Logistic regression mode...

Objective: Hypertension can cause significant morbidity and reduced life expectancy. Most patients with hypertension have primary hypertension; however, 10% to 15% have secondary hypertension. Endocrine disorders as a secondary cause occur in approximately 10% of patients with secondary hypertension, and thyroid disorders account for approximately...

Hypertension can cause significant morbidity and reduced life expectancy. Most patients with hypertension have primary hypertension; however, 10 to 15% of patients have secondary hypertension. Endocrine disorders explain approximately 10% of hypertension in all patients, and thyroid disorders account for approximately 1% of cases with hypertension....

Background: Medical students face a wide variety of stressors throughout their medical education, including academic, financial, health, and relationship concerns. Past research has found increased odds of depression and stress about educational debt. Married medical students have been found to have lower stress levels than their single counterpart...

Background: Patients with hyperglycemia during hospitalization, especially during ICU hospitalizations, often have worse outcomes, even if they do not have a premorbid diagnosis of diabetes. High glucose levels can provide insight into the underlying pathogenesis of a disease and can contribute to tissue injury. Some patients with COVID-19 have hy...

Objective: To explore the weathering hypothesis via birthweight-specific maternal age patterns in U.S. infant mortality rates (IMR) among births to American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) women relative to births to non-Hispanic (NH) white, NH black, and Hispanic women. Methods: The 2008-2013 U.S. Public Use Infant Birth/Linked Death Cohort file...

This study investigated the association between hematologic inflammatory markers derived from complete blood counts and obesity. We undertook a cross-sectional study that included self-reported healthy subjects above the age of 18 years from the 2011–2016 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, a US population database. Study parameters i...

Objective: To describe patterns of conventional health care (CH) and complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use among U.S. adults reporting recent joint symptoms in a nationally representative sample. Design: This study uses the adult alternative medicine supplement from the 2012 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). Location: United Sta...

Introduction Electronic cigarettes (EC) remain a controversial topic with uncertainty about harm reduction in current smokers, their efficacy in smoking cessation, their potential for addiction, the need for regulation, and the type of information needed to educate the public about the benefits and hazards of EC. Multiple medical institutions and o...

Objectives: Emergency department (ED) triage scores are assigned to patients in a short period based on assessment of need for lifesaving measures, risk and pain levels, resource needs, and vital signs. Racial/ethnic disparities have been found across a number of outcomes but are not consistent across all studies. This study examines pediatric ED...

Background: As climate research continues to highlight the global shifts in temperature and precipitation, more research is needed to understand how climate anomalies impact human health outcomes. In this paper, we analyze one of the paths through which climate anomalies affect health (in particular, child’s health) within one of poorest countries...

Mean platelet volume (MPV) is a measure of platelet activation, and C-reactive protein (CRP) is an established marker of inflammation. Studies on the correlation between MPV and CRP have produced ambiguous results. We undertook a population study with the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data (2005-2010) to investigate the...

Missed appointments have negative outcomes for patients, physicians, and clinics. These effects include incomplete screening, inappropriate use of emergency care, clinic overbooking, decreased teaching opportunities, and lost revenue. This study examined the temporal characteristics of missed appointments (no shows) in West Texas. All kept or misse...

Interdisciplinary research spanning clinical and population health perspectives has the potential to explore research areas that might not be examined within single respective disciplines. Barriers such as agreement on diagnostic criteria for identifying analytical subgroups of interest may inhibit both the initiation and the progress of this type...

Background: Platelets are important mediators of coagulation, inflammation, and atherosclerosis. We conducted a large population study with National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data to understand the relationship of total platelet count (TPC) with health and disease in humans. Methods: NHANES is a cross-sectional survey of non-...

Context The association between hypothyroidism and sleep apnea (SA) has been previously studied, but results are discrepant and mostly based on small population studies. Objective To determine whether there is a positive association between hypothyroidism and SA in the U.S. population. Design Cross-sectional study. Setting U.S. National Health a...

Introduction Mean platelet volume (MPV) is a measure of platelet size and activity. We conducted a population study with National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data to understand the relationship of MPV with health and diseases. Materials and methods The NHANES is a cross-sectional survey of non-institutionalized adult populatio...

Purpose of study Mean platelet volume (MPV) is a measure of the platelet size and is an indicator of platelet activation. We conducted a large population study with National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data to understand the relationship of MPV with health and disease in humans. Methods used The NHANES is a cross-sectional s...

Background The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies have been reported for the management of arthritis. However, little is known about CAM use among adults with self‐reported doctor‐diagnosed (SRDD) arthritis since 2012. Objectives: To determine: 1) the prevalence and type of CAM use, 2) the difference in characteristics be...

Purpose of study Platelets are important mediators of coagulation, inflammation, and atherosclerosis. We conducted a large population study with National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data to understand the relationship of total platelet count (TPC) with health and disease in humans. Methods used The NHANES is a cross-sectiona...

Background/objective: Sleep apnea is associated with elevated inflammatory markers. A subgroup of patients never report sleep disturbances to their physician. The inflammatory status of this subgroup is not known. The present study aims to evaluate two inflammatory markers, C-reactive protein (CRP) and red cell distribution width (RDW), in those w...

Substantial research has examined birth outcomes by race/ethnicity, noting not only disparities by race/ethnicity, but different maternal age patterns in low birth weight (LBW) prevalence. Few studies have examined these disparities among American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) mothers, whose LBW prevalence is below the national average, despite subs...

Introduction The majority of trauma-related deaths occur within the first 24 h of injury, and time elapsed until intervention for an injury is one of the greatest causes of preventable death in mature trauma centers. This study seeks to determine if there is a correlation between time spent in the trauma bay and mortality outcomes. Methods A retro...

While racial and ethnic differences in mortality are pervasive and well documented, less is known about how mortality risk varies by neighborhood socioeconomic status across racial and ethnic identity. We conducted a prospective analysis on a sample of adults living at or below 300% poverty with 8 years of the National Health Interview Survey (N =...

Dust storms are a common phenomenon in West Texas. During dust storm events, air quality decreases and the concentration of aerosol particles increases. These particles are capable of penetrating deep into our lungs, therefore causing health problems. The effect of dust storms on human health is unclear; while some studies have observed an increase...

Background: Given the safety concerns regarding pharmacological agents, and the considerable impact of headache and migraine on the sufferer's quality of life, many people seek other treatment options beyond conventional medication and care to address their symptoms; this includes complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Some CAM intervention...

The growth of large databases of health information has accelerated substantially as computers are able to store and process these data with increasing efficiency. Analysis of this growing cache of data has the potential to aid health care providers, improve cost and efficiency, and inform public health policies, yet caution must be exercised in th...

The transmission of social disadvantage from teenage mothers to their children is well established, but when and why do these disparities emerge in the early life course? Using nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort, this study investigated the relationship between teen childbearing and children's co...

Beyond mothers' union status transitions, other adults' transitions into and out of the household contribute to family instability, particularly in early childhood. Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (N≅8550), this study examines associations between extended household transitions and age 2 cognitive development. A substantia...

Previous studies find U.S. immigrants have weaker socioeconomic gradients in health relative to non-Hispanic whites and their U.S.-born co-ethnics. Several explanations have been advanced but few have been tested empirically. We use data from the Mexican Family Life Survey and the U.S. National Health Interview Survey, including longitudinal data i...

Past research has documented compromised development for teenage mothers' children compared to others, but less is known about predictors of school readiness among these children or among teenage fathers' children. Our multidimensional measures of high and low school readiness incorporated math, reading, and behavior scores and parent-reported heal...

The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort of 2001 represents a unique opportunity to examine the life situations of teenage mothers and their young children in a nationally representative sample. Descriptive and multivariate regression analyses compare teenage mothers and their children to older mothers and their children, examine vari...

Although Latino immigrants come from countries with high levels of inequality, their socioeconomic gradients in health are generally weaker than those among their US-born co-ethnics and much weaker than those of US-born non-Hispanic (NH) whites. We review this literature among Latin American immigrants looking at the role of: factors related to con...

Taking advantage of recent data that permit an assessment of the importance of extended household members in operationalizing the relationship between family structure and children's early development, this study incorporated coresident grandparents, other kin, and nonkin to investigate the associations between extended household structure and U.S....