Chicago Association for Research and Education in Science

Caring Connections A program to alleviate social isolation and loneliness in individuals living with spinal cord injury conducted by Dr. Sherri Lavela at Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital. The findings of this study have revealed how persons with SCI/D conceptualize loneliness and social isolation, and both constructs encompassed feeling alone along with other emotional states such as darkness and sadness lack of meaningful interactions and brought to light patient views on driving factors. Findings can be used to develop social health interventions and guide patient-provider discussions that address meaningful aspects of loneliness and social isolation as perceived by individuals and suggest that efforts are needed to better identify and respond to social isolation and lonliness in community and healthcare settings. These findings will help us build and refine the intervention design and content for the current grant. Examining energy in persons with chronic spinal cord injuries and disorders measurement of requirements, knowledge, and intake - conducted by Dr. Sherri Lavela and Lorena Reyes, dietitian at Edward Hines Jr VA Hospital. Stude focuses on measuring energy requirements, nutritional intake, and physical activity levels, particularly for those with tetraplegia and complete lesions, to improve metabolic health.

COVID-19 vaccine safety monitoring surveillance Rapid Cycle Analysis Queries Risk Assessment/Evaluation funded by the CDC. Under this study, adverse events of special interest AESIswill be identified through ICD-10 diagnosis codes in CDW databases for Veterans who received COVID-19 vaccines. Prespecified potential AESIs will be identified from inpatient and emergency visits for most outcomes and a small number of pre-specified outcomes will also be identified from outpatient visits. The potential associations between vaccine administration and pre-specified adverse events will be evaluated in near real-time employing a technique called rapid cycle analysis RCA. Specifically, a Poisson-based maximized sequential probability test MaxSPRT will be employed. Other approaches may also be adopted in order to monitor the safety of COVID-19 vaccines in near real-time e.g. Bayesian, vaccinated vs unvaccinated matched on date of vaccination, etc. SafeRx Post-Market Medical Product Surveillance funded by the FDA. The purpose of this study was to enhance drug safetly knowledge and expand and develop better tools and techniques for assessing drug safety through information sharing and the exploitantion of VA and FDA synergies in a variety of areas of scientific expertise. The goals of collaboration were to expore ways to - Further enhance information sharing efforts through more efficient and robust inter-agency activities - Promote efficient utilization of tools and expertise for product risk identification, validation, and analysis - Build infrastructure and processes that meet the common needs for evaluating drug safety. These studies were conducted by Dr. Cunningham Francesca at Edward Hines, Jr. VA Hospital.