Longitudinal evidence on treatment discontinuation, adherence, and loss of blood pressure control in four middle-income countries

Nicole Mauer, Pascal Geldsetzer, Jennifer Manne-Goehler, Justine I. Davies, Andrew C. Stokes, Margaret McConnell, Mohammed K. Ali, Volker Winkler, Nikkil Sudharsanan

Science Translational Medicine

• Main question: How do adults with hypertension in middle-income countries move through care stages over time?

• Access the full paper here.

Systolic blood pressure and 6-year mortality in South Africa: a country-wide, population-based cohort study

Alpha Oumar Diallo, Mohammed K. Ali, Pascal Geldsetzer, Emily W. Gower, Trasias Mukama, Ryan G. Wagner, Justine Davies, Maarten J. Bijlsma, Nikkil Sudharsanan

The Lancet Healthy Longevity

• Main question: Which systolic blood pressure target should be used for hypertension care in South Africa?

Understanding low mobilization for non-communicable diseases among people living with NCDs: A qualitative study on hypertension in urban South India

Carolin Kroeger, Shuba Kumar, Rani Mohanraj, Sripriya Kundem, Kate Bärnighausen, Nikkil Sudharsanan

Social Science & Medicine

• Main question: Given how widespread non-communicable diseases have become in urban India, why isn't there more individual and community mobilization to try and get governments to take action against NCDs?

The effect of home-based hypertension screening on blood pressure change over time in South Africa

Nikkil Sudharsanan*, Simiao Chen*, Michael Garber, Till Bärnighausen, Pascal Geldsetzer (*Joint first authors)

Health Affairs

• Main question: What is the effect of home-based hypertension screening (e.g. going to people's homes, measuring their blood pressure, and informing and referring those with high blood pressure to a doctor) on blood pressure over time?

Impact of community based screening for hypertension on blood pressure after two years: regression discontinuity analysis in a national cohort of older adults in China

Simiao Chen*, Nikkil Sudharsanan*, Feng Huang, Yuanli Liu, Pascal Geldsetzer, Till Bärnighausen (*Joint first authors)

BMJ

• Main question: What is the effect of home-based hypertension screening (e.g. going to people's homes, measuring their blood pressure, and informing and referring those with high blood pressure to a doctor) on blood pressure over time?

Hypertension knowledge and treatment initiation, adherence, and discontinuation among adults in Chennai, India: a cross-sectional study

Nikkil Sudharsanan, Mohammed K. Ali, Margaret McConnell

BMJ Open

• Main question: What proportion of adults with diagnosed hypertension consistently take their medicines and what are some of the reasons why individuals may discontinue treatment?

Variation in the proportion of adults in need of blood pressure-lowering medications by hypertension care guideline in low- and middle-income countries: a cross-sectional study of 1,037,215 individuals from 50 nationally representative surveys

Nikkil Sudharsanan, co-authors, Pascal Geldsetzer (click the paper for full author list).

Circulation

• Main question: Does it matter which hypertension care guideline is used to scale up hypertension care throughout countries and if so, which population groups are disproportionately targeted by some guidelines but not others?

Effects of Side-Effect Risk Framing Strategies on COVID-19 Vaccine Intentions: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Nikkil Sudharsanan, Caterina Favaretti, Violetta Hachaturyan, Till Bärnighausen, Alain Vandormael

Forthcoming in eLife

• Protocol and pre-analysis plan paper

• Main question: Does the way that COVID-19 vaccine side effects are framed and presented to individuals affect their perceptions of how safe the vaccine is and their willingness to be vaccinated?

Predicting missed health care visits during the COVID-19 pandemic using machine learning methods: Evidence from 55,500 individuals from 28 European Countries

Anna Reuter, Šime Smolić, Till Bärnighausen, Nikkil Sudharsanan

Preprint currently under review

• Main question: Can we use basic patient information to predict with patients are most likely to miss essential care due to the COVID-19 pandemic? Our aim is to develop models that can be used in real-world settings by health administrators and health insurance providers to prioritize limited resources towards those patients at the highest risk of missing care.

The Contribution of the Age Distribution of Cases to COVID-19 Case Fatality Across Countries: A 9-Country Demographic Study

Nikkil Sudharsanan, Oliver Didzun, Till Bärnighausen, Pascal Geldsetzer

Annals of Internal Medicine

• Main question: How much of the large variation in COVID-19 case-fatality rates across countries is due to differences in how old their populations are?

Sex differences in the mortality rate for coronavirus disease 2019 compared to other causes of death

Pascal Geldsetzer, Trasias Mukama, Nadine Jawad, Tim Riffe, Angela Rogers, Nikkil Sudharsanan

Forthcoming in European Journal of Epidemiology

• Main question: Does the higher COVID-19 death rate among men compared to women just reflect men's general health disadvantage or is the COVID-19 sex difference uniquely large?

The Insurance Cascade Framework to Diagnose Bottlenecks and Improve the Effectiveness of Health Insurance Programs: An Application to India

Sebastian Bauhoff and Nikkil Sudharsanan

Center for Global Development Working Paper

• Commentary piece on our Insurance Cascade in Economic & Political Weekly

• Main idea: We outline a "cascade" framework for figuring out why generous health insurance programs don't actually lead to lower health costs for eligible individuals and propose ways to improve insurance effectiveness and collect better data.

More to come in this area!