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We examined the impact of a state gun law environment on suicides overall and within demographic subgroups. We linked 211,766 firearm suicides and 204,625 nonfirearm suicides in the 50 states of the United States for 2005–2015 to the population in each state, year, race/ethnicity, sex, and age, as well as to an index of state-level gun control. Difference-in-differences, zero-inflated, negative-binomial models were used to evaluate the impact of strengthening gun control on firearm and nonfirearm suicides. We subsequently stratified by sex and tested for interactions with race/ethnicity and age. We found 25 states strengthened gun control by an average of 6 points. Such an increase may result in a 3.3% (incidence rate ratio = 0.967; 95% confidence interval: 0.938, 0.996) decrease in firearm suicides. Although no impact on nonfirearm suicides was found overall, interaction models showed an increase in nonfirearm suicides among black men, white women, black women, and older individuals. Strengthening gun control may reduce firearm suicides overall but may increase nonfirearm suicides in some populations. The results indicate stricter gun laws should be advocated for and that additional policies are needed for populations who shifted to nonfirearm suicides.

Aims: Using German claims, the authors replicated the CHAARTED trial in metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer. Methods: The authors identified metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer patients replicating the inclusion/exclusion criteria of CHAARTED. Patients treated with docetaxel in combination with androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) at first line (docetaxel group) were compared with patients treated with ADT monotherapy (ADT mono group). After propensity score matching, overall survival was compared between the matched cohorts. Results: The authors included 441 patients. After propensity score matching, two equally sized matched cohorts of 74 patients each were compared in terms of overall survival. The hazard ratio (HR) was 0.71 (95% CI: 0.42–1.19), comparable to the HR in CHAARTED (HR: 0.72; 95% CI: 0.59–0.89). Conclusions: Using early comparative evidence from real-world data for regulatory and health technology assessment decisions is useful.

Background: Marijuana use carries risks for adolescents' well-being, making it essential to evaluate effects of recent marijuana policies. Objectives: This study sought to delineate associations between state-level shifts in decriminalization and medical marijuana laws (MML) and adolescent marijuana use. Methods: Using data on 861,082 adolescents (14 to 18+ years; 51% female) drawn from 1999 to 2015 state Youth Risk Behavior Surveys (YRBS), difference-indifferences models assessed how decriminalization and MML policy enactment were associated with adolescent marijuana use, controlling for tobacco and alcohol policy shifts, adolescent characteristics, and state and year trends. Results: MML enactment was associated with small significant reductions (OR = 0.911, 95% CI [0.850, 0.975]) of 1.1 percentage points in current marijuana use, with larger significant declines for male, Black, and Hispanic (2.7-3.9 percentage points) adolescents. Effects of MML increased significantly with each year of exposure (OR = 0.980, 95% CI [0.968, 0.992]). In contrast, decriminalization was not associated with significant shifts in use for the sample as a whole, but predicted significant declines in marijuana use among 14-year olds and those of Hispanic and other ancestry (1.7-4.4 percentage points), and significant increases among white adolescents (1.6 percentage points). Neither policy was significantly associated with heavy marijuana use or the frequency of use, suggesting that heavy users may be impervious to such policy signals. Conclusion: As the first study to concurrently assess unique effects of multiple marijuana policies, results assuage concerns over potential detrimental effects of more liberal marijuana policies on youth use.