JMIR Research Protocols

Neck pain poses a significant and growing public health challenge, with rising prevalence among younger populations and negative impacts on both quality of life and socioeconomic costs. Clinical manifestations are diverse, including restricted movement, muscle spasms, headaches, and upper limb numbness. Although drug therapy is widely used, its long-term use is limited by adverse effects. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) exercises offer a promising alternative, but high-quality evidence directly comparing their efficacy and safety to oral medications is currently lacking.

Negative symptoms (NS) such as anhedonia (reduced pleasure), avolition (reduced motivation), asociality (social withdrawal), blunted affect (diminished emotional expression), and alogia (poverty of speech) are associated with poor functional outcomes in psychiatric and neurological disorders and are an unmet treatment need. Current medication primarily targets positive or affective symptoms, leaving NS neurobiology unaddressed. A critical research gap exists in understanding whether these symptoms share a common biological architecture across different diagnoses or whether they emerge from distinct pathological pathways.

Sexual and gender minority (SGM) adolescents who can benefit from HIV testing due to their sexual behavior (eg, condomless anal or vaginal sex) report suboptimal HIV testing rates. However, interventions designed to increase HIV testing rates among SGM adolescents are lacking, and even when effective interventions exist, reaching SGM adolescents outside research settings can be a challenge. This hybrid type 1 study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of Sharing Health Education Resources (SHER), a multimedia messaging service (MMS) intervention in increasing adolescent HIV testing rates and to address implementation challenges of reaching and engaging SGM adolescents in digital interventions in real-world settings.

Kenyan women experience a high burden from breast and cervical cancers. Screening can result in earlier diagnosis, but its uptake is extremely low. The proportion of women up to date with screenings per guidelines is low, implying that interactions between providers and women are reduced.

In 2022, nearly 60,000 prostate cancer (CaP) cases were reported among Black men, who face an estimated lifetime risk of approximately 1 in 6, compared with 1 in 8 among White men. The disproportionate burden of CaP in Black men has been attributed to a combination of health-system factors, variations in care processes, and individual- or patient-level determinants. Addressing these multilevel contributors will require innovative strategies to advance prostate health equity.

The transition from clinical practice to research represents a significant yet under-studied career pivot for health care professionals. Despite the growing emphasis on research integration in health care careers and increasing numbers of clinicians pursuing advanced research degrees, the transition experience remains poorly understood. This protocol outlines a scoping review aimed at examining the nuanced experiences of clinicians moving between full-time clinical practice and research roles, exploring the challenges, adjustments, and impacts on professional identity, decision-making, and career trajectories.

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is an intermediate state between normal cognitive aging and dementia, with a global geriatric prevalence of 23.7%. Multisensory stimulation (MSS) has emerged as a promising approach to improve cognitive impairment. However, relevant research is heterogeneous, and the evidence has not yet been systematically synthesized.

A series of studies suggests that immersive virtual reality (IVR) can enhance perspective-taking and behavioral change by simulating real-world scenarios experienced from different points of view. IVR has emerged as a promising tool for the prevention of gender-based violence, including sexual harassment. However, evidence on the effectiveness of first-person embodiment–based interventions in fostering empathy and modifying gender-related attitudes remains limited.

Eligibility criteria are essential to clinical trial design, guiding recruitment, and ensuring patient safety and scientific rigor. However, criteria are often lengthy, heterogeneous, and inconsistently formatted, which hinders large-scale interpretation and slows patient-trial matching. Manual review is time-consuming and error-prone. Advances in natural language processing and large language models (LLMs) offer opportunities to standardize and analyze eligibility text at scale.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) screening participation in Canada is lower than the national target, and interventions designed to increase screening participation are generally expensive and have limited impact. Social media can be used as an innovative strategy to increase participation in cancer screening, particularly Facebook (FB), as it is the most popular social media platform for the population eligible for CRC screening.

Neighborhood revitalization is a process through which land use rezoning and capital investment can spur new resources, such as access to healthful food and amenities for physical activity. While revitalization efforts may promote cardiovascular health, their benefits may not be distributed equally across sociodemographic groups.

Artificial intelligence (AI), including large language models (LLMs), is increasingly integrated into systematic review (SR) workflows. AI tools may accelerate searching, screening, data extraction, and reporting, but their effects on methodological quality, reporting completeness, transparency, and reproducibility remain uncertain. Existing evaluations largely examine isolated tasks, and inconsistent disclosure of AI use limits reproducibility and oversight.