Public health and healthcare

START trial (NCT00867048)

START (NCT00867048), the INSIGHT Strategic Timing of AntiRetroviral Treatment trial, randomized 4,685 HIV-positive adults with CD4 >500 cells/mm3 to immediate versus deferred ART; immediate treatment cut serious illness or death by 57% (HR 0.43).

START-RUN1 trial

START-RUN1 (NCT06873685) is an Italian, non-controlled interventional trial by Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Campus Bio-Medico testing robotic rehabilitation, nutrition, and quality of life after surgery for localized soft tissue sarcoma; 120 patients, recruiting since March 2025.

Oct 20, 2026

STARTNEWERA-OM trial

STARTNEWERA-OM (NCT06207292), also START-NEW-ERA #OLIGO, is a single-arm Italian phase II trial of SABR for synchronous/metachronous and oligo-progressive NSCLC; 80 patients, median new systemic therapy-free survival 34 months.

State Hospitals

State hospitals are hospitals controlled by state government agencies (MeSH: Hospitals, State). In the US the term chiefly means state psychiatric hospitals, down to 36,150 beds in 2023; elsewhere it covers public acute-care hospitals compared with private providers.

State Medicine

State medicine, also called socialized medicine, is medical care regulated, financed, and controlled by a national government, with the British National Health Service as its principal example.

STATICBREAST study

STATICBREAST (NCT04515888) is a completed French observational study by Institut du Cancer de Montpellier assessing the prevalence of pelvic static (pelvic floor) disorders and quality of life in women with localized breast cancer on adjuvant hormone therapy, using PFDI-20 and PFIQ-7 questionnaires.

Statistics of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States

Statistics of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States: U.S. excess mortality, hospitalization, and death counts. Nearly 1.7 million excess deaths March 2020-2022; highest per capita excess mortality (283 per 100,000, 2020-2021) among wealthy OECD peers; about 16% of early COVID deaths uncounted.

STEM trial

STEM trial (Supportive Text vs Email Messaging trial, NCT04638231): randomized noninferiority pilot trial in Edmonton, Canada comparing daily CBT-based supportive text messages versus email for major depressive disorder; found no significant difference between channels (N=66).

Steno-2 trial

Steno-2 trial: Danish randomized trial (1993) of intensified versus conventional multifactorial treatment in 160 patients with type 2 diabetes and microalbuminuria; 53% lower cardiovascular risk, 7.9 years longer median survival.

STEP trial (NCT03137368)

STEP (NCT03137368) is a Phase 3 Chinese trial comparing exemestane plus ovarian function suppression/ablation versus tamoxifen plus ovarian suppression in premenopausal ER-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer with CYP2D6*10 T/T genotype; 300 planned participants, primary endpoint disease-free survival.

Stephanie Haridopolos

Stephanie Haridopolos is an American family medicine physician and public health official who serves as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health–Policy and Director of National Health Communications.

Stephen W. Lagakos

Stephen W. Lagakos was an American biostatistician and former chair of Harvard's biostatistics department whose methods and trial designs shaped AIDS research until his death in 2009.

Stepped care model

The stepped care model is a healthcare approach that offers patients the least intensive effective treatment first, escalating only if monitoring shows it is insufficient.

Stepped wedge design

The stepped wedge design is a cluster randomized trial design in which clusters switch from control to intervention at staggered randomized times until all have crossed over.

Stepped-wedge trial

A stepped-wedge trial is a cluster-randomized design where all clusters start in control and cross over to the intervention group by group at randomized times called steps.

STEPS trial (NCT06668389)

The STEPS trial (NCT06668389) is a University of Hong Kong Phase 4 trial testing whether dapagliflozin improves cardiopulmonary function in adults with repaired tetralogy of Fallot.

STICH trial

STICH (Surgical Treatment for Ischemic Heart Failure), NHLBI-sponsored randomized trial of 2,112 patients testing CABG plus medical therapy versus medical therapy alone in ischemic left ventricular dysfunction; null at 5 years, survival benefit at 10 years (STICHES).

Stony Brook University Hospital

Stony Brook University Hospital (SBUH), also called Stony Brook Medicine's flagship, is a 628-bed academic medical center in Stony Brook, NY, opened February 18, 1980; Long Island's only tertiary care center and Level 1 Trauma Center, ranked No. 10 in New York State.

STOP-COVID study

STOP-COVID (Study of the Treatment and Outcomes in Critically Ill Patients With COVID-19), NCT04343898, a US multicenter ICU cohort of 5,154 lab-confirmed COVID-19 adults; distinct from the tofacitinib and fluvoxamine trials of the same name.

Strategic National Stockpile

Strategic National Stockpile (SNS), also National Pharmaceutical Stockpile: HHS/ASPR-managed multibillion-dollar U.S. inventory of drugs, vaccines, PPE, and ventilators for public health emergencies, created 1999, deployable within 12 hours.

STROBE statement

The STROBE statement (STrengthening the Reporting of OBservational studies in Epidemiology) is a 22-item checklist for reporting cohort, case-control, and cross-sectional studies, first published in 2007.

Subacute Care

Subacute care, also called post-acute care, is skilled medical and nursing care for patients past the acute illness phase but needing more than long-term care, typically one to two therapy hours daily in skilled nursing facilities.

Subbian Panayampalli

Subbian Panayampalli, also known as Panayampalli Subbian Satheshkumar, is a CDC scientist who leads poxvirus and rabies diagnostics research and received a 2019 PECASE award.

Subgroup analysis

Subgroup analysis is a statistical method that estimates treatment effects separately within patient subsets defined by baseline characteristics, testing whether the effect differs across groups.

Suburban Population

Suburban population: inhabitants of peripheral or adjacent areas of a city or town (MeSH D013383, introduced 1980). No official US Census suburban category; 43% of Americans self-identify as suburban; suburban counties grew faster than urban since 2000.