Feature Channels: Public Health

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To get a clearer picture of people’s mobility in the U.S. during the lockdown period, Notre Dame researchers gathered and analyzed all U.S. coronavirus-related state and local orders and compared them with geolocation data collected across 40 million cellular devices that have opted-in to location sharing services.

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Rutgers study finds majority of college students of color show symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder after watching social media videos of unarmed Black men being killed by police.

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An American Thoracic Society-led international task force has released a guidance document to help guide clinicians on restoring elective in-person pulmonary and sleep services as COVID-19 incidence decreases in their communities. The new guidance, published online in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society, is titled “Restoring Pulmonary and Sleep Services as the COVID-19 Pandemic Lessens.”

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A prominent Australian pharmacologist has called for a new approach to treating COVID-19 as hopes fade of finding an effective vaccine or antiviral before the end of the year.

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A team of researchers, including the University of Adelaide, has found most dietary recommendations provided by national governments are incompatible with global health and environmental targets such as the Paris Climate Agreement, and are in need of reform.

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A systematic review and meta-analysis of published studies from three continents shows overall mortality of COVID-19 patients in intensive care units (ICUs) has fallen from almost 60% at the end of March to 42% at the end of May — a relative decrease of one third.

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A new Cleveland Clinic study has identified genetic factors that may influence susceptibility to COVID-19. Published today in BMC Medicine, the study findings could guide personalized treatment for COVID-19.

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At the height of the coronavirus shutdown in the spring, travel to more than 150,000 points of interest throughout New Jersey, including retail, health care, food stores and other essential and non-essential establishments decreased up to 80 percent compared to the first week of March when the state was still opened, according to a Rutgers report.

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Modeling from the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis shows how social distancing could have better been implemented. The key? Longer periods of distancing would have helped — but only to a point. More needed to be done.

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Deaths from COVID-19 will have a ripple effect causing impacts on the mental health and health of surviving family members. But the extent of that impact has been hard to assess until now. Every death from COVID-19 will impact approximately nine surviving family members, according to a study.

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People who have or had COVID-19 symptoms are more likely to develop general psychiatric disorders and are lonelier, with women and young people more at risk, says a just-published study co-authored at Cambridge Judge Business School.

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A Virginia Tech chemical engineering professor has developed a surface coating that, when painted on common objects, inactivates SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

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In March of 2020, Mass General Brigham implemented a new policy: everyone working at the hospitals would be required to wear a surgical mask.

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The fear that people developed at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak has given way to anger over the course of the pandemic, a study of global sentiments led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has found.

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Depressed mood or anxiety exhibited in COVID-19 patients may possibly be a sign the virus affects the central nervous system, according to an international study led by a University of Cincinnati College of Medicine researcher.

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A common drug, already approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), may also be a powerful tool in fighting COVID-19, according to research published this week in Antiviral Research.

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Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of Americans have had to delay recommended but elective orthopedic surgical procedures, such as joint replacement surgery or knee arthroscopy. Now an expert panel has issued recommendations to guide safe resumption of elective orthopedic surgery. The guidelines appear in the July 15, 2020 issue of The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery, published in the Lippincott portfolio in partnership with Wolters Kluwer.

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Vysnova Partners Inc., in association with Wake Forest Baptist Health and other premier health systems and corporations, has received an over $54 million, two-year contract from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to coordinate research on the COVID-19 public health emergency in the United States.

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As the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the United States, governments at the state and local levels issued emergency declarations and shut down schools. With no treatment and no vaccine, this was seen as the best way to stop the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Researchers from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine have conducted one of the first studies to measure the efficacy of social distancing in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. They found that states that were slow to implement such orders saw higher COVID-19 death rates.

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The Biostatistics Center (BSC) at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health (GW Milken Institute SPH) recently launched three projects to design, conduct, analyze and report on COVID-19 studies. The results from these three studies ultimately could help pave the way toward better prevention and treatment for the deadly disease, which so far has affected more than 3 million people in the United States.

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The Aetna Foundation, together with the American Public Health Association and the National Association of Counties, today announced the organizations selected to receive a grant as part of the Healthiest Cities & Counties Challenge to support communities that are changing the way they work together across sectors to reduce disparities in chronic disease outcomes.

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UCLA faculty - including Dr. David Eisenman, professor-in-residence of the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health - contributed to a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reviews and grades the evidence underpinning public health emergency preparedness and response (PHEPR) practices generated since the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

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When Maurice Turner, MD, was a young boy, his grandmother would tuck him and his two older brothers into bed. Then she'd whisper into their ears, "I want you to become a doctor." Turner fulfilled his grandmother's dream a month ago, receiving his medical degree. Today he is one of the 80 first-year residents at Cedars-Sinai and facing vastly greater challenges than previous classes of residents. Downloadable video is available.

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Smoking cessation initiatives notwithstanding, along with provocative public health campaigns and clinical guidance, quitting tobacco has remained elusive for many smokers. The American Thoracic Society’s new clinical practice guideline on treatment for tobacco dependence in adults addresses how clinicians may deal with patients’ reluctance to quit, one of a number of issues not previously assessed in the older guidelines.

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Most patients hospitalized with COVID-19 (coronavirus) pneumonia experienced improvement after receiving a Food and Drug Administration-approved drug normally given for rheumatoid arthritis, according to an observational study at Cedars-Sinai. Outcomes for patients who received the drug, tocilizumab, included reduced inflammation, oxygen requirements, blood pressure support and risk of death, compared with published reports of illness and death associated with severely ill COVID-19 patients.

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Cambridge researchers have shown how rapid genome sequencing of virus samples and enhanced testing of hospital staff can help to identify clusters of healthcare-associated COVID-19 infections.

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Physicians are studying whether vadadustat, an investigational therapy, could protect the lungs of COVID-19 patients by triggering the body’s protective response to low oxygen levels in a randomized Phase II clinical trial at UTHealth.

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A new analysis finds more than one million Americans have been swept up in the tidal wave of grief resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Research published today has found that Australians strongly believe paramedics deserve a work environment free from the threat of physical harm, but when it comes to the risk of infectious disease, it's complicated.

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Sharon Tapp, who worked as a nurse case manager at Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington, D.C., started experiencing sudden body weakness, chest pain, a high temperature and headache on March 18. Concerned, she went to her local urgent care center to find out what was wrong. They told her that these symptoms were flu-like, tested her for the coronavirus and told her to quarantine for 14 days. After five days and no difference in the presentation of her symptoms, the urgent care team contacted Sharon, letting her know that she tested positive for coronavirus and recommending that she go to the emergency department. Sharon’s family took her to Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Suburban Hospital. Because her condition worsened while at Suburban, she was transferred to The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore within 10 days of being admitted to Suburban Hospital.

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In a retrospective study, investigators from New York University Langone Health found that the quantity of SARS-CoV-2 (viral load) collected from patients in the emergency department is significantly higher in patients with fewer or milder symptoms who did not require hospitalization--the opposite of what might be expected.

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A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has found that mice infected with Chikungunya virus get less sick and are less likely to transmit the virus to mosquitoes if they have healthy gut microbiomes.

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The CDI will work with Merck to identify candidate treatments for the still-spreading pandemic.

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Researchers will use big data analytics techniques to develop computational models to predict the spread of COVID-19. They will utilize forward simulation from a given patient and the propagation of the infection into the community; and backward simulation tracing a number of verified infections to a possible patient “zero.” The project also will provide quick and automatic contact tracing and leverages the researchers’ prior experience in modeling Ebola spread.

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Keck Medicine of USC physicians are enrolling patients as part of an international clinical trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of an antiviral drug, DAS181, as a possible treatment for hospitalized patients with severe COVID-19.

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Stay-at-home orders during the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an increased need for blood and platelets. Rutgers Cancer Institute expert shares why right now is an important time to donate blood to ensure a sufficient blood supply for patients in need.

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Antibodies derived from llamas have been shown to neutralise the SARS-CoV-2 virus in lab tests, UK researchers announced today.

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The introduction of standardised packaging for cigarettes in the UK, combined with stricter taxation measures on cheaper cigarettes, has led to a significant fall in sales for cigarettes, according to new analysis from researchers at the University of Bath.

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The current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has a likely connection to bats, and the next viral outbreak probably will too, unless scientists can quickly learn more about the thousands of viruses carried by one of the most diverse mammals on the planet.

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As the number of young adults infected with the coronavirus surges throughout the nation, a new study by researchers at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals indicates that youth may not shield people from serious disease.

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Specialized mental health units (MHUs) may be critical to managing the high rates of serious mental illness in incarcerated populations. But research data on unit characteristics, services provided, and outcomes achieved by MHUs in correctional facilities are scarce, according to a report in the July/August issue of Harvard Review of Psychiatry. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.

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A team led by scientists at Scripps Research has discovered a common molecular feature found in many of the human antibodies that neutralize SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

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Only 1.9% of uninfected household contacts who took a single dose of baloxavir marboxil came down with the flu.

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A new study shows that middle-aged people living in the U.S. today have worse health than their English counterparts – and that the difference in health between rich and poor is much larger on the American side of the Atlantic.