Assessment of Influenza Testing Distribution in the United States for the 2021-2022, 2022-2023, and 2023-2024 Influenza Seasons: Online Cross-Sectional Study.

Background: Effective surveillance of seasonal influenza is crucial to understanding disease burden and impact. Traditional surveillance accounts for those who interact with the health care system, including those who are testing for diseases like influenza. However, care seeking and testing are not as common with influenza and can lead to bias.

Evaluating a Large Language Model in Translating Patient Instructions to Spanish Using a Standardized Framework.

Importance: Patients and caregivers who use languages other than English in the US encounter barriers to accessing language-concordant written instructions after clinical visits. Large language models (LLMs), such as OpenAI's GPT-4o, may improve access to translated patient materials; however, rigorous evaluation is needed to ensure clinical standards are met.

Objective: To determine whether GPT-4o can generate high-quality Spanish translations of personalized patient instructions comparable to those performed by professional human translators.

Harnessing the power of artificial intelligence for disease-surveillance purposes.

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the development of AI-driven tools to improve public health surveillance and outbreak management. While AI programs have shown promise in disease surveillance, they also present issues such as data privacy, prejudice, and human-AI interactions. This sixth session of the of the WHO Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence Innovation Forum examines the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in public health by collecting the experience of key global health organizations, such the Boston Children's Hospital, the Global South AI for Pandemic & Epidemic Preparedness & Response (AI4PEP) network, Medicines Sans Frontières (MSF), and the University of Sydney.

Parental Factors Associated With Measles-Mumps-Rubella Vaccination in US Children Younger Than 5 Years.

To determine the association between parental characteristics and MMR (measles-mumps- rubella) vaccination status of children in the United States. We conducted a cross-sectional study from July 2023 to April 2024 using a digital health survey via OutbreaksNearMe, weighted to target national population characteristics. We analyzed the responses of 19 892 parents of children younger than 5 years to examine the association between self-reported parental characteristics (i.

Adherence to non-pharmaceutical interventions following COVID-19 vaccination: a federated cohort study.

In pandemic mitigation, strategies such as social distancing and mask-wearing are vital to prevent disease resurgence. Yet, monitoring adherence is challenging, as individuals might be reluctant to share behavioral data with public health authorities. To address this challenge and demonstrate a framework for conducting observational research with sensitive data in a privacy-conscious manner, we employ a privacy-centric epidemiological study design: the federated cohort.

Examining the Role of Physician Characteristics in Web-Based Verified Primary Care Physician Reviews: Observational Study.

Background: Doctor review websites have become increasingly popular as a source of information for patients looking to select a primary care provider. Zocdoc is one such platform that allows patients to not only rate and review their experiences with doctors but also directly schedule appointments. This study examines how several physician characteristics including gender, age, race, languages spoken in a physician's office, education, and facial attractiveness impact the average numerical rating of primary care doctors on Zocdoc.

Spatial Accessibility and Uptake of Pediatric COVID-19 Vaccinations by Social Vulnerability.

Background And Objectives: Geographic accessibility predicts pediatric preventive care utilization, including vaccine uptake. However, spatial inequities in the pediatric coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination rollout remain underexplored. We assessed the spatial accessibility of vaccination sites and analyzed predictors of vaccine uptake.

Vaccine effectiveness against emerging COVID-19 variants using digital health data.

Background: Participatory surveillance of self-reported symptoms and vaccination status can be used to supplement traditional public health surveillance and provide insights into vaccine effectiveness and changes in the symptoms produced by an infectious disease. The University of Maryland COVID Trends and Impact Survey provides an example of participatory surveillance that leveraged Facebook's active user base to provide self-reported symptom and vaccination data in near real-time.

Methods: Here, we develop a methodology for identifying changes in vaccine effectiveness and COVID-19 symptomatology using the University of Maryland COVID Trends and Impact Survey data from three middle-income countries (Guatemala, Mexico, and South Africa).

Decreased Seasonal Influenza Rates Detected in a Crowdsourced Influenza-Like Illness Surveillance System During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Prospective Cohort Study.

Background: Seasonal respiratory viruses had lower incidence during their 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 seasons, which overlapped with the COVID-19 pandemic. The widespread implementation of precautionary measures to prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2 has been seen to also mitigate transmission of seasonal influenza. The COVID-19 pandemic also led to changes in care seeking and access.

Association of vaccination, international travel, public health and social measures with lineage dynamics of SARS-CoV-2.

Continually emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern that can evade immune defenses are driving recurrent epidemic waves of COVID-19 globally. However, the impact of measures to contain the virus and their effect on lineage diversity dynamics are poorly understood. Here, we jointly analyzed international travel, public health and social measures (PHSM), COVID-19 vaccine rollout, SARS-CoV-2 lineage diversity, and the case growth rate (GR) from March 2020 to September 2022 across 63 countries.

Parental compliance and reasons for COVID-19 Vaccination among American children.

COVID-19 vaccination rates among children have stalled, while new coronavirus strains continue to emerge. To improve child vaccination rates, policymakers must better understand parental preferences and reasons for COVID-19 vaccination among their children. Cross-sectional surveys were administered online to 30,174 US parents with at least one child of COVID-19 vaccine eligible age (5-17 years) between January 1 and May 9, 2022.

Longitudinal Participatory Surveillance Highlights Association Between Mask-Wearing and Lower COVID-19 Risk - United States, 2020.

What Is Already Known About This Topic?: Numerous ecological and laboratory studies suggest face masks are an effective non-pharmaceutical intervention for reducing the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), but cannot otherwise assess individual-level effects.

What Is Added By This Report?: Using a prospective cohort of individuals enrolled in a participatory, syndromic surveillance tool prior to the first case of COVID-19 in the United States, we present a novel longitudinal assessment of the effectiveness of face masks.

What Are The Public Health Implications For Public Health Practice?: Our analysis demonstrates an association between self-reported mask-wearing behavior and lower individual risk of syndromic COVID-19-like illness while adjusting for confounders at the individual level.

Identifying COVID-19 Vaccine Deserts and Ways to Reduce Them: A Digital Tool to Support Public Health Decision-Making.

A private-academic partnership built the Vaccine Equity Planner (VEP) to help decision-makers improve geographic access to COVID-19 vaccinations across the United States by identifying vaccine deserts and facilities that could fill those deserts. The VEP presented complex, updated data in an intuitive form during a rapidly changing pandemic situation. The persistence of vaccine deserts in every state as COVID-19 booster recommendations develop suggests that vaccine delivery can be improved.

Persistent drop in confidence following US recommended pause of Ad26.COV2.S vaccine administration.

The Janssen COVID-19 vaccine came to market in February 2021 as the first non-mRNA and first single-dose formula approved for use in the US. In April 2021, a temporary pause was recommended for the vaccine after the discovery of rare but serious post-vaccination side-effects. We fielded a large-scale nationally representative survey (n = 401,398) on individual confidence in each of the COVID-19 vaccine formulas available in the US before, during, and after this pause.

Spatial modeling of vaccine deserts as barriers to controlling SARS-CoV-2.

Background: COVID-19 vaccine distribution is at risk of further propagating the inequities of COVID-19, which in the United States (US) has disproportionately impacted the elderly, people of color, and the medically vulnerable. We sought to measure if the disparities seen in the geographic distribution of other COVID-19 healthcare resources were also present during the initial rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Methods: Using a comprehensive COVID-19 vaccine database (VaccineFinder), we built an empirically parameterized spatial model of access to essential resources that incorporated vaccine supply, time-willing-to-travel for vaccination, and previous vaccination across the US.

Estimated Travel Time and Spatial Access to Abortion Facilities in the US Before and After the Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Decision.

Importance: Abortion facility closures resulted in a substantial decrease in access to abortion care in the US.

Objectives: To investigate the changes in travel time to the nearest abortion facility after the Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization (referred to hereafter as Dobbs) US Supreme Court decision.

Design, Setting, And Participants: Repeated cross-sectional spatial analysis of travel time from each census tract in the contiguous US (n = 82 993) to the nearest abortion facility (n = 1134) listed in the Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health database.

Mask wearing in community settings reduces SARS-CoV-2 transmission.

The effectiveness of mask wearing at controlling severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission has been unclear. While masks are known to substantially reduce disease transmission in healthcare settings [D. K.

Use of At-Home COVID-19 Tests - United States, August 23, 2021-March 12, 2022.

COVID-19 testing provides information regarding exposure and transmission risks, guides preventative measures (e.g., if and when to start and end isolation and quarantine), identifies opportunities for appropriate treatments, and helps assess disease prevalence (1).

Assessment of geographic access to monoclonal antibodies in the United States.

Using spatial modeling techniques, we highlight disparities in access to monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) used to treat COVID-19 patients. Fifteen million individuals in the United States must travel over 30 min to access mAbs. Areas with lower COVID-19 vaccination rates have worse access to essential COVID-19 therapeutics.