COVID-19 Reproduction Numbers and Long COVID Prevalences in California State Prisons.

Prisons have been hotspots for COVID-19 and likely an important driver of racial disparity in disease burden. From the first COVID-19 case detected through March 25, 2022, 66,684 of 196,652 residents of California's state prison system were infected, most of them in two large winter waves of outbreaks that reached all 35 of the state prisons. We used individual-level data on disease timing and nightly room assignments in these prisons to reconstruct locations and pathways of transmission statistically, and from that estimated reproduction numbers, locations of unobserved infection events, and the subsequent magnitude and distribution of long COVID prevalence.

Upstream Oil and Gas Production and Community COVID-19 Case and Mortality Rates in California, USA.

Higher concentrations of ambient air pollutants, including PM and NO, and other pollutants have been found near active oil and gas wells and may be associated with adverse COVID-19 outcomes. We assessed whether residential exposure to nearby oil and gas production was associated with higher rates of the respiratory infection COVID-19 and related mortality using a population-based ecological study in California. Using gridded population estimates, we estimated area-level exposure to annual average oil and gas production volume from active wells within 1 kilometer (km) of populated areas within census block groups from 2018 to 2020.

Indirect vaccine effectiveness in an outbreak of Alpha B.1.1.7 variant in a California state Prison, May 2021.

Incarcerated populations experienced high rates of SARS-CoV-2 infection and death during early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. To evaluate vaccine effectiveness in the carceral context, we investigated the first outbreak of COVID-19 in a California state prison following widespread rollout of vaccines to residents in early 2021. We identified a cohort of 733 state prison residents presumed to be exposed between May 14 and June 22, 2021.

Case fatality risk of diarrhoeal pathogens: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Estimates of the relative contribution of different pathogens to all-cause diarrhoea mortality are needed to inform global diarrhoea burden models and prioritize interventions. We aimed to investigate and estimate heterogeneity in the case fatality risk (CFR) of different diarrhoeal pathogens.

Methods: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies that reported cases and deaths for 15 enteric pathogens published between 1990 and 2019.

Understanding how social norms affect modern contraceptive use.

Background: An aim of this study is to introduce a practitioner-friendly behavior model. Few theories of health behavior explicitly take the effect of social norms on behavior into account. Generally, theories that do take social norms into account assume that the effect of social norms on behavior operates through motivation.