Scale-Up of COVID-19 Testing Services in NYC, 2020-2021: Lessons Learned to Maximize Reach, Equity and Timeliness.

During infectious disease epidemics, accurate diagnostic testing is key to rapidly identify and treat cases, and mitigate transmission. When a novel pathogen is involved, building testing capacity and scaling testing services at the local level can present major challenges to healthcare systems, public health agencies, and laboratories. This mixed methods study examined lessons learned from the scale-up of SARS-CoV-2 testing services in New York City (NYC), as a core part of NYC's Test & Trace program.

Evaluation of the New York City COVID-19 case investigation and contact tracing program: a cascade of care analysis.

Background: New York City (NYC) was the first COVID-19 epicenter in the United States and home to one of the country's largest contact tracing programs, NYC Test & Trace (T2). Understanding points of attrition along the stages of program implementation and follow-up can inform contact tracing efforts for future epidemics or pandemics. The objective of this study was to evaluate the completeness and timeliness of T2 case and contact notification and monitoring using a "cascade of care" approach.

2021 Community Engagement Studio Virtual Training Summit: Increasing the Diversity of Stakeholders Engaged in Research.

Background: There are few methods that focus on engaging racial and ethnic minorities in research. The Meharry-Vanderbilt Community Engaged Research Core partnered with the University of Utah, the University of Michigan, and community/patient partners to convene a virtual summit to share the Community Engagement Studio (CE Studio) model, a structured and widely-used approach that facilitates community engagement in research.

Objectives: The CE Studio Virtual Training Summit (Summit) goal was to prepare multi-stakeholder (e.

Analysis of Evusheld safety and efficacy in multiple sclerosis patients.

Background: In December 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued emergency use authorization for the combination monoclonal antibodies tixagevimab and cilgavimab (Evusheld - AstraZeneca) for COVID-19 pre-exposure prophylaxis.

Public perceptions of US for-profit, nonprofit, and public hospitals.

Nonprofit hospitals have been criticized for behaving like for-profit hospitals. One prominent defense of nonprofit hospitals is contract failure theory, which suggests that nonprofits are important in markets defined by information asymmetries. Unlike for-profits, nonprofit hospitals' inability to distribute profits may provide patients with an important assurance that they will not be exploited in the course of receiving care.