Explaining seasonality increases perceived effectiveness of influenza vaccination: An experimental study.

Background: Doubts regarding vaccine effectiveness may prompt people to decide against a seasonal influenza vaccination. While fact boxes show the effectiveness in terms of cases prevented, people often lack knowledge about important contextual factors, for example, why the vaccine formulation needs to be updated annually, the vaccine mechanism and relevance of the antigen-virus match. Adding such contextual information could improve effectiveness perceptions.

Study protocol of the planetary health action survey PACE: a serial cross-sectional survey to assess the readiness to act against climate change.

Introduction: Climate change is a paramount global health threat with multifaceted implications. Societal change is required to mitigate the negative effects of climate change, as well as help people adapt to the associated health risks. This requires situation-specific, large-scale data to help scientists and policymakers understand public perceptions and behaviours and identify the levers to increase public readiness to act against climate change and protect health.

A rapid return to normal: temporal gene expression patterns following cold exposure in the bumble bee Bombus impatiens.

Bumble bees are common in cooler climates and many species likely experience periodic exposure to very cold temperatures, but little is known about the temporal dynamics of cold response mechanisms following chill exposure, especially how persistent effects of cold exposure may facilitate tolerance of future events. To investigate molecular processes involved in the temporal response by bumble bees to acute cold exposure, we compared mRNA transcript abundance in Bombus impatiens workers exposed to 0°C for 75 min (inducing chill coma) and control bees maintained at a constant ambient temperature (28°C). We sequenced the 3' end of mRNA transcripts (TagSeq) to quantify gene expression in thoracic tissue of bees at several time points (0, 10, 30, 120 and 720 min) following cold exposure.

Communicating climate change and health to specific target groups.

Background: The German status report on climate change and health 2023 identifies numerous health risks that are caused or exacerbated by climate change. One recommendation arising from the report is to strengthen education, information, and communication in the field. This article aims to serve as a basis for this.

Heatwaves and their health risks: knowledge, risk perceptions and behaviours of the German population in summer 2022.

Heatwaves are becoming more common and impact health. We conducted a representative survey in June 2022 in Germany to determine people's knowledge and protective behaviours on heat days. In data from 953 respondents, we found that a large proportion informed themselves about upcoming heat days, but there are considerable gaps in knowledge.

Secondary data for global health digitalisation.

Substantial opportunities for global health intelligence and research arise from the combined and optimised use of secondary data within data ecosystems. Secondary data are information being used for purposes other than those intended when they were collected. These data can be gathered from sources on the verge of widespread use such as the internet, wearables, mobile phone apps, electronic health records, or genome sequencing.

Germany's fourth COVID-19 wave was mainly driven by the unvaccinated.

Background: While the majority of the German population was fully vaccinated at the time (about 65%), COVID-19 incidence started growing exponentially in October 2021 with about 41% of recorded new cases aged twelve or above being symptomatic breakthrough infections, presumably also contributing to the dynamics. So far, it remained elusive how significant this contribution was and whether targeted non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) may have stopped the amplification of the crisis.

Methods: We develop and introduce a contribution matrix approach based on the next-generation matrix of a population-structured compartmental infectious disease model to derive contributions of respective inter- and intragroup infection pathways of unvaccinated and vaccinated subpopulations to the effective reproduction number and new infections, considering empirical data of vaccine efficacies against infection and transmission.

Fact boxes that inform individual decisions may contribute to a more positive evaluation of COVID-19 vaccinations at the population level.

Objective: For an effective control of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic with vaccines, most people in a population need to be vaccinated. It is thus important to know how to inform the public with reference to individual preferences-while also acknowledging the societal preference to encourage vaccinations. According to the health care standard of informed decision-making, a comparison of the benefits and harms of (not) having the vaccination would be required to inform undecided and skeptical people.

How and why party position estimates from manifestos, expert, and party elite surveys diverge: A comparative analysis of the 'left-right' and the 'European integration' dimensions.

This paper examines the validity of three approaches to estimate party positions on the general left-right and EU dimensions. We newly introduce party elite data from the comprehensive IntUne survey and cross-validate it with existing expert survey and manifesto data. The general left-right estimates generated by elites and experts show a higher congruence than those derived from party manifestos; neither measure clearly materializes as more valid regarding EU positions.

Identifying content to improve risk assessment communications within the Risk Profile: Literature reviews and focus groups with expert and non-expert stakeholders.

Objective: To improve consumer decision making, the results of risk assessments on food, feed, consumer products or chemicals need to be communicated not only to experts but also to non-expert audiences. The present study draws on evidence from literature reviews and focus groups with diverse stakeholders to identify content to integrate into an existing risk assessment communication (Risk Profile).

Methods: A combination of rapid literature reviews and focus groups with experts (risk assessors (n = 15), risk managers (n = 8)), and non-experts (general public (n = 18)) were used to identify content and strategies for including information about risk assessment results in the "Risk Profile" from the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment.

The similarity-updating model of probability judgment and belief revision.

People often take nondiagnostic information into account when revising their beliefs. A probability judgment decreases due to nondiagnostic information represents the well-established "dilution effect" observed in many domains. Surprisingly, the opposite of the dilution effect called the "confirmation effect" has also been observed frequently.

[Risk communication in the containment of the COVID-19 pandemic: challenges and promising approaches].

Risk communication plays a central role in public health emergencies: it must enable informed decisions, promote protective or life-sustaining behaviour, and maintain trust in public institutions. In addition, uncertainties in knowledge must be named transparently; irrational fears and rumours must be refuted. Success factors for risk communication are the participation of citizens as well as the continuous recording of risk perception and risk competence in population groups.

[Public trust in institutions in the first half of the Corona pandemic: findings from the COVID-19 Snapshot Monitoring (COSMO) project].

Background: In the coronavirus pandemic, two institutions play a central role in the evidence-based classification of events for politics and the population. The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) coordinates the fight against the pandemic, prepares well-founded recommendations for medical professionals, the media and the population, and advises politicians. The Federal Centre for Health Education (BZgA) informs the population and institutions.

How to Determine When SARS-CoV-2 Antibody Testing Is or Is Not Useful for Population Screening: A Tutorial.

Extensive testing lies at the heart of any strategy to effectively combat the SARS-COV-2 pandemic. In recent months, the use of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay-based antibody tests has gained a lot of attention. These tests can potentially be used to assess SARS-COV-2 immunity status in individuals (e.

Emergency department patients with weakness or fatigue: Can physicians predict their outcomes at the front door? A prospective observational study.

Background: Generalized weakness and fatigue are underexplored symptoms in emergency medicine. Triage tools often underestimate patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) with these nonspecific symptoms (Nemec et al., 2010).

Effects of pain, sedation and delirium monitoring on clinical and economic outcome: A retrospective study.

Background: Significant improvements in clinical outcome can be achieved by implementing effective strategies to optimise pain management, reduce sedative exposure, and prevent and treat delirium in ICU patients. One important strategy is the monitoring of pain, agitation and delirium (PAD bundle). We hypothesised that there is no sufficient financial benefit to implement a monitoring strategy in a Diagnosis Related Group (DRG)-based reimbursement system, therefore we expected better clinical and decreased economic outcome for monitored patients.

A framework for building cognitive process models.

The term process model is widely used, but rarely agreed upon. This paper proposes a framework for characterizing and building cognitive process models. Process models model not only inputs and outputs but also model the ongoing information transformations at a given level of abstraction.

Assessing minimal medical statistical literacy using the Quick Risk Test: a prospective observational study in Germany.

Objectives: To assess minimal medical statistical literacy in medical students and senior educators using the 10-item Quick Risk Test; to assess whether deficits in statistical literacy are stable or can be reduced by training.

Design: Prospective observational study on the students, observational study on the university lecturers.

Setting: Charité University Medicine medical curriculum for students and a continuing medical education (CME) course at a German University for senior educators.

How to improve health literacy to reduce short- and long-term consequences of maternal obesity?

To demonstrate the global challenge of maternal obesity and to propose models to increase awareness and health literacy. The regional perinatal data base and the international literature were reviewed to demonstrate the rising rates of maternal overweight and obesity causing major public health problems in low and high-resourced countries. A preliminary systematic review analyzing interventions in maternal obesity and a fact box based on a recent Cochrane review on dietary interventions were performed.

Bulk and local rheology in a dense and vibrated granular suspension.

In this paper, we investigate experimentally the dynamics of particles in dense granular suspensions when both shear and external vibrations are applied. We study in detail how vibrations affect particle reorganization at the local scale and modify the apparent rheology. The nonlocal nature of the rheology when no vibrations are applied is evidenced, in agreement with previous numerical studies from the literature.