Publications by authors named "Jessica Healy"

Background: Emerging multidrug-resistant organisms (MDROs), such as carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (CRE), can spread rapidly in a region. Facilities that care for high-acuity patients with longer stays may have a disproportionate impact on this spread.

Objective: We assessed the impact of implementing preventive interventions, directed at a subset of facilities, on regional prevalence.

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Our ability to forecast epidemics far into the future is constrained by the many complexities of disease systems. Realistic longer-term projections may, however, be possible under well-defined scenarios that specify the future state of critical epidemic drivers. Since December 2020, the U.

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Background: Culture-independent diagnostic testing (CIDT) provides rapid results to clinicians and is quickly displacing traditional detection methods. Increased CIDT use and sensitivity likely result in higher case detection but might also obscure infection trends. Severe illness outcomes, such as hospitalization and death, are likely less affected by changes in testing practices and can be used as indicators of the expected case incidence trend had testing methods not changed.

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Article Synopsis
  • The COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub, starting in December 2020, provided data-driven projections on cases, hospitalizations, and deaths resulting from COVID-19, pulling insights from up to nine different modeling groups.
  • These projections were crucial for understanding the effects of various interventions and informed the public and health authorities, including the CDC, about potential future trends and vaccination strategies.
  • The hub's collaborative approach allowed for rapid sharing of information amid uncertainties, highlighting how these models directly influenced public health communication and decision-making, while also outlining challenges faced during this process.
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Background: is the most common cause of bacterial diarrhea in the United States; resistance to macrolides and fluoroquinolones limits treatment options. We examined the epidemiology of US infections and changes in resistance over time.

Methods: The Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network receives information on laboratory-confirmed cases from 10 US sites, and the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System receives a subset of isolates from these cases for antimicrobial susceptibility testing.

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Our ability to forecast epidemics more than a few weeks into the future is constrained by the complexity of disease systems, our limited ability to measure the current state of an epidemic, and uncertainties in how human action will affect transmission. Realistic longer-term projections (spanning more than a few weeks) may, however, be possible under defined scenarios that specify the future state of critical epidemic drivers, with the additional benefit that such scenarios can be used to anticipate the comparative effect of control measures. Since December 2020, the U.

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Reconstructing the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection is central to understanding the state of the pandemic. Seroprevalence studies are often used to assess cumulative infections as they can identify asymptomatic infection. Since July 2020, commercial laboratories have conducted nationwide serosurveys for the U.

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Article Synopsis
  • The COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub brought together nine teams to analyze the effects of vaccinating children aged 5-11 against SARS-CoV-2 on COVID-19 outcomes in the U.S. from September 2021 to March 2022.
  • The study compared outcomes under scenarios with and without vaccination and the potential emergence of more transmissible variants, providing insights on case counts, hospitalizations, and deaths.
  • Findings indicated that vaccinating children could significantly reduce COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, offering both direct benefits for kids and indirect benefits for the broader population, even in scenarios with more transmissible variants.
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In Spring 2021, the highly transmissible SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant began to cause increases in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in parts of the United States. At the time, with slowed vaccination uptake, this novel variant was expected to increase the risk of pandemic resurgence in the US in summer and fall 2021. As part of the COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub, an ensemble of nine mechanistic models produced 6-month scenario projections for July-December 2021 for the United States.

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Background: SARS-CoV-2 vaccination of persons aged 12 years and older has reduced disease burden in the United States. The COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub convened multiple modeling teams in September 2021 to project the impact of expanding vaccine administration to children 5-11 years old on anticipated COVID-19 burden and resilience against variant strains.

Methods: Nine modeling teams contributed state- and national-level projections for weekly counts of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in the United States for the period September 12, 2021 to March 12, 2022.

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As of March 2021, three COVID-19 vaccines had been authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in the United States.

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What Is Already Known About This Topic?: The highly transmissible SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant has begun to cause increases in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in parts of the United States. With slowed vaccination uptake, this novel variant is expected to increase the risk of pandemic resurgence in the US in July-December 2021.

What Is Added By This Report?: Data from nine mechanistic models project substantial resurgences of COVID-19 across the US resulting from the more transmissible Delta variant.

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After a period of rapidly declining U.S. COVID-19 incidence during January-March 2021, increases occurred in several jurisdictions (1,2) despite the rapid rollout of a large-scale vaccination program.

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Emerging epidemics are challenging to track. Only a subset of cases is recognized and reported, as seen with the Zika virus (ZIKV) epidemic where large proportions of infection were asymptomatic. However, multiple imperfect indicators of infection provide an opportunity to estimate the underlying incidence of infection.

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Most nontyphoidal (NTS) illnesses in the United States are thought to be foodborne. However, transmission routes likely vary among the different serotypes. We developed a relative ranking of NTS serotypes according to the strength of their association with foodborne transmission.

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Background: Hepatitis A is a vaccine-preventable viral disease transmitted by the fecal-oral route. During 2016-2018, the County of San Diego investigated an outbreak of hepatitis A infections primarily among people experiencing homelessness (PEH) to identify risk factors and support control measures. At the time of the outbreak, homelessness was not recognized as an independent risk factor for the disease.

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Listeria monocytogenes is a foodborne pathogen that disproportionally affects pregnant females, older adults, and immunocompromised individuals. Using U.S.

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Atrazine (ATR) is a commonly used pre-emergence and early postemergence herbicide. Rats gavaged with ATR and its chlorometabolites desethylatrazine (DEA) and deisopropylatrazine (DIA) respond with a rapid and dose-dependent rise in plasma corticosterone, whereas the major chlorometabolite, diaminochlorotriazine (DACT), has little or no effect on corticosterone levels. In this study, we investigated the possible sites of ATR activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis.

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Background: An overall increase has been reported in vaccination rates among adolescents during the past decade. Studies of vaccination coverage have shown disparities when comparing foreign-born and U.S.

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Most Zika disease cases diagnosed in the continental US have been associated with travel to areas with risk of Zika transmission, mainly the Caribbean and Latin America. Limited information has been published about the demographic and travel characteristics of Zika case-patients in the United States, besides their age and gender. During 2016-2017 the County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency, California, expanded the scope and completeness of demographic and travel information collected from Zika case-patients for public health surveillance purposes.

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In 2014, an acute respiratory illness outbreak affected unaccompanied children from Central America entering the United States; 9% of 774 surveyed children were colonized with Streptococcus pneumoniae serotype 5. In our 2015 follow-up survey of 475 children, serotype 5 was not detected, and an interim recommendation to administer 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine to all unaccompanied children was discontinued.

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During December 2015-January 2016, the American Samoa Department of Health (ASDoH) detected through surveillance an increase in the number of cases of acute febrile rash illness. Concurrently, a case of laboratory-confirmed Zika virus infection, a mosquito-borne flavivirus infection documented to cause microcephaly and other severe brain defects in some infants born to women infected during pregnancy (1,2) was reported in a traveler returning to New Zealand from American Samoa. In the absence of local laboratory capacity to test for Zika virus, ASDoH initiated arboviral disease control measures, including public education and vector source reduction campaigns.

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Objective: To assess the effectiveness of structured psychological interventions against common mental disorders (CMD) in people living with HIV infection (PLWH), in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC).

Methods: Systematic review of psychological interventions for CMD from LMIC for PLWH, with two-stage screening carried out independently by 2 authors.

Results: Of 190 studies, 5 met inclusion criteria.

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Surveillance systems for West Nile virus (WNV) combine several methods to determine the location and timing of viral amplification. The value of each surveillance method must be measured against its efficiency and costs to optimize integrated vector management and suppress WNV transmission to the human population. Here we extend previous comparisons of WNV surveillance methods by equitably comparing the most common methods after standardization on the basis of spatial sampling density and costs, and by estimating optimal levels of sampling effort for mosquito traps and sentinel chicken flocks.

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The potassium efflux system, Kef, protects bacteria against the detrimental effects of electrophilic compounds via acidification of the cytoplasm. Kef is inhibited by glutathione (GSH) but activated by glutathione-S-conjugates (GS-X) formed in the presence of electrophiles. GSH and GS-X bind to overlapping sites on Kef, which are located in a cytosolic regulatory domain.

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