Schools and Wastewater Surveillance: Practical Implications for an Emerging Technology to Impact Child Health.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, wastewater surveillance has emerged as a public health tool that supplements traditional surveillance methods used to detect the prevalence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in communities. In May 2020, the Houston Health Department (HHD) partnered with a coalition of municipal and academic partners to develop a wastewater monitoring and reporting system for the city of Houston, Texas. The HHD subsequently launched a program to conduct targeted wastewater sampling at 52 school sites located in a large, urban school district in Houston.

Development and demonstration of a data visualization platform of short-term guidelines for ambient air levels of benzene during disaster response in Houston, Texas.

Industrial disasters have caused hazardous air pollution and public health impacts. Response officials have developed limited exposure guidelines to direct them during the event; often, guidelines are outdated and may not represent relevant elevated-exposure periods. The 2019 Intercontinental Terminals Company (ITC) fire in Houston, Texas led to large-scale releases of benzene and presented a public health threat.

Long-term immune responses to pneumococcal conjugate vaccines in children previously vaccinated with 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine.

Background: Seven-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7) has reduced incidence of vaccine-serotype pneumococcal diseases. Using a single dose of 13-valent pneumoccal conjugate vaccine (PCV13), we evaluated late immune responses 10 years after vaccination with PCV7 in infancy, compared with a PCV7-naïve cohort.

Methods: In this open-label study, we administered 1 dose of PCV13 to children aged 11-14 years who had previously received PCV7 (PCV7/PCV13) or meningococcal group C conjugate vaccine (MnCC/PCV13) during infancy.