Excess Mortality and its Determinants During the COVID-19 Pandemic in 21 Countries: An Ecological Study from the C-MOR Project, 2020 and 2021.

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic overwhelmed health systems, resulting in a surge in excess deaths. This study clustered countries based on excess mortality to understand their response to the pandemic and the influence of various factors on excess mortality within each cluster.

Materials And Methods: This ecological study is part of the COVID-19 MORtality (C-MOR) Consortium.

Health Catch-UP!: a realist evaluation of an innovative multi-disease screening and vaccination tool in UK primary care for at-risk migrant patients.

Background: Migrants to the UK face disproportionate risk of infections, non-communicable diseases, and under-immunisation compounded by healthcare access barriers. Current UK migrant screening strategies are unstandardised with poor implementation and low uptake. Health Catch-UP! is a collaboratively produced digital clinical decision support system that applies current guidelines (UKHSA and NICE) to provide primary care professionals with individualised multi-disease screening (7 infectious diseases/blood-borne viruses, 3 chronic parasitic infections, 3 non-communicable disease or risk factors) and catch-up vaccination prompts for migrant patients.

Driving delivery and uptake of catch-up vaccination among adolescent and adult migrants in UK general practice: a mixed methods pilot study.

Background: Migrants in the UK and Europe face vulnerability to vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs) due to missed childhood vaccines and doses and marginalisation from health systems. Ensuring migrants receive catch-up vaccinations, including MMR, Td/IPV, MenACWY, and HPV, is essential to align them with UK and European vaccination schedules and ultimately reduce morbidity and mortality. However, recent evidence highlights poor awareness and implementation of catch-up vaccination guidelines by UK primary care staff, requiring novel approaches to strengthen the primary care pathway.

Magnitude and determinants of excess total, age-specific and sex-specific all-cause mortality in 24 countries worldwide during 2020 and 2021: results on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic from the C-MOR project.

Introduction: To examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mortality, we estimated excess all-cause mortality in 24 countries for 2020 and 2021, overall and stratified by sex and age.

Methods: Total, age-specific and sex-specific weekly all-cause mortality was collected for 2015-2021 and excess mortality for 2020 and 2021 was calculated by comparing weekly 2020 and 2021 age-standardised mortality rates against expected mortality, estimated based on historical data (2015-2019), accounting for seasonality, and long-term and short-term trends. Age-specific weekly excess mortality was similarly calculated using crude mortality rates.

Identifying barriers and facilitators to increase fibre intakes in UK primary school children and exploring the acceptability of intervention components: a UK qualitative study.

Objective: Within the UK, dietary fibre intakes are well below recommended intakes and associated with increased risk of obesity. This study aimed to explore the views of parents and children on barriers and facilitators to increasing fibre intakes and improving diets, alongside investigating the appropriateness of intervention components to overcome modifiable barriers.

Design: Qualitative study including semi-structured interviews and focus groups informed by the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) and the Capability-Opportunity-Motivation-Behaviour (COM-B) model.

Evaluating mental health decision units in acute care pathways (DECISION): a quasi-experimental, qualitative and health economic evaluation.

Background: People experiencing mental health crises in the community often present to emergency departments and are admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Because of the demands on emergency department and inpatient care, psychiatric decision units have emerged to provide a more suitable environment for assessment and signposting to appropriate care.

Objectives: The study aimed to ascertain the structure and activities of psychiatric decision units in England and to provide an evidence base for their effectiveness, costs and benefits, and optimal configuration.

Interventions to increase vaccination against COVID-19, influenza and pertussis during pregnancy: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Pregnant women and their babies face significant risks from three vaccine-preventable diseases: COVID-19, influenza and pertussis. However, despite these vaccines' proven safety and effectiveness, uptake during pregnancy remains low.

Methods: We conducted a systematic review (PROSPERO CRD42023399488; January 2012-December 2022 following PRISMA guidelines) of interventions to increase COVID-19/influenza/pertussis vaccination in pregnancy.

Predictors of engagement with peer support: analysis of data from a randomised controlled trial of one-to-one peer support for discharge from inpatient psychiatric care.

Background: A range of evidence for the effectiveness of one-to-one peer support in mental health services is emerging. Levels of engagement with peer support vary with limited studies showing few individual participant characteristics predicting engagement. Implementation factors that might predict engagement have not been considered.

Codesigning an intervention to strengthen COVID-19 vaccine uptake in Congolese migrants in the UK (LISOLO MALAMU): a participatory qualitative study protocol.

Introduction: Migrants positively contribute to host societies yet experience barriers to health and vaccination services and systems and are considered to be an underimmunised group in many European countries. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted stark inequities in vaccine uptake, with migrants facing access and informational barriers and lower vaccine confidence. A key challenge, therefore, is developing tailored vaccination interventions, services and systems which account for and respond to the unique drivers of vaccine uptake in different migrant populations.

Service use preceding and following first referral for psychiatric emergency care at a short-stay crisis unit: A cohort study across three cities and one rural area in England.

Background: Internationally, hospital-based short-stay crisis units have been introduced to provide a safe space for stabilisation and further assessment for those in psychiatric crisis. The units typically aim to reduce inpatient admissions and psychiatric presentations to emergency departments.

Aims: To assess changes to service use following a service user's first visit to a unit, characterise the population accessing these units and examine equality of access to the units.

Use of social media platforms by migrant and ethnic minority populations during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review.

Objective: Migrants and ethnic minority groups have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 and have lower levels of vaccine uptake in some contexts. We aimed to determine the extent and nature of social media use in migrant and ethnic minority communities for COVID-19 information, and implications for preventative health measures including vaccination intent and uptake.

Design: A systematic review of published and grey literature following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines.

"We don't routinely check vaccination background in adults": a national qualitative study of barriers and facilitators to vaccine delivery and uptake in adult migrants through UK primary care.

Objectives: Explore primary care professionals' views around barriers/facilitators to catch-up vaccination in adult migrants (foreign-born; over 18 years of age) with incomplete/uncertain vaccination status and for routine vaccines to inform development of interventions to improve vaccine uptake and coverage.

Design: Qualitative interview study with purposive sampling and thematic analysis.

Setting: UK primary care.

Nonpharmacological Interventions to Lengthen Sleep Duration in Healthy Children: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

Importance: Adequate sleep duration is necessary for many aspects of child health, development, and well-being, yet sleep durations for children are declining, and effective strategies to increase sleep in healthy children remain to be elucidated.

Objective: To determine whether nonpharmaceutical interventions to improve sleep duration in healthy children are effective and to identify the key components of these interventions.

Data Sources: CENTRAL, MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, Web of Science Core collection, ClinicalTrials.

COVID-19 vaccination uptake in 441 socially and ethnically diverse pregnant women.

Objective: To explore COVID-19 vaccination uptake, facilitators and barriers in ethnically-diverse pregnant women.

Design And Setting: An anonymous quality improvement questionnaire survey exploring COVID-19 vaccination uptake, causes of vaccine hesitancy and trusted sources of information among pregnant women in two acute district general hospitals in England (Berkshire and Surrey) between 1.9.

Short-stay crisis units for mental health patients on crisis care pathways: systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Internationally, an increasing proportion of emergency department visits are mental health related. Concurrently, psychiatric wards are often occupied above capacity. Healthcare providers have introduced short-stay, hospital-based crisis units offering a therapeutic space for stabilisation, assessment and appropriate referral.

The impact of working as a peer worker in mental health services: a longitudinal mixed methods study.

Background: Peer workers are increasingly employed in mental health services to use their own experiences of mental distress in supporting others with similar experiences. While evidence is emerging of the benefits of peer support for people using services, the impact on peer workers is less clear. There is a lack of research that takes a longitudinal approach to exploring impact on both employment outcomes for peer workers, and their experiences of working in the peer worker role.

Immunisation status of UK-bound refugees between January, 2018, and October, 2019: a retrospective, population-based cross-sectional study.

Background: WHO's new Immunization Agenda 2030 places a focus on ensuring migrants and other marginalised groups are offered catch-up vaccinations across the life-course. Yet, it is not known to what extent specific groups, such as refugees, are immunised according to host country schedules, and the implications for policy and practice. We aimed to assess the immunisation coverage of UK-bound refugees undergoing International Organization for Migration (IOM) health assessments through UK resettlement schemes, and calculate risk factors for under-immunisation.

Defining the determinants of vaccine uptake and undervaccination in migrant populations in Europe to improve routine and COVID-19 vaccine uptake: a systematic review.

Understanding why some migrants in Europe are at risk of underimmunisation and show lower vaccination uptake for routine and COVID-19 vaccines is critical if we are to address vaccination inequities and meet the goals of WHO's new Immunisation Agenda 2030. We did a systematic review (PROSPERO: CRD42020219214) exploring barriers and facilitators of vaccine uptake (categorised using the 5As taxonomy: access, awareness, affordability, acceptance, activation) and sociodemographic determinants of undervaccination among migrants in the EU and European Economic Area, the UK, and Switzerland. We searched MEDLINE, CINAHL, and PsycINFO from 2000 to 2021 for primary research, with no restrictions on language.