A Data Driven Approach for Prioritizing COVID-19 Vaccinations in the Midwestern United States.

Considering the potential for widespread adoption of social vulnerability indices (SVI) to prioritize COVID-19 vaccinations, there is a need to carefully assess them, particularly for correspondence with outcomes (such as loss of life) in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health Public Health GIS team developed a methodology for assessing and deriving vulnerability indices based on the premise that these indices are, in the final analysis, classifiers. Application of this methodology to several Midwestern states with a commonly used SVI indicates that by using only the SVI rankings there is a risk of assigning a high priority to locations with the lowest mortality rates and low priority to locations with the highest mortality rates.

A second wave of COVID-19 in Cook County: What lessons can be applied?

During the ongoing public health crisis, many agencies are reporting COVID-19 health outcome information based on the overall population. This practice can lead to misleading results and underestimation of high risk areas. To gain a better understanding of spatial and temporal distribution of COVID-19 deaths; the long term care facility (LTCF) and household population (HP) deaths must be used.

Mercury generation potential from dental waste amalgam.

Objective: The main objective of this study was to quantify the total amount of amalgam used in dental offices in the state of Illinois and to estimate the fractions of amalgam waste material generated during dental procedures. A second objective was to estimate the fractions of non-contact, contact, and tooth retained amalgam through an in vitro study.

Methods: The collection system consisted of containers placed in six dental offices and clinics to collect the material from the in-line trap (contact amalgam) and the excess dental amalgam not placed into the oral cavity (non-contact amalgam).

Particle versus mercury removal efficiency of amalgam separators.

Objective: The intent of this project was to evaluate the efficiency of three commercial amalgam separators based on mercury and particle removal.

Methods: Dental wastewater samples were collected from a 54-chair dental clinic and a one chair private dental office. Atomic absorption spectrometry was used to measure mercury, and a laser diffractometer method to determine the particle size distributions.