Publications by authors named "Myrna Alfaro Cortes"

(1) Background: Chagas disease is the main neglected tropical disease in America. It is estimated that around 6 million people are currently infected with the parasite in Latin America, and 25 million live in endemic areas with active transmission. The disease causes an estimated economic loss of USD 24 billion dollars annually, with a loss of 75,200 working years per year of life; it is responsible for around ~12,000 deaths annually.

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Background: Photovoice is a form of visual ethnography intended to engage impacted communities in research followed by action to ameliorate the injustices under study. Photovoice has increased in use, especially in collaboration with Latinx communities addressing health inequities. The Latinx population comprises nearly 18% of the overall United States population and according to the census is projected to reach just under 30% by 2060.

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Limited information is available to determine the effectiveness of Mexico's national influenza vaccination guidelines and inform policy updates. We aim to propose reforms to current influenza vaccination policies based on our analysis of cost-effectiveness studies. This cross-sectional epidemiological study used influenza case, death, discharge and hospitalization data from several influenza seasons and applied a one-year decision-analytic model to assess cost-effectiveness.

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The Mexican influenza vaccination program does not include a recommendation for people aged 50-59 years without risk factors for influenza complications, and there are limited data regarding the cost-effectiveness of vaccinating this population. To explore the clinical and economic effects of including this population in the vaccination schedule, we performed a cross-sectional epidemiological study using records (2009-2018) from Mexico's Influenza Surveillance System (SISVEFLU), death records (2010-2015) from the National Mortality Epidemiological and Statistical System, and discharge and hospitalization records (2010-2015) from the Automated Hospital Discharge System databases. A 1-year decision-analytic model was used to assess cost-effectiveness through a decision-tree based on data from SISVEFLU.

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Background: The current national influenza vaccination schedule in Mexico does not recommend vaccination in the school-aged population (5-11 years). Currently, there are limited data from middle-income countries analysing the cost-effectiveness of influenza vaccination in this population. We explored the clinical effects and economic benefits of expanding the current national influenza vaccination schedule in Mexico to include the school-aged population.

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