Exploring the ethics of using fictional stories for health education on social media to share information and emotions about the HPV vaccine: A cross-sectional study with interdisciplinary health experts.

Unlabelled: Social media is used to promote the HPV vaccine through various strategies, including the use of stories and narratives. Understanding the ethical concerns related to the use of social media in this capacity are important. The purpose of this study is to identify ethical concerns of using fictional stories to share information and emotions about the HPV vaccine on social media, ultimately to influence parents on their decision to vaccinate their child.

Did the COVID-19 experience change U.S. parents' attitudes towards HPV vaccination? Results from a national survey.

Background: In the U.S., uptake of the HPV vaccine remains below coverage goals.

Social Media, Public Health Research, and Vulnerability: Considerations to Advance Ethical Guidelines and Strengthen Future Research.

The purpose of this article is to build upon prior work in social media research and ethics by highlighting an important and as yet underdeveloped research consideration: how should we consider vulnerability when conducting public health research in the social media environment? The use of social media in public health, both platforms and their data, has advanced the field dramatically over the past 2 decades. Applied public health research in the social media space has led to more robust surveillance tools and analytic strategies, more targeted recruitment activities, and more tailored health education. Ethical guidelines when using social media for public health research must also expand alongside these increasing capabilities and uses.

"We adjusted for race": now what? A systematic review of utilization and reporting of race in American Journal of Epidemiology and Epidemiology, 2020-2021.

Race is a social construct, commonly used in epidemiologic research to adjust for confounding. However, adjustment of race may mask racial disparities, thereby perpetuating structural racism. We conducted a systematic review of articles published in Epidemiology and American Journal of Epidemiology between 2020 and 2021 to (1) understand how race, ethnicity, and similar social constructs were operationalized, used, and reported; and (2) characterize good and poor practices of utilization and reporting of race data on the basis of the extent to which they reveal or mask systemic racism.

EMERG-ing data: Multi-city surveillance of workplace violence against EMS responders.

Problem: Between 1980 and 2021, emergency medical services (EMS) calls experienced a 421% increase, while calls for fires declined by 55%. The more exposure, the more the opportunity for workplace violence (WPV). Due to the non- existence of a reporting system that captures physical and verbal violence, it has been difficult to quantify the degree of WPV experienced by the U.

Random Walk Particle Tracking to Model Dispersion in Steady Laminar and Turbulent Pipe Flow.

To accurately model a two-dimensional solute transport in drinking water pipes and determine the effective dispersion coefficients for one-dimensional water quality models of water distribution systems, a random walk particle tracking approach was developed to analyze the advection and dispersion processes in circular pipes. The approach considers a solute particle's two-dimensional random movement caused by molecular or turbulent diffusion and associated velocity profile, and can simulate any mixing time and accurately model the longitudinal distribution of the solute concentration. For long mixing times, the simulation results agreed with a previous analytically derived solution.

Relative Water Age in Premise Plumbing Systems Using an Agent-Based Modeling Framework.

Tools used to predict hydraulics and water quality within premise plumbing systems have gained recent interest. An open-source Python-based tool-PPMtools-for modeling and analyzing premise plumbing systems with WNTR or EPANET is presented. A relative water age-the time water has spent in a home-study using three real-world single-family homes was used to demonstrate PPMtools.

Performance and Resilience Analysis of a New York Drinking Water System to Localized and System-Wide Emergencies.

Drinking water utilities are vulnerable to both human-caused and natural disasters that can impact the system infrastructure and the delivery of potable water to consumers. Analyzing system performance and resilience can help utilities identify areas of high risk or concern, understand the impacts on consumers, and evaluate response actions during disasters. In this case study, the Water Network Tool for Resilience (WNTR) was used to investigate the performance and resilience of a drinking water system in New York during increased demands due to firefighting, pipe damage, and loss of the source water emergencies.

Assessing the Mental Health Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on US Fire-Based Emergency Medical Services Responders: A Tale of Two Samples (The RAPID Study I).

Objective: This study aimed to examine the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on fire service safety culture, behavior and morale, levers of well-being, and well-being outcomes.

Methods: Two samples (Stress and Violence against fire-based EMS Responders [SAVER], consisting of 3 metropolitan departments, and Fire service Organizational Culture of Safety [FOCUS], a geographically stratified random sample of 17 departments) were assessed monthly from May to October 2020. Fire department-specific and pooled scores were calculated.

Responding to Ontario's Overdose Crisis in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the overdose crisis in Canada. Using data from ICES and the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario, the authors characterized changing patterns of medication use and health services utilization during the pandemic. This analysis suggests that responses to the overdose crisis must confront the rapidly changing unregulated drug supply with a tailored response that addresses varied population needs, expands accessible treatment and harm reduction services and responds to the missed opportunities for engagement and support within various healthcare settings.

Near real-time event detection for watershed monitoring with CANARY.

Illicit discharges in surface waters are a major concern in urban environments and can impact ecosystem and human health by introducing pollutants (, petroleum-based chemicals, metals, nutrients) into natural water bodies. Early detection of pollutants, especially those with regulatory limits, could aid in timely management of sources or other responses. Various monitoring techniques (, sensor-based, automated sampling) could help alert decision makers about illicit discharges.

Identifying the changing age distribution of opioid-related mortality with high-frequency data.

Background: Opioid-related mortality continues to rise across North America, and mortality rates have been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study sought to provide an updated picture of trends of opioid-related mortality for Ontario, Canada between January 2003 and December 2020, in relation to age and sex.

Methods: Using mortality data from the Office of the Chief Coroner for Ontario, we applied Bayesian Poisson regression to model age/sex mortality per 100,000 person-years, including random walks to flexibly capture age and time effects.

Model Policies to Protect U.S. Fire-Based EMS Responders From Workplace Stress and Violence.

The stress and violence to fire-based emergency medical service responders (SAVER) Systems-Level Checklist is an organizational-level intervention to address stress and violence in emergency medical service (EMS), focused on the development of policy and training. Fire and EMS leadership, first responders, dispatchers, and labor union representatives participated in the SAVER Model Policy Collaborative to develop model policies that resulted from the most feasible checklist items. ThinkLets technology was employed to achieve consensus on the model policies, and an Action SWOT analysis was then conducted to assess facilitators and barriers to policy implementation.

The Use of Cremation Data for Timely Mortality Surveillance During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Ontario, Canada: Validation Study.

Background: Early estimates of excess mortality are crucial for understanding the impact of COVID-19. However, there is a lag of several months in the reporting of vital statistics mortality data for many jurisdictions, including across Canada. In Ontario, a Canadian province, certification by a coroner is required before cremation can occur, creating real-time mortality data that encompasses the majority of deaths within the province.

Development of Personas to Communicate Narrative-Based Information About the HPV Vaccine on Twitter.

Personas are based on real-life typologies of people that can be used to create characters and messages to communicate important health information through relatable narrative storylines. Persona development is data-driven and can involve multiple phases of formative research and evaluation; however, personas are largely underutilized in digital health research. The purpose of this study was to create and document persona development to deliver narrative-focused health education for parents on Twitter with the goal of increasing uptake of HPV vaccination among adolescents.

Trends in Hospitalizations for Serious Infections Among People With Opioid Use Disorder in Ontario, Canada.

Objectives: Opioid use among people who inject drugs can lead to serious complications, including infections. We sought to study trends in rates of these complications among people with an opioid use disorder (OUD) and the sequelae of those hospitalizations.

Methods: We analyzed all inpatient hospitalizations for serious infections (infective endocarditis [IE], spinal infections, nonvertebral bone infections, and skin or soft tissue infections) among people with OUD in Ontario between 2013 and 2019.

Lagrangian Method to Model Advection-Dispersion-Reaction Transport in Drinking Water Pipe Networks.

A Lagrangian method to simulate the advection, dispersion, and reaction of a single chemical, biological, or physical constituent within drinking water pipe networks is presented. This Lagrangian approach removes the need for fixed computational grids typically required in Eulerian and Eulerian-Lagrangian methods and allows for nonuniform computational segments. This makes the method fully compatible with the advection-reaction water quality engine currently used in EPANET.

Evaluating Manual Sampling Locations for Regulatory and Emergency Response.

Drinking water systems commonly use manual or grab sampling to monitor water quality, identify or confirm issues, and verify that corrective or emergency response actions have been effective. In this paper, the effectiveness of regulatory sampling locations for emergency response is explored. An optimization formulation based on the literature was used to identify manual sampling locations to maximize overall nodal coverage of the system.

Measuring the Burden of Opioid-Related Mortality in Ontario, Canada, During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

This cross-sectional study quantifies the added burden of fatal opioid overdoses during the first 6 months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, Canada.

Framework for Modeling Lead in Premise Plumbing Systems Using EPANET.

The lead contamination of drinking water in homes and buildings remains an important public health concern. In order to assess strategies to measure and reduce exposure to lead from drinking water, models are needed that incorporate the multiple factors affecting lead concentrations in premise plumbing systems (PPS). In this study, the use of EPANET, a commonly used hydraulic and water quality model for water distribution systems, was assessed for its ability to predict lead concentrations in PPS.

Meeting science meets public health: Results from the "Stress and Violence in fire-based EMS Responders (SAVER)" Systems Checklist Consensus Conference (SC).

Introduction: In order to implement a systems-level Emergency Medical Services (EMS) workplace violence intervention, input from end users was critically needed. We convened the two-day Stress and Violence in fire-based EMS Responders (SAVER)" Systems Checklist Consensus Conference (SC) using methods from meeting science (i.e.

A Systematic Review of Workplace Violence Against Emergency Medical Services Responders.

Emergency Medical Service (EMS) responders deliver patient care in high-risk, high-stress, and highly variable scenarios. This unpredictable work environment exposes EMS responders to many risks, one of which is violence. The primary goals of this systematic literature review were to (1) define the issue of violence experienced by EMS responders and (2) identify the risk factors of violence associated with the EMS profession.

Quantifying hydraulic and water quality uncertainty to inform sampling of drinking water distribution systems.

Sampling of drinking water distribution systems is performed to ensure good water quality and protect public health. Sampling also satisfies regulatory requirements and is done to respond to customer complaints or emergency situations. Water distribution system modeling techniques can be used to plan and inform sampling strategies.

Creation of a Systems-Level Checklist to Address Stress and Violence in Fire-Based Emergency Medical Services Responders.

Between 57 and 93% of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) responders reported having experienced verbal or physical violence at least once in their career. Therefore, the primary goal of this study was to develop a systems-level checklist for violence against fire-based EMS responders using findings from a systematic literature review and outcomes from a national stakeholder meeting. First, a literature review of violence against EMS responders resulted in an extensive list of 162 academic and industrial publications.