Publications by authors named "S A Comerford"

Article Synopsis
  • Wastewater can help scientists understand public health by showing how germs and viruses are present in communities over time and space.
  • Researchers studied wastewater in Miami Dade County from 2020 to 2022 to track different viruses and bacteria, linking them to COVID-19 cases in hospitals and universities.
  • They found harmful germs and bacteria in the water, showing connections between wastewater, human health, and the use of antibiotics, which can help improve public health decisions in the future.
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Purpose: Ageism encapsulates stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination towards others or oneself based on age. While identified as the most frequent form of discrimination, relatively little work has captured the problem of day-to-day ageism faced by older people with frailty in community settings. The aim of this study therefore was to examine the prevalence of everyday ageism experienced by older people attending hospital-based ambulatory care services, and to clarify its association with measures of quality of life (QOL) and frailty.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is used to monitor COVID-19 infections by detecting SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater, with the effectiveness possibly changing due to virus mutations over time.
  • - This study examined wastewater samples from the University of Miami and Miami-Dade County across different COVID-19 variant periods, comparing RNA levels to clinical COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.
  • - While correlations were generally strong, they varied by variant; the Omicron period showed a steeper relationship between wastewater RNA levels and case numbers, while the Initial wave had the strongest correlation for hospitalizations.
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Clinical testing has been a vital part of the response to and suppression of the COVID-19 pandemic; however, testing imposes significant burdens on a population. College students had to contend with clinical testing while simultaneously dealing with health risks and the academic pressures brought on by quarantines, changes to virtual platforms, and other disruptions to daily life. The objective of this study was to analyze whether wastewater surveillance can be used to decrease the intensity of clinical testing while maintaining reliable measurements of diseases incidence on campus.

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Wastewater-based surveillance (WBS) is a noninvasive, epidemiological strategy for assessing the spread of COVID-19 in communities. This strategy was based upon wastewater RNA measurements of the viral target, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). The utility of WBS for assessing the spread of COVID-19 has motivated research to measure targets beyond SARS-CoV-2, including pathogens containing DNA.

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