Responding to fluctuations in public and community trust and health seeking behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study of national decision-makers' perspectives in Guinea and Sierra Leone.

Background: The level of trust in health systems is often in flux during public health emergencies and presents challenges in providing adequate health services and preventing the spread of disease. Experiences during previous epidemics has shown that lack of trust can impact the continuity of essential health services and response efforts. Guinea and Sierra Leone were greatly challenged by a lack of trust in the system during the Ebola epidemic.

Caregiver acceptance of malaria vaccination for children under 5 years of age and associated factors: cross-sectional household survey, Guinea and Sierra Leone, 2022.

Background: Malaria is a leading cause of death and reduced life span in Guinea and Sierra Leone, where plans for rolling out the malaria vaccine for children are being made. There is little evidence about caregiver acceptance rates to guide roll-out policies. To inform future vaccine implementation planning, this analysis aimed to assess potential malaria vaccine acceptance by caregivers and identify factors associated with acceptance in Guinea and Sierra Leone.

Comparative effectiveness of contact tracing interventions in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review.

Contact tracing is a non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI) widely used in the control of the COVID-19 pandemic. Its effectiveness may depend on a number of factors including the proportion of contacts traced, delays in tracing, the mode of contact tracing (e.g.

Why we should monitor disparities in old-age mortality with the modal age at death.

Indicators based a fixed "old" age threshold have been widely used for assessing socioeconomic disparities in mortality at older ages. Interpretation of long-term trends and determinants of these indicators is challenging because mortality above a fixed age that in the past would have reflected old age deaths is today mixing premature and old-age mortality. We propose the modal (i.

Modal lifespan and disparity at older ages by leading causes of death: a Canada-U.S. comparison.

The U.S. elderly experience shorter lifespans and greater variability in age at death than their Canadian peers.