Use of smartphone mobility data to analyze city park visits during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic focused attention on city parks as important public resources. However, monitoring park use over time poses practical challenges. Thus, pandemic-related trends are unknown.

Us helping us: The evolution of a peer support group for formerly incarcerated people.

Introduction: Physical, psychological, and emotional trauma experienced while incarcerated influences subsequent mental health outcomes. Upon release, there is a fragmented landscape of mental health services and many of the existing services do not account for the root causes of challenges faced by formerly incarcerated people (FIP). To address the unmet social, psychological, behavioral, and emotional needs of FIP in Louisiana, the Formerly Incarcerated Peer Support (FIPS) Group developed a twelve-unit curriculum in 2019.

Comprehensive Medical Support in Complex Emergencies (CMSCE): pilot course review.

Global threats to health and health security are growing. Fragile and failed states, armed groups, ungoverned spaces, outbreaks and potential unknown "Disease X" threats, antimicrobial resistance (AMR), hybrid and gray zone conflict all exacerbate complex medical emergencies. These growing threats increase preventable morbidity and mortality of the most vulnerable populations.

Covid-19 in unequal societies.

We document the heterogeneous effect of Covid-19 on health and economic outcomes across socioeconomic strata in Bogotá. We assess its distributional impact and evaluate policy counterfactuals in a heterogeneous agent quantitative dynamic general equilibrium model intertwined with a behavioral epidemiological model.

Health benefits of decreases in on-road transportation emissions in the United States from 2008 to 2017.

Decades of air pollution regulation have yielded enormous benefits in the United States, but vehicle emissions remain a climate and public health issue. Studies have quantified the vehicle-related fine particulate matter (PM)-attributable mortality but lack the combination of proper counterfactual scenarios, latest epidemiological evidence, and detailed spatial resolution; all needed to assess the benefits of recent emission reductions. We use this combination to assess PM-attributable health benefits and also assess the climate benefits of on-road emission reductions between 2008 and 2017.

Advancing health equity with artificial intelligence.

Population and public health are in the midst of an artificial intelligence revolution capable of radically altering existing models of care delivery and practice. Just as AI seeks to mirror human cognition through its data-driven analytics, it can also reflect the biases present in our collective conscience. In this Viewpoint, we use past and counterfactual examples to illustrate the sequelae of unmitigated bias in healthcare artificial intelligence.

Effects of a large-scale social media advertising campaign on holiday travel and COVID-19 infections: a cluster randomized controlled trial.

During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic, many health professionals used social media to promote preventative health behaviors. We conducted a randomized controlled trial of the effect of a Facebook advertising campaign consisting of short videos recorded by doctors and nurses to encourage users to stay at home for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays ( NCT04644328 and AEARCTR-0006821 ). We randomly assigned counties to high intensity (n = 410 (386) at Thanksgiving (Christmas)) or low intensity (n = 410 (381)).

Hospital Surge Preparedness and Response Index.

The Hospital Surge Preparedness and Response Index is an all-hazards template developed by a group of emergency management and disaster medicine experts from the United States. The objective of the Hospital Surge Preparedness and Response Index is to improve planning by linking action items to institutional triggers across the surge capacity continuum. This responder tool is a non-exhaustive, high-level template: administrators should tailor these elements to their individual institutional protocols and constraints for optimal efficiency.

Effect of Physician-Delivered COVID-19 Public Health Messages and Messages Acknowledging Racial Inequity on Black and White Adults' Knowledge, Beliefs, and Practices Related to COVID-19: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Social distancing is critical to the control of COVID-19, which has disproportionately affected the Black community. Physician-delivered messages may increase adherence to these behaviors.

Objectives: To determine whether messages delivered by physicians improve COVID-19 knowledge and preventive behaviors and to assess the differential effectiveness of messages tailored to the Black community.

Doctors and Nurses Social Media Ads Reduced Holiday Travel and COVID-19 infections: A cluster randomized controlled trial in 13 States.

During the COVID-19 epidemic, many health professionals started using mass communication on social media to relay critical information and persuade individuals to adopt preventative health behaviors. Our group of clinicians and nurses developed and recorded short video messages to encourage viewers to stay home for the Thanksgiving and Christmas Holidays. We then conducted a two-stage clustered randomized controlled trial in 820 counties (covering 13 States) in the United States of a large-scale Facebook ad campaign disseminating these messages.

Analysis of socioeconomic and demographic factors and imaging exam characteristics associated with missed appointments in pediatric radiology.

Background: Missed appointments can have an adverse impact on health outcomes by delaying appropriate imaging, which can be critical in influencing treatment decisions.

Objective: To assess for socioeconomic and imaging exam factors associated with missed appointments among children scheduled for diagnostic imaging.

Materials And Methods: We retrospectively analyzed children (<18 years) scheduled for outpatient diagnostic imaging during a 12-month period.

A megastudy of text-based nudges encouraging patients to get vaccinated at an upcoming doctor's appointment.

Many Americans fail to get life-saving vaccines each year, and the availability of a vaccine for COVID-19 makes the challenge of encouraging vaccination more urgent than ever. We present a large field experiment ( = 47,306) testing 19 nudges delivered to patients via text message and designed to boost adoption of the influenza vaccine. Our findings suggest that text messages sent prior to a primary care visit can boost vaccination rates by an average of 5%.

Addressing Linguistic Barriers to Care: Evaluation of Breast Cancer Online Patient Educational Materials for Spanish-Speaking Patients.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the readability of breast cancer online patient educational materials (OPEM) written in Spanish and to compare to equivalent English-language OPEM.

Methods: The breast cancer-related terms cáncer de seno (breast cancer), detección de cáncer de seno (breast cancer screening), and biopsia de seno (breast biopsy) were queried using an online search engine. After each query, educational information related to the queried term was downloaded from each website appearing on the first five search engine result pages.

The potential of urban distributed solar energy in transition economies: The case of Beirut city.

In this paper, using Lebanon's capital, Beirut, as a case study, a methodology is proposed to assess the potential for solar photovoltaics (PV) in urban areas incorporating both economic and non-economic factors. Utilizing a rich spatial dataset of solar irradiation augmented with electricity bills at the building level, the cost and benefit of installing rooftop PV systems for each building is estimated. Additionally, incentives and barriers for adopting those systems are investigated using a probabilistic choice model.

Comparison of Knowledge and Information-Seeking Behavior After General COVID-19 Public Health Messages and Messages Tailored for Black and Latinx Communities : A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: The paucity of public health messages that directly address communities of color might contribute to racial and ethnic disparities in knowledge and behavior related to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Objective: To determine whether physician-delivered prevention messages affect knowledge and information-seeking behavior of Black and Latinx individuals and whether this differs according to the race/ethnicity of the physician and tailored content.

Design: Randomized controlled trial.