Bmc Med
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New York City was the first major urban center of the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA. Cases are clustered in the city, with certain neighborhoods experiencing more cases than others. We investigate whether potential socioeconomic factors can explain between-neighborhood variation in the COVID-19 test positivity rate. ⋯ Our findings indicate associations between neighborhoods with a large dependent youth population, densely populated, low-income, and predominantly black neighborhoods and COVID-19 test positivity rate. The study highlights the importance of public health management during and after the current COVID-19 pandemic. Further work is warranted to fully understand the mechanisms by which these factors may have affected the positivity rate, either in terms of the true number of cases or access to testing.
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Multicenter Study
Circulating bilirubin levels and risk of colorectal cancer: serological and Mendelian randomization analyses.
Bilirubin, a byproduct of hemoglobin breakdown and purported anti-oxidant, is thought to be cancer preventive. We conducted complementary serological and Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses to investigate whether alterations in circulating levels of bilirubin are associated with risk of colorectal cancer (CRC). We decided a priori to perform analyses separately in men and women based on suggestive evidence that associations may differ by sex. ⋯ Additional insight into the relationship between circulating bilirubin and CRC is needed in order to conclude on a potential causal role of bilirubin in CRC development.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has placed an unprecedented strain on health systems, with rapidly increasing demand for healthcare in hospitals and intensive care units (ICUs) worldwide. As the pandemic escalates, determining the resulting needs for healthcare resources (beds, staff, equipment) has become a key priority for many countries. Projecting future demand requires estimates of how long patients with COVID-19 need different levels of hospital care. ⋯ Patients with COVID-19 in China appeared to remain in hospital for longer than elsewhere. This may be explained by differences in criteria for admission and discharge between countries, and different timing within the pandemic. In the absence of local data, the combined summary LoS distributions provided here can be used to model bed demands for contingency planning and then updated, with the novel method presented here, as more studies with aggregated statistics emerge outside China.
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Identifying hotspots of tuberculosis transmission can inform spatially targeted active case-finding interventions. While national tuberculosis programs maintain notification registers which represent a potential source of data to investigate transmission patterns, high local tuberculosis incidence may not provide a reliable signal for transmission because the population distribution of covariates affecting susceptibility and disease progression may confound the relationship between tuberculosis incidence and transmission. Child cases of tuberculosis and other endemic infectious disease have been observed to provide a signal of their transmission intensity. We assessed whether local overrepresentation of child cases in tuberculosis notification data corresponds to areas where recent transmission events are concentrated. ⋯ Age-disaggregated notification data can be used to identify hotspots of tuberculosis transmission and suggest local force of infection, providing an easily accessible source of data to target active case-finding intervention.
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Two studies have suggested that severe prolonged nausea and vomiting during pregnancy is associated with emotional and behavioral problems in offspring, with smaller sample size and short-term follow-up. Moreover, little information is available on the role of the brain structure in the associations. ⋯ SNVP is strongly associated with psychiatric and cognitive problems in children, with mediation by brain structure. These associations highlight the clinical importance and potential benefits of the treatment of SNVP, which could reduce the risk of psychiatric disorder in the next generation.