Journal of medical Internet research
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Feb 2021
Surveillance Metrics of SARS-CoV-2 Transmission in Central Asia: Longitudinal Trend Analysis.
SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the global COVID-19 pandemic, has severely impacted Central Asia; in spring 2020, high numbers of cases and deaths were reported in this region. The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is currently breaching the borders of Central Asia. Public health surveillance is necessary to inform policy and guide leaders; however, existing surveillance explains past transmissions while obscuring shifts in the pandemic, increases in infection rates, and the persistence of the transmission of COVID-19. ⋯ The rapidly evolving COVID-19 pandemic requires novel dynamic surveillance metrics in addition to static metrics to effectively analyze the pandemic trajectory and control spread. Policy makers need to know the magnitude of transmission rates, how quickly they are accelerating, and how previous cases are impacting current caseload due to a lag effect. These metrics applied to Central Asia suggest that the region is trending negatively, primarily due to minimal restrictions in Russia.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Feb 2021
SARS-CoV-2 Wave Two Surveillance in East Asia and the Pacific: Longitudinal Trend Analysis.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound global impact on governments, health care systems, economies, and populations around the world. Within the East Asia and Pacific region, some countries have mitigated the spread of the novel coronavirus effectively and largely avoided severe negative consequences, while others still struggle with containment. As the second wave reaches East Asia and the Pacific, it becomes more evident that additional SARS-CoV-2 surveillance is needed to track recent shifts, rates of increase, and persistence associated with the pandemic. ⋯ Two of the most populous countries in East Asia and the Pacific, Indonesia and the Philippines, have alarming surveillance metrics. These two countries rank highest in new infections in the region. The highest rates of speed, acceleration, and positive upwards jerk belong to French Polynesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, and may result in explosive growth. While all countries in East Asia and the Pacific need to be cautious about reopening their countries since outbreaks are likely to occur in the second wave of COVID-19, the country of greatest concern is the Philippines. Based on standard and enhanced surveillance, the Philippines has not gained control of the COVID-19 epidemic, which is particularly troubling because the country ranks 4th in population in the region. Without extreme and rigid social distancing, quarantines, hygiene, and masking to reverse trends, the Philippines will remain on the global top 5 list of worst COVID-19 outbreaks resulting in high morbidity and mortality. The second wave will only exacerbate existing conditions and increase COVID-19 transmissions.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Jan 2021
Geographic Distribution of Mental Health Problems Among Chinese College Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Nationwide, Web-Based Survey Study.
Since the COVID-19 outbreak was first reported, considerable attention has been drawn to mental health problems among college students. ⋯ During the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health problems among Chinese college students were widespread and geographically diverse. Our study results provide further insight for policymakers to develop targeted intervention strategies.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Jan 2021
Randomized Controlled TrialEffectiveness of Smartphone-Based Mindfulness Training on Maternal Perinatal Depression: Randomized Controlled Trial.
Despite potential for benefit, mindfulness remains an emergent area in perinatal mental health care, and evidence of smartphone-based mindfulness training for perinatal depression is especially limited. ⋯ Smartphone-based mindfulness training is an effective intervention in improving maternal perinatal depression for those who are potentially at risk of perinatal depression in early pregnancy. Nulliparous women are a promising subgroup who may benefit more from mindfulness training.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Jan 2021
Use of the Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT) for Processing Free Text in Health Care: Systematic Scoping Review.
Interoperability and secondary use of data is a challenge in health care. Specifically, the reuse of clinical free text remains an unresolved problem. The Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT) has become the universal language of health care and presents characteristics of a natural language. Its use to represent clinical free text could constitute a solution to improve interoperability. ⋯ SNOMED CT has been largely used to represent free-text data, most frequently with rule-based approaches, in English. However, currently, there is no easy solution for mapping free text to this terminology and to perform automatic postcoordination. Most solutions conceive SNOMED CT as a simple terminology rather than as a compositional bag of ontologies. Since 2012, the number of publications on this subject per year has decreased. However, the need for formal semantic representation of free text in health care is high, and automatic encoding into a compositional ontology could be a solution.