Articles: pandemics.
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Pandemic-era social and political tensions may have accelerated pre-existing trends in gun owner diversification and shifts toward protection from people as a primary reason for gun ownership. Specific ownership motivations may shape storage behaviors, use patterns, policy support, and perceptions of safety. This study's objective was to assess the importance of specific reasons for owning guns, including protection from whom and in what circumstances, among demographic subgroups of new and prior gun owners. ⋯ Concurrent, strongly held motivations may produce ambivalence or resistance to public health messaging that narrowly focuses on preventing violent firearm-related injury. Permissive firearm policies may compound behavioral ambivalence, exacerbating conditions that threaten collective safety and civic expression. These conditions call for more nuanced, multidimensional, societal efforts to assure collective safety.
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Background: Loneliness and social isolation coexist, making it difficult to study each separately. The COVID-19 lockdown provided an unprecedented and ethically viable opportunity to study loneliness in seriously ill nursing home residents under uniformly imposed social isolation conditions. Objective: To understand the phenomenon of loneliness of the seriously ill nursing home patients under a uniform social isolation condition imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. ⋯ Participants in the last year of life also reported higher levels of loneliness. Conclusion: A study of loneliness under uniform social isolation conditions in seriously ill nursing home patients showed a high prevalence of loneliness and a strong correlation between self-reported loneliness and social isolation, especially in persons from minority communities and those in the last year of life. In-person support provided by nursing home staff and virtual support from family was helpful to patients.
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Mayo Clinic proceedings · Nov 2024
Trends in California Cardiovascular Disease Mortality: Sex-Race/Ethnicity Disparity and Income Inequality.
To examine the cardiovascular disease (CVD)-related death trends and the relationship between CVD deaths and sex, race/ethnicity, and income in California from January 1, 1999, to December 31, 2021. ⋯ All the death rates that were decreasing, stagnant, or increasing prior to the COVID-19 pandemic increased after the pandemic. We found increasingly adverse outcomes among the poor and racial/ethnic minority populations.
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During the COVID-19 pandemic, global trends of reduced healthcare-seeking behaviour were observed. This raises concerns about the consequences of healthcare avoidance for population health. ⋯ This study found an increased risk of all-cause mortality among individuals who avoided health care during COVID-19. These individuals were characterised by poor mental and physical self-perceived health. Therefore, interventions should be targeted to these vulnerable individuals to safeguard their access to primary and specialist care to limit health disparities, inside and beyond healthcare crises.