Articles: pandemics.
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Scand J Public Health · Dec 2013
Comparative StudyFraming risk: communication messages in the Australian and Swedish print media surrounding the 2009 H1N1 pandemic.
Australia and Sweden have similar immunisation rates. However, during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic the uptake of immunisation was 60% in Sweden and 18% in Australia. During pandemics, perceptions of risk are largely formed by media communication which may influence the public's response. ⋯ This study affirms the association between the framing of health messages in the media and the public's perception of risk and related behaviour. Governments need to actively incorporate the media into pandemic communication planning.
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Am J Infect Control · Dec 2013
Physiologic and other effects and compliance with long-term respirator use among medical intensive care unit nurses.
Long-term use of respiratory protection may be necessary, but compliance may be low, and physiologic effects have not been well evaluated. ⋯ Long-term use of respiratory protection did not result in any clinically relevant physiologic burden for health care personnel, although many subjective symptoms were reported. N95 compliance was fairly high.
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Pediatric emergency care · Nov 2013
Going Viral: Adapting to Pediatric Surge During the H1N1 Pandemic.
The objective of this study was to assess hospital and emergency department (ED) pediatric surge strategies utilized during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic as well as compliance with national guidelines. ⋯ Before the H1N1 pandemic, greater than 40% of the hospitals in our study did not have an influenza pandemic preparedness plan. Many had to modify their existing plans during the surge. Not all institutions fully complied with CDC guidelines. Data from this multicenter survey should assist clinical leaders to create more robust surge plans for children.
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Assessing the mortality impact of the 2009 influenza A H1N1 virus (H1N1pdm09) is essential for optimizing public health responses to future pandemics. The World Health Organization reported 18,631 laboratory-confirmed pandemic deaths, but the total pandemic mortality burden was substantially higher. We estimated the 2009 pandemic mortality burden through statistical modeling of mortality data from multiple countries. ⋯ We estimate that 2009 global pandemic respiratory mortality was ∼10-fold higher than the World Health Organization's laboratory-confirmed mortality count. Although the pandemic mortality estimate was similar in magnitude to that of seasonal influenza, a marked shift toward mortality among persons <65 y of age occurred, so that many more life-years were lost. The burden varied greatly among countries, corroborating early reports of far greater pandemic severity in the Americas than in Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. A collaborative network to collect and analyze mortality and hospitalization surveillance data is needed to rapidly establish the severity of future pandemics. Please see later in the article for the Editors' Summary.