Articles: coronavirus.
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Multicenter Study
Disparities in the allocation of inpatient physical and occupational therapy services for patients with COVID-19.
Survivors of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) experience significant morbidity with reduced physical function and impairments in activities of daily living. The use of in-hospital rehabilitation therapy may reduce long-term impairments. ⋯ In a cohort of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 across a multicenter healthcare system, we found that referral rates and delivery of physical therapy and/or occupational therapy sessions were significantly reduced for patients of Hispanic identity compared with patients of non-Hispanic, Caucasian identity after adjustment for potential confounding by available demographic and illness severity variables.
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Digital Contact Tracing is seen as a key tool in reducing the propagation of Covid-19. But it requires high uptake and continued participation across the population to be effective. To achieve sufficient uptake/participation, health authorities should address, and thus be aware of, user concerns. ⋯ The HSE have responded to the public's desire for targeted feedback in newer versions, but should consider increasing the app's proactive engagement. The results suggest they should also raise the backward compatibility issue, regarding older iPhones, with Apple.
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Palliative medicine · Feb 2022
Observational StudyCapturing what matters: A retrospective observational study of advance care planning documentation at an academic medical center during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Advance care planning allows patients to share their preferences for medical care with the aim of ensuring goal-concordant care in times of serious illness. The morbidity and mortality of the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the importance and public visibility of advance care planning. However, little is known about the frequency and quality of advance care planning documentation during the pandemic. ⋯ This study found low rates of advance care planning documentation for patients both with and without COVID-19 during an evolving global pandemic. Advance care planning documentation was associated with palliative care consultation, highlighting the importance of such consultation to ensure timely, patient-centered advance care planning.
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Deaths in the first year of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in England and Wales were unevenly distributed socioeconomically and geographically. However, the full scale of inequalities may have been underestimated to date, as most measures of excess mortality do not adequately account for varying age profiles of deaths between social groups. We measured years of life lost (YLL) attributable to the pandemic, directly or indirectly, comparing mortality across geographic and socioeconomic groups. ⋯ In this study, we observed strong socioeconomic and geographical health inequalities in YLL, during the first calendar year of the COVID-19 pandemic. These were in line with long-standing existing inequalities in England and Wales, with the most deprived areas reporting the largest numbers in potential YLL.
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Unemployment and violence both increased during the coronavirus pandemic in the United States (US), but no studies to our knowledge have examined their association. Using data for 16 US cities from January 2018 to July 2020, we estimated the association between acute changes in unemployment during the coronavirus pandemic and violent and acquisitive crime. We used negative binomial regression models and parametric g-computation to estimate average differences in crime incidents if the highest and lowest levels of unemployment observed in each city had been sustained across the exposure period (March-July 2020), compared with observed unemployment in each city-month. ⋯ There was no association between unemployment and aggravated assault or any acquisitive crime. Findings suggest that the sharp rise in unemployment during the pandemic may have contributed to increases in firearm violence and homicide, but not other crime. Additional research is needed on mechanisms of association, generalizability, and modifying factors.