Tag: research

One community’s algal bloom research effort

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By Megan May

Coastal Review Online

At the end of a gravel road, tucked deep into the woods, bald cypress trees dot the shoreline of Bennett’s Mill Pond. Great blue herons wade in the shallows, searching for their next meal. It’s July in North Carolina, and time on the water would be the perfect way to enjoy some peace and quiet. But not today.

Haley Plaas pulls on a pair of rubber gloves. She lays on the dock and gently reaches her hand in. A mucus-like substance clings to her glove as she pulls back, leaving stringy threads on the water’s surface. While brilliant in color, the network of blue scum across the pond is dangerous cyanobacteria, a type of harmful algae.

Sometimes confused with aquatic plants like duckweed, cyanobacteria can vary from looking like green or blue-green opaque, thin mats to translucent paint or dye. Blooms pose a threat to the local environment — leading to fish kills, ecosystem damage, and drinking water contamination. They can also cause illness in humans and death among pets and wildlife.

Harmful algal blooms, often called HABs, occur naturally, but human activities increase their frequency and intensity.

HABs feed on nutrient runoff — anything from leaky septic tanks to fertilizers and industrial waste. While the U.S. South has dealt with this for years, it’s a growing global environmental issue exacerbated by climate change. Increased surface temperatures lead to warmer waters, and more extreme storms are followed by periods of drought. That combination is a perfect recipe for the algae — storms increase nutrient runoff into waterways, and then drought leads to stagnant, warm water.

While cyanobacteria directly impact water quality, less is known about how they affect air quality. Enter Plaas, a doctoral candidate in environmental science and engineering at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.

Harmful algal blooms emit cells and chemical compounds that travel as tiny atmospheric particles, called aerosols. Plaas has partnered with the Chowan Edenton Environmental Group, or CEEG, to deploy PurpleAir air sensors along North Carolina’s Chowan River, part of the Albemarle-Pamlico estuarine system. Their goal is to see if blooms correlate with poor air quality due to an increase in these aerosols, and generate a wealth of accessible data in areas that are underreported.

The PurpleAir project examines air and water quality in the Albemarle-Pamlico estuarine system, with a focus on the Chowan River. Credit:
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2022’s most interesting health care research papers, according to the experts

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Though the pandemic and all its attendant health care crises remained the major health care story of 2022, churning all the while in the background has been the critical work of academic scholars, operating on longer timelines, who are still trying to make sense of US health care and of medicine itself, to get a better idea of what’s wrong and how to make it better.

To wrap up this year, I asked a couple dozen health policy experts what research released this year (though, as one of them reminded me, these papers are often years in the making) had surprised them, changed their thinking, or struck them as especially notable.

Here are five particularly interesting papers, at least in my view. Because many more than that warrant mention, I have tried to cram in as many references to other work as I could. One of my lessons from this exercise was that there are noteworthy new studies being produced all the time. The US health system certainly merits such extensive investigation, given the number and diversity of its flaws.

These studies cover a broad range of subjects, from the intricacies of Medicaid provider networks to prescription uptake by Medicare beneficiaries to how bystanders react when a person experiences a cardiac episode in public. But first, on the topic of the pandemic…

1) Vaccination education campaigns in nursing homes didn’t make much difference

Several experts pointed me to data sets related to Covid-19 vaccination in nursing homes, the scenes of so much illness and death in that frightening first year of the pandemic. Larry Levitt, executive vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, flagged one recent KFF survey that found less than half of nursing-home residents are up to date on their vaccines.

That put into sharp relief the findings of a study that Harvard Medical School’s David Grabowski cited as one of his favorites of the year. The paper, published in JAMA Internal Medicine in January 2022, evaluated an effort to use educational campaigns and other incentives to improve vaccination rates among residents and staff in nursing homes.

They did not find a meaningful effect, despite three months of programming. There was plenty of room to grow, particularly among the staff, roughly half of whom were unvaccinated during the study period. (Vaccination rates among residents were already high at the time, though the experiment still did not find

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Snooze disruptions may perhaps be linked to mental overall health conditions, new research reveals

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There could be a hyperlink amongst very poor rest and several mental health and fitness ailments, according to a new examine.

These psychological overall health diseases include things like panic, Tourette syndrome and autism, researchers say, according to a push launch from the College of California, Irvine (UCI) produced previously this thirty day period.

Experts from UCI hypothesize that Circadian Rhythm Disruption, or CRD, is a “psychopathology component” shared by a broad range of psychological diseases, the release shared.

Analysis into CRD’s “molecular foundation” could be essential to unlocking greater treatments for these psychological disorders, the experts also point out.

“Our investigation observed that circadian rhythm disruption is a variable that broadly overlaps the total spectrum of mental wellness ailments,” explained a single UCI researcher.
(Credit: iStock)

The analysis on the marriage amongst snooze and mental issues was published not too long ago in the journal Translational Psychology.

“Circadian rhythms perform a fundamental role in all biological techniques at all scales, from molecules to populations,” senior author Pierre Baldi, UCI professor of computer science and director of UCI’s Institute for Genomics and Bioinformatics, said in the UCI press release. 

“Our evaluation observed that circadian rhythm disruption is a variable that broadly overlaps the total spectrum of psychological health and fitness disorders,” he continued.

THE Most effective Foods FOR A Fantastic NIGHT’S Snooze

The UCI scientists discovered significant evidence of the link in between slumber disruption and these ailments by diligently inspecting peer-reviewed literature on the most widespread psychological health and fitness diseases, according to the press release.

“The telltale signal of circadian rhythm disruption — a issue with snooze — was current in every ailment,” direct writer Amal Alachkar, neuroscientist and professor in UCI’s department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, mentioned in the launch. 

Disruptions in circadian rhythm may be related to anxiety, bulimia, food addiction and other mental health disorders, according to new research from University of California, Irvine.

Disruptions in circadian rhythm may perhaps be related to nervousness, bulimia, foods addiction and other mental overall health diseases, according to new research from University of California, Irvine.
(iStock)

“Even though our emphasis was on extensively known problems which includes autism, ADHD and bipolar problem,” she ongoing, “we argue that the CRD psychopathology element hypothesis can be generalized to other mental health and fitness problems, this kind of as obsessive-compulsive disorder, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, food dependancy and Parkinson’s ailment.”

“Our examination uncovered that circadian rhythm disruption is a aspect that broadly overlaps the full spectrum of psychological well being diseases.”

A circadian rhythm is the snooze-wake pattern

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Pfizer COVID Vaccine Saved 110,000 American Lives: Research | Wellbeing Information

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By By Robert Preidt HealthDay Reporter, HealthDay Reporter

(HealthDay)

MONDAY, Might 16, 2022 (HealthDay News) — As the United States mourns a single million fatalities from COVID-19, a new review implies the grim tally could have been worse. Use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine prevented far more than 110,000 fatalities and 690,000 hospitalizations in the United States in 2021, scientists report.

The vaccine also prevented 8.7 million symptomatic situations of an infection and saved additional than $30 billion in wellbeing treatment charges and a lot more than $40 billion in misplaced efficiency, the review authors famous.

“The analyses display that the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine contributed substantial general public well being effects in the U.S. in 2021, and had a deep effect on the trajectory of the pandemic,” claimed Manuela Di Fusco, of Pfizer’s overall health economics and results analysis group.

The Pfizer vaccine was the 1st COVID-19 shot offered in the United States. It was specified to nearly 6 in 10 people nationwide who were entirely vaccinated in 2021, in accordance to the U.S. Facilities for Disorder Control and Avoidance.

The findings were being revealed on the net May possibly 15 in the Journal of Health-related Economics. All of the review authors obtained funding from Pfizer possibly as employees, consultants or workers of firms compensated by Pfizer.

Irrespective of the use of COVID-19 vaccines, the U.S. death toll through the pandemic neared one million past week.

“We should continue to be vigilant against this pandemic and do anything we can to conserve as lots of lives as achievable,” Biden reported.

In this research, researchers approximated the effect of the Pfizer vaccine applying a product, true-earth details and scientific trial facts.

The product made use of facts on the range of persons vaccinated, the success of the vaccine in several age groups, and the chances of being infected, developing symptoms and remaining hospitalized.

It also integrated the outcomes of extended COVID, the selection of performing days most likely shed owing to brief-expression health issues and the financial effects of untimely fatalities from the sickness.

The design did not involve the effect of the far more transmissible Omicron variant that grew to become the dominant coronavirus pressure at the conclusion of the study period of time.

The vaccine “was estimated to prevent thousands and thousands of COVID-19 symptomatic circumstances, thousands of hospitalizations and fatalities, and produced billions in societal economic

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Extended COVID among clinical staff may perhaps have ‘profound’ affect on health and fitness care, research implies

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When Dr. Anne Bhéreur fell ill with COVID-19 in late 2020, she did not anticipate just how a lot the infection would effects her lifetime much more than a 12 months afterwards.

The 46-year-old has given that coped with heart inflammation, powerful tiredness, and even now has problems respiratory. 

Even talking is hard. Although talking slowly and gradually, usually pausing for numerous seconds to capture her breath, Bhéreur stated how Botox injections in her vocal cord area have designed it a little bit much easier to have a discussion — but the more time the chat, the more she struggles.

“If I push just a very little, I’ll be in my bed for days, not even remaining able to think,” she explained in an interview with CBC News outdoors her Montreal property.

That slate of debilitating symptoms suggests she still just isn’t back again to operate as a relatives and palliative care physician, leaving other health-treatment gurus to treatment for her patients.

“I know how significantly my colleagues are battling and overcome,” she claimed, her voice breaking. “Absolutely everyone is exhausted.”

A modern examine out of Quebec indicates a lot of other health-treatment employees are also grappling with lifestyle-altering prolonged COVID impacts — which could jeopardize their ability to do the job even though putting pressure on the wellness-treatment program, scientists say.

Survey of 6,000 health and fitness-care workers 

The investigation, which is posted online but has not nevertheless been peer-reviewed, found a significant prevalence of post-COVID well being issues amongst wellbeing-care personnel who fell unwell during the pandemic’s initially three waves.

Scientists surveyed 6,000 out of the a lot more than 17,000 confirmed conditions among the health-care employees in Quebec in between July 2020 and Could 2021. This was completed along with a randomly selected command team of other wellness-treatment employees who experienced signs, but did not examination positive for the virus.

Check out | Medical doctors try to solve extensive COVID as clients wrestle to get better:

Medical practitioners research to fix long COVID as people fight to recuperate

Almost two a long time into the COVID-19 pandemic, medical practitioners and wellbeing authorities are exploring to come across a result in and procedure for lengthy COVID, whilst patients are simply just battling for their recovery. 6:14

The researchers found 40 per cent of all those who failed to involve hospitalization for their ailment claimed owning lingering overall health

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U.S. Professional medical Schools’ School Even now Absence Diversity: Research | Health Information

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By By Cara Murez HealthDay Reporter, HealthDay Reporter

(HealthDay)

THURSDAY, April 7, 2022 (HealthDay News) — U.S. clinical colleges are not retaining tempo with a nation that is much more racially and ethnically various just about every day, a new study reports.

The schools’ medical school and leadership are not as diverse as the communities close to them, even though there are some beneficial developments, according to the conclusions.

It is not more than enough to set range quotas, mentioned direct writer Dr. Sophia Kamran, an assistant professor of radiation oncology at Harvard Clinical University and a radiation oncologist at Massachusetts Common Most cancers Middle.

“We have to also focus on retention and progress,” she said in a medical center information release. “We have to have proof-centered initiatives that create inclusive environments that can support cultural transform.”

Kamran mentioned she was motivated to dig into the problem by her personal encounter as a Hispanic lady who was the initial individual in her family members to show up at school, then healthcare faculty.

“I didn’t have quite a few mentors, instructors or role types in medical drugs from a related qualifications as mine to assist information me,” she said.

The findings suggest the will need to recruit more underrepresented scientific school candidates and to discover means to support them all over the academic pipeline, Kamran stated.

For the analyze, her staff analyzed Association of American Healthcare Colleges’ knowledge for complete-time college associates in 18 clinical academic departments. The investigate interval spanned 1977 through 2019.

The scientists also zeroed in on facts for those groups thought of to be underrepresented in medicine (URM), together with Black persons and individuals who are Hispanic, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, American Indian or native Alaskan.

The proportion of URMs rose, but modestly. Black persons and Hispanics even now characterize a little aspect of complete clinical school, the examine found. Representation of Black gentlemen in academic medicine has leveled off or dropped, significantly between scientific college and division heads, in accordance to the analyze. That pattern started about 10 a long time ago.

“This is an space in determined need of study, because we want to reverse these developments in buy to address the deficiency the Black management at all amounts of educational medicine,” Kamran reported.

At all college ranges, people who were Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander and American Indian/Native Alaskan accounted for much less than

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