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Emerging Practices that show potential to achieve desirable public health outcomes in a specific real-life setting and produce early results that are consistent with the objectives of the activities and thus indicate effectiveness.
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Op-ed
This op-ed discusses the minimal progress that has been made towards understanding the causes and treatment of long COVID. The main crux of the author’s argument is that long COVID is essentially the same condition as post-infectious syndrome or myalgic encephalomyelitis / chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). Thus, long COVID is actually not a new condition, but rather something triggered by acute COVID in the same way that many other illnesses can trigger ME/CFS in individuals. ME/CFS itself is not well-understood, but the years of research and patient experiences with the condition could be applied to the body of long COVID research for the advancement of both causes.
Emerging Practices that show potential to achieve desirable public health outcomes in a specific real-life setting and produce early results that are consistent with the objectives of the activities and thus indicate effectiveness.
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Peer Review Study
This study conducted interviews with public health professionals from local and state health departments to understand their experiences in providing comprehensive COVID-19 case investigation and contact tracing with refugee, immigrant, and migrant communities. The research identified six themes related to promising practices, including understanding the community and public health context, cultivating relationships, ensuring linguistic and cultural concordance, communicating intentionally, evolving response strategies, and implementing equity measures. These findings aim to inform proactive, community-engaged solutions for public health organizations working with these communities during public health crises, such as COVID-19, to improve collaborations and staff wellbeing.
Emerging Practices that show potential to achieve desirable public health outcomes in a specific real-life setting and produce early results that are consistent with the objectives of the activities and thus indicate effectiveness.
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Book Chapter
This chapter in a larger book on systems change dives into Human Impact Partners’s experiences centering racial justice and power-sharing at the heart of their work in public health. It offers guidance on developing shared understandings of oppressive structures and systems, relationship development, and centering the voices of people most impacted by systems in need of change.
Best Practices that show evidence of effectiveness in improving public health outcomes when implemented in multiple real-life settings, as indicated by achievement of aims consistent with the objectives of the activities.
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Case Study
A large school district in Cincinnati partnered with their local health department and children’s hospital to develop mitigation procedures as children returned to school. These mitigation procedures successfully limited school-based spread of COVID-19 by combining best practices in rapid testing, contact tracing, and early isolation. Procedures were regularly revisited and updated in an iterative process to respond to new information and circumstances.
Emerging Practices that show potential to achieve desirable public health outcomes in a specific real-life setting and produce early results that are consistent with the objectives of the activities and thus indicate effectiveness.
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Toolkit
Lead Local was a collaborative research project between Human Impact Partners and the Right to the City Alliance. The research focused on community power-building and its potential to address social inequities that drive health outcomes. This project was not specific to COVID-19, but its findings apply to disease response and resiliency. It found that community power-building must be central to decision-making processes for true transformation.
Novel Practices that show potential to achieve desirable public health outcomes in a specific real-life setting and are in the process of generating evidence of effectiveness or may not yet be tested.
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Peer Review Study
Jimenez and colleagues conducted an online survey in order to examine reluctance to follow prescribed COVID-19 preventive measures, such as social distancing and hand washing. Research is needed to understand factors underlying such reluctance, with the aim of developing targeted health interventions. The authors found that associating COVID-19 with death as a key factor. Five hundred and ninety participants completed surveys in mid-March 2020, which included attitudes toward COVID-19, preventive behavioral intentions, and sociodemographic factors. Associating coronavirus with death negatively predicted intentions to perform preventive behaviors, including social distancing and hand washing. Social distancing and hand washing were used as outcome measures in separate multivariate models. Further, associating COVID-19 with death was not evenly distributed throughout the sample and was related with a number of sociodemographic factors including age, race, and availability of sick leave.
Novel Practices that show potential to achieve desirable public health outcomes in a specific real-life setting and are in the process of generating evidence of effectiveness or may not yet be tested.
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Peer Review Study
A retrospective registry-based chart review examined the various demographic and clinical risk factors associated with COVID-19 severity among patients aged 18-29. The study was done within a metropolitan health care system in Houston, TX. In the cohort of 1,853 young adult patients diagnosed with COVID-19 infection at a hospital encounter, including 226 pregnant women, 1,438 (78%) scored 0 on the Charlson Comorbidity Index, and 833 (45%) were obese (≥30 kg/m2). Within 30 days of their diagnostic encounter, 316 (17%) patients were diagnosed with pneumonia, 148 (8%) received other severe disease diagnoses, and 268 (14%) returned to the hospital after being discharged home. In multivariate logistic regression analyses, increasing age, male gender, Hispanic ethnicity, obesity, asthma history, congestive heart failure, cerebrovascular disease, and diabetes were predictive of severe disease diagnoses within 30 days. Non-Hispanic Black race, obesity, asthma history, myocardial infarction history, and household exposure were predictive of 30-day readmission.
Novel Practices that show potential to achieve desirable public health outcomes in a specific real-life setting and are in the process of generating evidence of effectiveness or may not yet be tested.
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Peer Review Study
Czeisler and colleagues investigated the prevalence of mental health symptoms, including depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation in late June 2020. To assess mental health, substance use, and suicidal ideation during the pandemic, representative panel surveys were conducted among adults aged ≥18 years across the United States during June 24-30, 2020. Just over 40% of respondents reported at least one adverse mental or behavioral health condition. The percentage of respondents who reported having seriously considered suicide in the 30 days before completing the survey (10.7%) was significantly higher among respondents aged 18-24 years (25.5%), marginalized racial/ethnic groups (Hispanic respondents [18.6%], non-Hispanic black [black] respondents [15.1%]), self-reported unpaid caregivers for adults (30.7%), and essential workers (21.7%). This research directs attention to the need for community-level intervention and prevention efforts, including health communication strategies.
Best Practices that show evidence of effectiveness in improving public health outcomes when implemented in multiple real-life settings, as indicated by achievement of aims consistent with the objectives of the activities.
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Peer Review Study
Latkin and colleagues conducted a nationally representative survey in May 2020 to examine opinions regarding vaccine hesitancy. The key outcome measure asked: if and when available, would you plan on getting the vaccine. A key set of covariate measures focused on COVID-19 prevention behaviors such as staying away from large groups, wearing a mask when leaving home, and washing hands more frequently. Additional covariates included knowing a close relative or friend who has contracted COVID-19 and how worried are you that you or someone in your family will get infected with COVID-19. Compared to White participants, Black and Hispanic respondents were significantly more likely to report that they did not intend to obtain a COVID-19 vaccine. In addition, compared to those who reported positive vaccine intentions, respondents with negative vaccine intentions were significantly less likely to report that they engaged in the COVID-19 prevention behaviors of wearing masks and social distancing.
Novel Practices that show potential to achieve desirable public health outcomes in a specific real-life setting and are in the process of generating evidence of effectiveness or may not yet be tested.
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Systematic Review/Meta-Analysis
Structural inequality during the pandemic has likely compounded health care access barriers for low-income individuals and people of color, who face not only disproportionate health risks, but also greater difficulty in transportation access and heightened economic hardship due to COVID-19. Partnerships between health and transportation systems hold promise for jointly addressing disparities in health- and transportation-related challenges, but are largely limited to Medicaid-enrolled patients. Findings of this study suggest that transportation and health care providers should look for additional strategies to ensure that transportation access is not a reason for delayed medical care during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Transportation stakeholders need to collaborate to increase access to transportation services. This paper focused on specific health care needs including dialysis, prenatal care, cancer treatment, mental-health and substance use treatment, and health care for people with disabilities.