scholarly journals Effective Nasal Disinfection as an Overlooked Strategy in Our Fight against COVID-19

2021 ◽  
pp. 014556132110029
Author(s):  
Gustavo Ferrer ◽  
Marcos A. Sanchez-Gonzalez
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Public Health Officials

Although the recent advent of a vaccine and other therapeutic aids in our fight against COVID-19 has brought us a step closer to controlling the pandemic, our fight is far from over. Handwashing, masks, and social distancing practices are considered reasonable measures to control the spread of the disease have been well accepted by government officials and public health officials despite scarce and conflicting scientific evidence. Taking into consideration the aforementioned measures, there is an additional perhaps overlooked practice that warrants our attention—nasal disinfection and hygiene.

scholarly journals Evidentiary needs of US public health departments with a mission to advance equity and health: a qualitative analysis

BMJ Open ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. e022033 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly Danae Cauley Narain ◽  
Frederick J Zimmerman ◽  
Jessica Richards ◽  
Jonathan Fielding ◽  
Brian Cole ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Grant Writing ◽  
Health Departments ◽  
Scientific Content ◽  
Public Health Departments ◽  
Geographical Regions ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Public Health Officials

ObjectivesWe sought the perspectives of lead public health officials working to improve health equity in the USA regarding the drivers of scientific evidence use, the supply of scientific evidence and the gap between their evidentiary needs and the available scientific evidence.DesignWe conducted 25 semistructured qualitative interviews (April 2017 to June 2017) with lead public health officials and their designees. All interviews were transcribed and thematically analysed.SettingPublic health departments from all geographical regions in the USA.ParticipantsParticipants included lead public health officials (20) and their designees (5) from public health departments that were either accredited or part of the Big Cities Health Coalition.ResultsMany respondents were using scientific evidence in the context of grant writing. Professional organisations and government agencies, rather than specific researchers or research journals, were the primary sources of scientific evidence. Respondents wanted to see more locally tailored cost-effectiveness research and often desired to participate in the planning phase of research projects. In addition to the scientific content recommendations, respondents felt the usefulness of scientific evidence could be improved by simplifying it and framing it for diverse audiences including elected officials and community stakeholders.ConclusionsRespondents are eager to use scientific evidence but also need to have it designed and packaged in ways that meet their needs.

scholarly journals Self-reported compliance and attitudes about social distancing during the COVID-19 outbreak

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brauer Group Lab
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Public Health Crisis ◽  
Self Reports ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Public Health Officials ◽  
The Media ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
News Networks

We studied self-reports of social distancing in a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults. We found that younger, less educated individuals who do not see social distancing as effective or the norm are currently less likely to fully comply with social distancing recommendations. Barriers such as not being able to tolerate social distancing for a long time prevent individuals from doing so, while seeing how distancing can help one's family and others is a potential benefit that could be made salient to encourage compliance. Communication campaigns aimed at increasing social distancing should use trusted sources such as public health officials and should work through national news networks and social media, as these are the media most used by the individuals whose behavior we need to change to address the current public health crisis.

Framing the issues

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas F. Babor ◽  
Jonathan Caulkins ◽  
Benedikt Fischer ◽  
David Foxcroft ◽  
Keith Humphreys ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Drug Use ◽  
Drug Users ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Harm Minimization ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
Demand Reduction ◽  
Control Programmes ◽  
The Impact

The use of psychoactive substances is commonplace in many parts of the world, despite the efforts of policymakers, government officials, public health advocates, and concerned citizens to prevent, eliminate, or control it. If previous experience can serve as a guide, in the future many countries will face periodic drug-use epidemics, followed by aggressive policy responses to suppress them. Continued endemic drug use generates a patchwork of policy responses that never quite keep up with the problem. The scientific evidence on the impact of policy constitutes the core interest of this book and consists of three broad approaches: programmes to prevent drug use, treatment and harm-minimization services that help heavy drug users change their behaviour, and supply control programmes to restrict access to illicit substances. This book suggests that public health concepts provide an important vehicle to coordinate supply control and demand reduction.

scholarly journals Is There a Case for Quarantine? Perspectives from SARS to Ebola

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 547-553 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna Barbisch ◽  
Kristi L Koenig ◽  
Fuh-Yuan Shih
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Emerging Infectious Diseases ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Health Officials ◽  
Care Worker

AbstractQuarantine has been used for centuries in an effort to prevent the introduction, transmission, and spread of communicable diseases. While backed by legal authority, the public and even the health care worker community’s understanding of the term is murky at best and scientific evidence to support the use of quarantine is frequently lacking. The multiple interpretations and references to quarantine, the inconsistent application of public health quarantine laws across jurisdictional boundaries, and reports of ineffectiveness are further complicated by associated infringement of civil liberties and human rights abuses. Given the need to balance public safety with human rights, we must be more precise about the meaning of quarantine and consider the efficacy and negative secondary effects resulting from its implementation. This article explains quarantine terminology and then uses a case study from Taiwan during the 2002–2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak to illustrate the key principles associated with quarantine measures taken during the 2014 Ebola outbreak and the potential hazards that can arise from quarantines. Finally, we provide a quarantine and isolation decision tree to assist policy makers and public health officials in applying medically defensible, outcomes-based data and legal authorities to optimize management of emerging infectious diseases. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2015;9:547–553)

scholarly journals Development and Application of an Interdisciplinary Rapid Message Testing Model for COVID-19 in North Carolina

2021 ◽  
pp. 003335492110186
Author(s):  
Sophia M. Bartels ◽  
Katherine Gora Combs ◽  
Allison J. Lazard ◽  
Victoria Shelus ◽  
C. Hunter Davis ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
North Carolina ◽  
Health Department ◽  
The State ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Health Campaigns ◽  
Testing Model ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Message Testing ◽  
Public Health Officials

Introduction From the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, public health officials have sought to develop evidence-based messages to reduce COVID-19 transmission by communicating key information to media outlets and the public. We describe the development of an interdisciplinary rapid message testing model to quickly create, test, and share messages with public health officials for use in health campaigns and policy briefings. Methods An interdisciplinary research team from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assembled in March 2020 to assist the state health department in developing evidence-based messages to influence social distancing behaviors in the state. We developed and iteratively executed a rapid message testing model; the components of the 4-step model were message creation, survey development, survey administration, and analysis and presentation to health department officials. The model was executed 4 times, each during a 7-day period in April and May, and each subsequent survey included new phrasing and/or messaging informed by the previous week’s survey. A total of 917 adults from North Carolina participated in the 4 surveys. Results Survey participants rated messages focused on protecting oneself and others higher than messages focused on norms and fear-based approaches. Pairing behaviors with motivations increased participants’ desire to social distance across all themes and subgroups. For example, adding “Protect your grandmother, your neighbor with cancer, and your best friend with asthma,” to messaging received a 0.9-point higher score than the base message, “Stay 6 feet apart from others when out in public.” Practice Implications Our model to promote social distancing in North Carolina during the COVID-19 pandemic can be used for rapid, iterative message testing during public health emergencies.

scholarly journals The COVID States Project #34: Update on holiday gatherings in December 2020

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Lazer ◽  
Alexi Quintana ◽  
Matthew Baum ◽  
Katherine Ognyanova ◽  
Adina Gitomer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Survey Response ◽  
Question Asking ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Public Health Officials

Public health officials have expressed concern that multi-household holiday gatherings might have driven a January surge of COVID-19 cases. As noted in report 31, social distancing behaviors have generally been improving since late October, including in our most recent wave conducted over the holidays. However, the scope of our data collection regarding social distancing, which focused on proximity to others in the 24 hours preceding survey response, might have missed important spikes in proximity around Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year. Therefore, here we evaluate the responses from a survey conducted between December 16th and January 10th, to a separate question asking whether people had gathered for the holidays in November and December.

scholarly journals Controlling Tuberculosis in the United States: Use of Isolation and Other Measures Throughout the Country

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Katz ◽  
Andrea Vaught
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Community Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Health Departments ◽  
Local Public Health ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Public Health Officials ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Evidentiary Standards ◽  
Depth Interviews

AbstractObjectivesWe sought to better understand the tools used by public health officials in the control of tuberculosis (TB).MethodsWe conducted a series of in-depth interviews with public health officials at the local, state, and federal levels to better understand how health departments around the country use isolation measures to control TB.ResultsState and local public health officials’ use of social distancing tools in infection control varies widely, particularly in response to handling noncompliant patients. Judicial and community support, in addition to financial resources, impacted the incentives and enablers used to maintain isolation of infectious TB patients.ConclusionsInstituting social distancing requires authorities and resources and can be impacted by evidentiary standards, risk assessments, political will, and community support. Awareness of these factors, as well as knowledge of state and local uses of social distancing measures, is essential to understanding what actions are most likely to be instituted during a public health emergency and to target interventions to better prepare health departments to utilize the best available tools necessary to control the spread of disease. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2017;11:337–342)

scholarly journals Impacts of social distancing policies on mobility and COVID-19 case growth in the US

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory A. Wellenius ◽  
Swapnil Vispute ◽  
Valeria Espinosa ◽  
Alex Fabrikant ◽  
Thomas C. Tsai ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Infection Control ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Mobility Data ◽  
The Us ◽  
Public Health Officials

AbstractSocial distancing remains an important strategy to combat the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. However, the impacts of specific state-level policies on mobility and subsequent COVID-19 case trajectories have not been completely quantified. Using anonymized and aggregated mobility data from opted-in Google users, we found that state-level emergency declarations resulted in a 9.9% reduction in time spent away from places of residence. Implementation of one or more social distancing policies resulted in an additional 24.5% reduction in mobility the following week, and subsequent shelter-in-place mandates yielded an additional 29.0% reduction. Decreases in mobility were associated with substantial reductions in case growth two to four weeks later. For example, a 10% reduction in mobility was associated with a 17.5% reduction in case growth two weeks later. Given the continued reliance on social distancing policies to limit the spread of COVID-19, these results may be helpful to public health officials trying to balance infection control with the economic and social consequences of these policies.

scholarly journals Partisan polarization and resistance to elite messages: Results from survey experiments on social distancing

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Syon P. Bhanot ◽  
Daniel J. Hopkins
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Online Surveys ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Partisan Polarization ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
Party Decline ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Health Experts

COVID-19 compelled government officials in the U.S. and elsewhere to institute social distancing policies, shuttering much of the economy. At a time of low trust and high polarization, Americans may only support such disruptive policies when recommended by same-party politicians. A related concern is that some may resist advice from “elite” sources such as government officials or public health experts. We test these possibilities using novel data from two online surveys with embedded experiments conducted with approximately 2,000 Pennsylvania residents each, in spring 2020 (Study 1 in April and Study 2 in May-June). We uncover partisan differences in views on several coronavirus-related policies, which grew larger between surveys. Yet overall, Study 1 respondents report strong support for social distancing policies and high trust in medical experts. Moreover, an experiment in Study 1 finds no evidence of reduced support for social distancing policies when advocated by elites, broadly defined. A second experiment in Study 2 finds no backlash for a policy described as being backed by public health experts, but a cross-party decline in support for the same policy when backed by government officials. This suggests that, in polarized times, public health experts might be better advocates for collectively beneficial public policies during public health crises than government officials.

Perspectives on Prevention: A Dialogue Between Public Health Officials and Community Psychologists

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven B. Pokorny ◽  
Peter Y. Ji ◽  
Jospeh L. Sherk ◽  
P. Jacob Rebus ◽  
Olga Rabin-Belyaev ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Health Officials
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