Public Health Commons^™

Decomposing Differences In Coronavirus Disease 2019-Related Case-Fatality Rates Across Seventeen Nations, Ashley Wendell Kranjac, Dinko Kranjac

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

As of 1 November 2020, estimated case-fatality rates associated with coronavirus disease 2019 are not uniformly patterned across the world and differ substantially in magnitude. Given the global spatial heterogeneity in case-fatality rates, we applied the Blinder-Oaxaca regression decomposition technique to identify how putative sociodemographic, structural, and environmental sources influence variation in case-fatality rates. We show that compositional and associational differences in country-level risk factors explain a substantial proportion of the coronavirus disease 2019-related case-fatality rate gap across nations. Asian countries fair better vis-à-vis case-fatality rate differences mainly due to variation in returns to sociodemographic, structural, and environmental sources among …

Face Mask Effects Of Co2, Heart Rate, Respiration Rate, And Oxygen Saturation On Instructor Pilots, Andrew R. Dattel, Nicola M. O'Toole, Guillermina Lopez, Kenneth P. Byrnes

Publications

The COVID-19 pandemic has required people to take new measures to mitigate the spread of the communicable virus. Guidelines from health organizations, government offices, and universities have been disseminated. Adherence to these guidelines cannot be more critical for flight training. This study explored the effects face masks had on CO2, heart rate, respiration rate, and oxygen saturation while wearing a face mask at an oxygen level simulated to 5,000 feet. Thirty-two instructor pilots (IP) volunteered to participate in the study. IPs spent 90 minutes in a normobaric chamber while wearing a cloth face mask or a paper face mask. Participants …

Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis Of Sex-Specific Covid-19 Clinical Outcomes, Thushara Galbadage, Brent M. Peterson, Joseph Awada, Alison S. Buck, Danny A. Ramirez, Jason Wilson, Richard S. Gunasekera

Faculty Articles & Research

To successfully mitigate the extraordinary devastation caused by the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, it is crucial to identify important risk factors for this disease. One such neglected health determinant is the sex of the patient. This is an essential clinical characteristic, as it can factor into a patient’s clinical management and preventative measures. Some clinical studies have shown disparities in the proportion between males and females that have more severe clinical outcomes or, subsequently, die from this disease. However, this association has not been unequivocally established. Thus, the purpose of this investigation was to examine the association between male …

Non-State Actors’ Covid-19 Response In Nepal, Jenna Mae Biedscheid

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This research explores the ways in which non-state actors have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in Nepal and the needs present in the months before drastic increases in cases began on May 11th. In doing so, it describes how social and political inequality within Nepal has caused people experiencing the most need to be left out of early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic relief effort. This research includes a literature review which situates Nepal amidst the global pandemic as well as interviews with non-state actors currently responding in Nepal. It finds that migrant workers, daily wage earners, Dalits, Janajati/Adivasi peoples, …

Workplace Cleaning For Covid-19: Guidance Document, David Krause,, Cheri Marcham, John Springston, Alex Lebeau, Robert Rottersman, Timothy Froehlig, George (Jerry) Mccaslin

Publications

Critical and essential workplaces operating during this pandemic need to implement procedures to reduce the risk of workers, contractors, vendors, customers, and members of the community becoming infected on their premises. Outside of healthcare and paramedical facilities, the infrastructure and standard practices of infection prevention and control have not been commonplace. Establishing enhanced routine cleaning and disinfection procedures in offices, factories, warehouses, call centers, grocery stores, and other non-healthcare workplaces is a critical step in reducing exposures and infections.

Mapping Misinformation In The Coronavirus Outbreak, Ana Santos Rutschman

All Faculty Scholarship

The coronavirus outbreak has sent ripples of fear and confusion across the world. These sentiments—and our collective responses to the outbreak—are made worse by rampant misinformation surrounding the new strain of the virus, COVID-2019. In this post, I survey some of the most pervasive areas of tentacular coronavirus-related misinformation that has proliferated online -- as well as the responses of social media companies like YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest and TikTok that may ultimately prove inadequate given the magnitude of the problem.

The Reemergence Of Vaccine Nationalism, Ana Santos Rutschman

All Faculty Scholarship

This short essay explores the reemergence of vaccine nationalism during the COVID-19 pandemic. The essay traces the pre-COVID origins of vaccine nationalism and explains how it can have detrimental effects on equitable access to newly developed vaccines.

Comments On The Preliminary Framework For Equitable Allocation Of Covid-19 Vaccine, Ana Santos Rutschman, Julia Barnes-Weise, Robert Gatter, Timothy L. Wiemken

All Faculty Scholarship

On September 1, 2020 the National Academies released a draft framework for Equitable Allocation of a COVID-19 Vaccine. In this response, we analyze the proposed framework and highlight several areas.

Among the proposed changes, we highlight the need for the following interventions. The final framework for distribution of COVID-19 vaccines should give a higher priority to populations made most vulnerable by the social determinants of health. It should incorporate more geography-based approaches in at least some of the four proposed phases of vaccine distribution. It should address the possibility of a vaccine being made available through an emergency use authorization …

Exploring The Potential Of Artificial Intelligence And Machine Learning To Combat Covid-19 And Existing Opportunities For Lmic: A Scoping Review, Maleeha Naseem, Ramsha Akhund, Hajra Arshad, Muhammad Talal Ibrahim

Community Health Sciences

Background: In the face of the current time-sensitive COVID-19 pandemic, the limited capacity of healthcare systems resulted in an emerging need to develop newer methods to control the spread of the pandemic. Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML) have a vast potential to exponentially optimize health care research. The use of AI-driven tools in LMIC can help in eradicating health inequalities and decrease the burden on health systems.
Methods: The literature search for this Scoping review was conducted through the PubMed database using keywords: COVID-19, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Low Middle-Income Countries (LMIC). Forty-three articles were …

The Problem With Relying On Profit-Driven Models To Produce Pandemic Drugs, Ana Santos Rutschman

All Faculty Scholarship

The longstanding problems of relying on a market response to a pandemic are becoming readily apparent in the United States, which has quickly become the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak. The problems are particularly pronounced in pharmaceutical markets, where we are pinning our hopes for both cures and vaccines. In previous work we have shown how characteristics of healthcare markets in the United States create a divergence between the private incentives of for-profit companies and public health needs, leading to sub-optimal health outcomes in what is a uniquely market-driven healthcare system. In this Essay, written as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds, …