Contagion News and Research

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Climate change boosts infectious disease spread, hits the vulnerable hardest

Climate change is intensifying the spread of vector, water, and food-borne infections, disproportionately affecting vulnerable populations due to enhanced pathogen transmission in altered environmental conditions.

1 Apr 2024

Autistic people less likely to be affected by bystander effect in workplace, study finds

A well-established psychological theory states that most of us are less likely to intervene in a bad situation if other people are present, and this 'bystander effect' also applies to workplace settings.

26 Oct 2023

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': An encore: 3 HHS secretaries reveal what the job is really like

This week, while KFF Health News' "What the Health?" takes a break, here’s an encore of a favorite episode this year: Host and chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner leads a rare conversation with the current and two former secretaries of Health and Human Services.

5 Oct 2023

Bus drivers twice as likely to be hospitalized for severe COVID-19

Bus drivers were at double the risk of being hospitalized for severe COVID-19 in the later stages of the pandemic, and several occupations in education and healthcare were also at risk of serious illness. This has been shown by a study at the University of Gothenburg.

23 Aug 2023

COVID-19 school closures hit poorer districts of Barcelona hardest, study finds

The COVID-19 pandemic hit the educational systems. It is estimated that approximately 1.6 billion children worldwide were affected by school closures, which had a major impact on their learning.

17 Jul 2023

Berlin scientists further improve nasal vaccine against coronavirus

After having successfully tested a mucosal vaccine against coronavirus in animals just months ago, Berlin scientists have now further developed their live SARS-CoV-2 vaccine.

13 Jun 2023

Understanding the dynamics of airborne transmission in enclosed spaces: implications for disease control in indoor superspreading events

Researchers investigated the dynamics of airborne diseases in enclosed spaces.

12 Apr 2023

When college athletes kill themselves, healing the team becomes the next goal

In the weeks after Stanford University soccer goalie Katie Meyer, 22, died by suicide last March, her grieving teammates were inseparable even when not training.

27 Mar 2023

Study suggests a deeply conserved role for oxytocin in emotional contagion

Oxytocin plays an essential role in the spread of fear in zebrafish, according to a new study, the results of which suggest a deeply conserved role for the hormone in emotional contagion – the basal form of empathy – among vertebrates like fish.

23 Mar 2023

Simplifying the analysis of social contacts using novel computational method

How society organizes affects different phenomena, from the transmission of information to the spread of contagious diseases. The more links we establish with each other via social and transportation networks, the more spread is favored. To study the dynamics of complex systems, such as society, we can infer these networks – in which nodes, representing individuals, connect through lines – from real-world data. However, these networks are usually large, dense, and cumbersome to manipulate.

25 Feb 2023

Vaccination rate remains unchanged but misinformation about flu and Covid-19 stays

Although the public had been alerted that this winter could be a potentially bad flu season, barely half of Americans said in January that they had received a flu shot, a vaccination level unchanged in a representative national panel from the comparable period last year, according to a new Annenberg Science Knowledge (ASK) survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

17 Feb 2023

COVID-19 vaccination increases saliva antibody levels after asymptomatic infection

Researchers correlate SARS-CoV-2 load and neutralizing capacity of all saliva immunoglobulins isotypes in asymptomatic individuals.

8 Feb 2023

First-ever atlas of global airborne microbiome provides a wealth of insights into microbial communities

Bacteria are truly abundant across the Earth's surface, from the soil to the oceans. The microbial population of the air that surrounds us is comparatively unknown, but a research expedition led by PolyU scientists is about to change that.

16 Dec 2022

Overcrowded households, low socioeconomic status influence the impact of pandemic

Residential overcrowding, low educational attainment and low income had a crucial impact on how hard the pandemic hit various groups in the community, a study from the University of Gothenburg shows.

20 Oct 2022

Dogs shown to identify human stress condition odors

Researchers used a controlled olfactory paradigm to assess whether dogs could discriminate between human odors in breath and sweat samples before and after experiencing experimentally induced negative psychological stress.

30 Sep 2022

The most recent evidence about phylogenesis, pathogenesis, prevention, and treatment for monkeypox

A new review sheds light on the origins of this virus and recently acquired knowledge about its disease mechanism and the preventive and therapeutic measures appropriate in this situation.

31 Aug 2022

Resistance to recognizing airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 may be rooted in historical error

In new research, researchers extensively searched for the origins of the resistance to recognizing airborne transmission during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic by major public health organizations, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United States Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (US-CDC).

25 Aug 2022

Lack of sleep leads to withdrawal of willingness to help other people

Humans help each other -; it's one of the foundations of civilized society. But a new study by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, reveals that a lack of sleep blunts this fundamental human attribute, with real-world consequences.

23 Aug 2022

The time has come for DIY mandates on covid

Here we are in the grip of yet another covid-19 surge, yet most people I see out and about are behaving as if the pandemic is over. And I live in Los Angeles County, whose public health department is arguably one of the most vigilant and proactive in the U.S.

2 Aug 2022

Study offers a method to calculate chances of catching Covid-19 on a plane flight

What are the chances you will contract Covid-19 on a plane flight? A study led by MIT scholars offers a calculation of that for the period from June 2020 through February 2021.

28 Jul 2022