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PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases Dec 2018Shuni virus (SHUV) is an orthobunyavirus that belongs to the Simbu serogroup. SHUV was isolated from diverse species of domesticated animals and wildlife, and is...
BACKGROUND
Shuni virus (SHUV) is an orthobunyavirus that belongs to the Simbu serogroup. SHUV was isolated from diverse species of domesticated animals and wildlife, and is associated with neurological disease, abortions, and congenital malformations. Recently, SHUV caused outbreaks among ruminants in Israel, representing the first incursions outside the African continent. The isolation of SHUV from a febrile child in Nigeria and seroprevalence among veterinarians in South Africa suggests that the virus may have zoonotic potential as well. The high pathogenicity, extremely broad tropism, potential transmission via both biting midges and mosquitoes, and zoonotic features warrants prioritization of SHUV for further research. Additional knowledge is essential to accurately determine the risk for animal and human health, and to assess the risk of future epizootics and epidemics. To gain first insights into the potential involvement of arthropod vectors in SHUV transmission, we have investigated the ability of SHUV to infect and disseminate in laboratory-reared biting midges and mosquitoes.
METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS
Culicoides nubeculosus, C. sonorensis, Culex pipiens pipiens, and Aedes aegypti were orally exposed to SHUV by providing an infectious blood meal. Biting midges showed high infection rates of approximately 40-60%, whereas infection rates of mosquitoes were lower than 2%. SHUV successfully disseminated in both species of biting midges, but no evidence of transmission in orally exposed mosquitoes was found.
CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE
The results of this study show that different species of Culicoides biting midges are susceptible to infection and dissemination of SHUV, whereas the two mosquito species tested were found not to be susceptible.
Topics: Aedes; Animals; Bunyaviridae Infections; Ceratopogonidae; Culex; Female; Humans; Insect Vectors; Mosquito Vectors; Nigeria; Orthobunyavirus; South Africa
PubMed: 30532189
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0006993 -
International Journal of Health Policy... Aug 2022Research partnership approaches are becoming popular within spinal cord injury (SCI) health research system, providing opportunities to explore experiences of and learn...
BACKGROUND
Research partnership approaches are becoming popular within spinal cord injury (SCI) health research system, providing opportunities to explore experiences of and learn from SCI research partnership champions. This study aimed to explore and describe SCI researchers' and research users' (RU') experiences with and reasons for conducting and/or disseminating (health) research in partnership in order to gain more insight into potentially ways to build capacity for and foster change to support research partnerships within a health research system.
METHODS
Underpinned by a pragmatic perspective, ten semi-structured timeline interviews were conducted with researchers and RU who have experiences with SCI research partnerships. Interviews focused on experiences in participants' lives that have led them to become a person who conducts and/or disseminates research in partnership. Data were analysed using narrative thematic analysis.
RESULTS
We identified three threads from participants' stories: (1) seeing and valuing different perspectives, (2) inspirational role models, and (3) relational and personal aspect of research partnerships. We identified sub-threads related to experiences that participants draw on how they came to be a person who engage in (health) research partnerships, and sub-threads related to participants' reasons for engaging in research partnerships. While most sub-threads were identified from both researchers' and RU' perspectives (eg, partnership successes and failures), some were unique for researchers (morally the right thing to do) or RU (advocating).
CONCLUSION
Using a narrative and pragmatic approach, this study provided a new understanding of SCI researchers' and RU' partnership experiences over time. We found that participants' research partnership experiences and motivations align with components of leadership theories. The findings from this study may be used to inform strategies and policy programs to build capacity for conducting and disseminating (health) research in partnership, within and beyond SCI research.
Topics: Humans; Qualitative Research; Research Personnel; Spinal Cord Injuries; Policy; Leadership
PubMed: 34060273
DOI: 10.34172/ijhpm.2021.35 -
PloS One 2023Event-Based Surveillance (EBS) tools, such as HealthMap and PADI-web, monitor online news reports and other unofficial sources, with the primary aim to provide timely...
Event-Based Surveillance (EBS) tools, such as HealthMap and PADI-web, monitor online news reports and other unofficial sources, with the primary aim to provide timely information to users from health agencies on disease outbreaks occurring worldwide. In this work, we describe how outbreak-related information disseminates from a primary source, via a secondary source, to a definitive aggregator, an EBS tool, during the 2018/19 avian influenza season. We analysed 337 news items from the PADI-web and 115 news articles from HealthMap EBS tools reporting avian influenza outbreaks in birds worldwide between July 2018 and June 2019. We used the sources cited in the news to trace the path of each outbreak. We built a directed network with nodes representing the sources (characterised by type, specialisation, and geographical focus) and edges representing the flow of information. We calculated the degree as a centrality measure to determine the importance of the nodes in information dissemination. We analysed the role of the sources in early detection (detection of an event before its official notification) to the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) and late detection. A total of 23% and 43% of the avian influenza outbreaks detected by the PADI-web and HealthMap, respectively, were shared on time before their notification. For both tools, national and local veterinary authorities were the primary sources of early detection. The early detection component mainly relied on the dissemination of nationally acknowledged events by online news and press agencies, bypassing international reporting to the WAOH. WOAH was the major secondary source for late detection, occupying a central position between national authorities and disseminator sources, such as online news. PADI-web and HealthMap were highly complementary in terms of detected sources, explaining why 90% of the events were detected by only one of the tools. We show that current EBS tools can provide timely outbreak-related information and priority news sources to improve digital disease surveillance.
Topics: Animals; Influenza in Birds; Disease Outbreaks; Geography; Group Processes; Information Dissemination
PubMed: 37669265
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0285341 -
PloS One 2023Persons living in refugee settlements in sub-Saharan Africa may be at increased risk for COVID-19 and experience barriers to accessing COVID-19 information. We aimed to...
Leveraging interactive voice response technology to mitigate COVID-19 risk in refugee settlements in Uganda: Lessons learned implementing "Dial-COVID" a toll-free mobile phone symptom surveillance and information dissemination tool.
BACKGROUND
Persons living in refugee settlements in sub-Saharan Africa may be at increased risk for COVID-19 and experience barriers to accessing COVID-19 information. We aimed to evaluate the implementation of "Dial-COVID" a multi-lingual, toll free, telephone platform that uses interactive voice response (IVR) to track COVID-19 symptoms/exposure and disseminate COVID-19 health information in refugee settlements in Uganda. We hypothesized that IVR could provide an alternative way to screen for COVID-19 and communicate public health information to humanitarian populations when physical access and testing capacity were limited.
METHODS
The Dial-COVID IVR platform was created in ten languages and advertised by community health workers in refugee settlements for participants to call into toll free. In a recorded IVR symptom survey, participants were screened for COVID-19 symptoms/exposures and based on their responses, received tailored public health messages about COVID-19 risk mitigation in accordance with Uganda Ministry of Health guidelines. Here we report the challenges and lessons learned implementing this research during the pandemic.
RESULTS
Between February 2021 and March 2022, 15,465 calls were received by the Dial-COVID platform from all 31 refugee settlements in Uganda through which 6,913 symptom surveys were completed and 10,411 public health messages were disseminated in all study languages. Uptake of Dial-COVID fluctuated with the national COVID-19 caseload and was impacted by phone ownership and connectivity in refugee settlements. Intensified advertising efforts promoted Dial-COVID uptake. Flexibility to adapt IVR messages was contingent on translation capacity.
CONCLUSION
Refugees living in refugee settlements across Uganda accessed Dial-COVID to share and obtain COVID-19 information suggesting that IVR holds potential for rapid information dissemination and screening of humanitarian populations during future infectious disease outbreaks and may be a valuable tool for routine public health programs. IVR adaptation flexibility and reach are influenced by language constraints and by contextual factors related to platform access.
REGISTRATION DETAILS
World Pandemic Research Network- 490652.
Topics: Humans; Refugees; Uganda; COVID-19; Cell Phone; Technology; Information Dissemination
PubMed: 36689419
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0279373 -
Frontiers in Digital Health 2022Social media offers a unique opportunity to widely disseminate HPV vaccine messaging to reach youth and parents, given the information channel has become mainstream with...
Social media offers a unique opportunity to widely disseminate HPV vaccine messaging to reach youth and parents, given the information channel has become mainstream with 330 million monthly users in the United States and 4.2 billion users worldwide. Yet, a gap remains on how to adapt evidence-based vaccine interventions for the competitive social media messaging environment and what strategies to employ to make vaccine messages go viral. Push-pull and RE-AIM dissemination frameworks guided our adaptation of a National Cancer Institute video-based HPV vaccine cancer control program, the HPV Vaccine Decision Narratives, for the social media environment. We also aimed to understand how dissemination might differ across three platforms, namely Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter, to increase reach and engagement. Centering theory and a question-answer framework guided the adaptation process of segmenting vaccine decision story videos into shorter coherent segments for social media. Twelve strategies were implemented over 4 months to build a following and disseminate the intervention. The evaluation showed that all platforms increased following, but Instagram and TikTok outperformed Twitter on impressions, followers, engagement, and reach metrics. Although TikTok increased reach the most (unique accounts that viewed content), Instagram increased followers, engagement, and impressions the most. For Instagram, the top performer, six of 12 strategies contributed to increasing reach, including the use of videos, more than 11 hashtags, COVID-19 hashtags, mentions, and follow-for-follow strategies. This observational social media study identified dissemination strategies that significantly increased the reach of vaccine messages in a real-world competitive social media messaging environment. Engagement presented greater challenges. Results inform the planning and adaptation considerations necessary for transforming public health HPV vaccine interventions for social media environments, with unique considerations depending on the platform.
PubMed: 35966142
DOI: 10.3389/fdgth.2022.819228 -
Cellular & Molecular Immunology Jun 2019Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is recognized as a global health problem due to its increasing occurrence, challenging treatment, and persistent impacts on brain...
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is recognized as a global health problem due to its increasing occurrence, challenging treatment, and persistent impacts on brain pathophysiology. Neural cell death in patients with TBI swiftly causes inflammation in the injured brain areas, which is recognized as focal brain inflammation. Focal brain inflammation causes secondary brain injury by exacerbating brain edema and neuronal death, while also exerting divergent beneficial effects, such as sealing the damaged limitans and removing cellular debris. Recent evidence from patients with TBI and studies on animal models suggest that brain inflammation after TBI is not only restricted to the focal lesion but also disseminates to remote areas of the brain. The dissemination of inflammation has been detected within days after the primary injury and persists chronically. This state of inflammation may be related to remote complications of TBI in patients, such as hyperthermia and hypopituitarism, and may lead to progressive neurodegeneration, such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Future studies should focus on understanding the mechanisms that govern the initiation and propagation of brain inflammation after TBI and its impacts on post-trauma brain pathology.
Topics: Animals; Brain; Brain Injuries, Traumatic; Encephalitis; Free Radicals; Humans; Neurons; Neurotoxins
PubMed: 30846842
DOI: 10.1038/s41423-019-0213-5 -
Cancer Apr 2012The prospective surveillance model proposes a paradigm shift in the delivery of care for patients with breast cancer. The model is based on clinical research and... (Review)
Review
The prospective surveillance model proposes a paradigm shift in the delivery of care for patients with breast cancer. The model is based on clinical research and clinical practice experience that was reviewed and discussed at a multidisciplinary meeting. The model identifies critical physical sequelae of treatment as well as timeframes for identification of and surveillance for these issues. Although the model of ongoing assessment for physical impairment and early rehabilitative intervention creates a framework for care, broad support and active dissemination among a variety of stakeholders will be required to transform patient care. Translating research findings to transform practice often occurs on a protracted timeline. The authors sought participation from a variety of stakeholder representatives throughout the process of creating this model in an effort to ensure that it reflects the realities of the patient experience and care delivery, to incorporate their input regarding the construct and viability of the model, and to potentiate effective and efficient strategies for implementation. This article summarizes comments from stakeholder representatives concerning the prospective surveillance model for rehabilitation for women treated for breast cancer. Concerns addressed include the scope of impairments included in the model, the potential creation of barriers to exercise and participation in community exercise programs, and cost and feasibility issues. Stakeholder disseminations strategies are also presented. Overall, there is recognition by the stakeholder group that this model calls attention to important unmet needs and defines a crucial opportunity to improve care for breast cancer survivors.
Topics: Adult; Aged; American Cancer Society; Breast Neoplasms; Congresses as Topic; Evidence-Based Medicine; Female; Health Plan Implementation; Humans; Information Dissemination; Longitudinal Studies; Middle Aged; Models, Organizational; Patient Care Team; Prospective Studies; Quality of Health Care; United States
PubMed: 22488707
DOI: 10.1002/cncr.27470 -
Heritage & Society 2022This article explores the potential of social media in disseminating and communicating archaeological knowledge and the ways in which their impact on the public can be...
This article explores the potential of social media in disseminating and communicating archaeological knowledge and the ways in which their impact on the public can be enhanced through marketing plans. It examines the implementation of such a plan in the context of the Facebook page of the ERC Advanced Grant project "The sound of special places: exploring rock art soundscapes and the sacred" (acronym: Artsoundscapes). Using quantitative and qualitative data provided by the Facebook Insights altmetrics tool, the article evaluates the general performance of the Artsoundscapes page and measures the effectiveness of the marketing plan. It discusses the components of marketing plans with emphasis on a carefully designed content strategy that, in the case of the Artsoundscapes Facebook page, in only 19 months of existence has resulted in the organic development of an active online community of 757 fans and 787 followers from 45 countries. The marketing plan has contributed to raising awareness of the Artsoundscapes project and an emerging, highly specialized and little-known branch of archaeology - the archaeoacoustics of rock art sites. It rapidly and engagingly disseminates the project's activities and outcomes among both specialist and non-specialist audiences, and informs the non-specialist public about relevant advances in the multiple fields - rock art studies, acoustics, music archaeology and ethnomusicology - that intersect in it. The article concludes that social media are effective means for archaeologists and archaeological organizations and projects to reach various audiences, and that marketing plans significantly augment this process.
PubMed: 36866323
DOI: 10.1080/2159032X.2022.2098653 -
Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) Mar 2021Migratory wild birds acquire antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) bacteria from contaminated habitats and then act as reservoirs and potential spreaders of resistant elements...
Migratory wild birds acquire antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) bacteria from contaminated habitats and then act as reservoirs and potential spreaders of resistant elements through migration. However, the role of migratory wild birds as antimicrobial disseminators in the Arabian Peninsula desert, which represents a transit point for birds migrating all over Asia, Africa, and Europe not yet clear. Therefore, the present study objective was to determine antimicrobial-resistant bacteria in samples collected from migratory wild birds around Al-Asfar Lake, located in Al-Ahsa Oasis, Eastern Saudi Arabia, with a particular focus on virulence and resistance genes. Cloacal swabs were collected from 210 migratory wild birds represent four species around Al-Asfar. , , and spp. have been recovered from 90 (42.9%), 37 (17.6%), and 5 (2.4%) birds, respectively. Out of them, 19 (14.4%) were a mixed infection. All samples were subjected to AMR phenotypic characterization, and results revealed (14-41%) and (16-54%) of and spp. isolates were resistant to penicillins, sulfonamides, aminoglycoside, and tetracycline antibiotics. Multidrug-resistant (MDR) and spp. were identified in 13 (14.4%) and 7 (18.9%) isolates, respectively. However, none of the isolates were MDR. Of the 90 isolates, only 9 (10%) and 5 (5.6%) isolates showed the presence of and virulence-associated genes, respectively. However, both and genes were identified in four (4.4%) isolates. None of the isolates carried the and virulence-associated genes. The AMR associated genes , , , , , and were identified in 7 (7.8%), 5 (5.6%), 1 (1.1%), 8 (8.9%), 4 (4.4%), and 6 (6.7%) isolates, respectively. While the gene was not detected in any of the spp. isolates. Regarding migratory wild bird species, bacterial recovery, mixed infection, MDR, and AMR index were relatively higher in aquatic-associated species. Overall, the results showed that migratory wild birds around Al-Asfar Lake could act as a reservoir for AMR bacteria enabling them to have a potential role in maintaining, developing, and disseminating AMR bacteria. Furthermore, results highlight the importance of considering migratory wild birds when studying the ecology of AMR.
PubMed: 33807576
DOI: 10.3390/antibiotics10030260 -
Indian Journal of Urology : IJU :... 2021YouTube™ has grown into one of the largest disseminators of health care information. We assessed the quality of information on varicoceles and their treatment,...
INTRODUCTION
YouTube™ has grown into one of the largest disseminators of health care information. We assessed the quality of information on varicoceles and their treatment, available on YouTube™.
METHODS
Using a YouTube™ search query with the keyword "varicocele," the quality of the first 50, nonrepeat videos in English were assessed as a representative group for the topic. DISCERN and Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool for Audiovisual Materials (PEMAT-AV) standardized tools were utilized by three independent reviewers to grade the quality of these videos based on content, understandability, and actionability.
RESULTS
The average and median DISCERN score was 31.34 (±9.37) and 31 (interquartile range 25-35), respectively, indicating poor quality. The interrater reliability (IRR) scores ranged from 0.51 to 0.93, indicating fair to excellent reliability. The average PEMAT-AV understandability and actionability scores were 69.8% ±15.4% and 11.0% ±24.6%, respectively, indicating mostly understandable but poor actionability. The -test results showed that international videos scored higher without statistical significance in the DISCERN or PEMAT-AV scores ( = 0.18, 0.59, and 0.20).
CONCLUSIONS
The current quality of videos on YouTube™ on the topic of varicoceles is of poor quality due to a lack of a holistic approach in explaining the wide range of treatment options available. With the ease of access to produce and disseminate health information, there is a need to create high-quality videos on varicoceles that empower a patient to make an informed decision.
PubMed: 34759526
DOI: 10.4103/iju.iju_201_21