Core Elements of a State HAI/AR Program With Emphasis on Partnership Networks

In low-income and middle-income countries, such as those in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, the COVID-19 pandemic has had substantial implications for women's wellbeing. Policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted the gendered aspect of pandemics; however, addressing the gendered implications of the COVID-19 pandemic comprehensively and effectively requires a planetary health perspective that embraces systems thinking to inequalities. This Viewpoint is based on collective reflections from research done by the authors on COVID-19 responses by international and regional organisations, and national governments, in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa between June, 2020, and June, 2021. A range of international and regional actors have made important policy recommendations to address the gendered implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on women's health and wellbeing since the start of the pandemic. However, national-level policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have been partial and inconsistent with regards to gender in both sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, largely failing to recognise the multiple drivers of gendered health inequalities. This Viewpoint proposes that addressing the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on women in low-income and middle-income countries should adopt a systems thinking approach and be informed by the question of who is affected as opposed to who is infected. In adopting the systems thinking approach, responses will be more able to recognise and address the direct gendered effects of the pandemic and those that emerge indirectly through a combination of long-standing structural inequalities and gendered responses to the pandemic.

Tackling COVID-19 in the Eastern Mediterranean Region

Purpose Social conformity theory emphasizes normative pressure as a drive of collective behavior. However, how these dynamics operate within weak-tie networks on social media remains underexplored. Platform-specific affordances such as X’s (formerly Twitter) network structures may reshape these dynamics in public health communication. Using COVID-19 vaccine-related discussions on X (formerly Twitter), this study investigates how networked influence reconfigures the informational and normative social influence during health crises. Design/methodology/approach Integrating computational methods, Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling, sentiment analysis, and network analysis, this study analyzes 5.5 million tweets about COVID-19 vaccines, collected worldwide via the Twitter Academic API between November 3, 2021, and May 5, 2022, to examine how user roles (influencers vs. general users), tie strength, and content type (factual vs. opinion-based) shape retweet patterns. Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) was applied to uncover thematic structures in vaccine-related discussions, while TextBlob sentiment analysis quantified the subjectivity of tweets to differentiate factual from opinion-based content. Network analysis using iGraph identified influencers based on degree and betweenness centrality, enabling the classification of “authoritarians,” “accelerators,” and “connectors.” Findings Weak-tie connections drive information diffusion, with general users’ factual tweets shared more frequently than influencers’. Normative social influence from accelerators, connectors, or authoritarian accounts is constrained by X’s character limits and decentralized network structure. Opinion-based content, regardless of author status, receives fewer retweets, indicating users prioritize accuracy over subjective narratives. Practical implications Public health campaigns should prioritize concise, evidence-based messaging tailored to X’s decentralized networks. Leveraging general users as “fact-checking” nodes and minimizing opinion-laden content can amplify reach. Strategies to counter misinformation must account for platform-specific limitations on normative influence. Social implications The findings underscore how digital platforms democratize health communication by empowering non-expert users to shape discourse, while challenging top-down public health messaging. This duality highlights opportunities to bridge information gaps in underserved communities through weak-tie networks. Originality/value The first study to dissect social conformity mechanisms on X through a tripartite computational lens, revealing how platform affordances disrupt traditional hierarchies of influence. It redefines “influencer” roles in public health contexts, demonstrating that weak ties and factual content supersede normative pressure in driving engagement.

Pharmacists continue to protect communities during COVID-19

In December 2019, reports emerged of pneumonia clusters of unknown cause at health facilities in Wuhan, China. These cases were linked to a wet animal wholesale market in the region and, after extensive epidemiologic investigation, led to identification of a novel coronavirus (COVID-19). COVID-19 is among a family of viruses – called coronaviruses – that can affect both humans and animals (Zhu et al., 2020). Coronavirus infections are respiratory in nature and can range from the common cold with mild symptoms to more severe infections, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome and Middle East respiratory syndrome (Perlman, 2020; World Health Organization [WHO], 2020). The newly identified COVID-19 infection typically presents as fever, tiredness, fatigue, and dry cough (Huang et al., 2020). However, more severe symptoms such as dyspnoea, diarrhoea, pneumonia, and others have been reported. As of 9 March 2020, cases of COVID-19 have been reported in countries across the world. The global number of reported cases has surpassed 100,000 with almost 4,000 deaths (WHO, 2020). China remains the highest risk area but, clearly, COVID-19 is a global health problem. Nurses are central to COVID-19 prevention and response efforts. Nursing is the largest healthcare profession in the US and the world, with approximately 3.8 million nurses in the US and over 20 million nurses worldwide. Nurses are providing front-line care in the most patient-facing role to complex COVID-19 cases that require hospitalization. Individuals who have preexisting health vulnerabilities are at greatest risk for COVID-19 complications or mortality and nursing resources are critical to managing this population. Public health experts predict that healthcare and hospital resources will become even more urgently needed as COVID-19 spreads in communities (Jiang et al., 2020; Pan, Wang, & Huang, 2020). As one of the most trusted health professional groups, nurses also play a key role in providing public education on disease prevention and reducing the spread of misinformation around the outbreak. There has been widespread misinformation on how COVID-19 is transmitted, who is at risk of transmitting or receiving the virus and where outbreaks are occurring (Wen, Aston, Liu, & Ying, 2020). For example, in some cases, Chinese and other Asian individuals have been assumed to be at higher risk for being infected with COVID-19 simply because of their nationality or race, resulting in stigma and xenophobia (Wen et al., 2020). There has also been misinformation about appropriate use of face masks. Some individuals have assumed that they are protected from COVID-19 by wearing a face mask – even though evidence is mixed from studies of other viral infections – and may neglect more efficacious infection prevention measures (e.g., handwashing) while also limiting the availability of face masks for response professionals who need them (Cowling, Zhou, Ip, Leung, & Aiello, 2010; WHO, 2020). Such misinformation may be spread via traditional media, social media, or in communities and can interfere with public health response efforts. Because of the unique patient-facing nature of nursing work in community, outpatient, and acute care settings, there are occupational risks to providing care during the COVID-19 outbreak. It is essential that nurses are supported to protect themselves during the management of COVID-19 in clinical care with clear infection control protocols (standard, contact, and airborne) and adequate availability of personal protective equipment at their place of work, including/N95 respirators, masks, gowns, eye protection, face shields, and gloves (American Nurses Association [ANA], 2020). Healthcare facilities employing nurses must ensure consistent availability and use of hand hygiene supplies; provide updated information on screening, isolation, quarantine, and triage procedures based on guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or other appropriate public health agencies; and coordinate with local, state, or national outbreak management efforts (ANA, 2020). Healthcare leaders should closely monitor the well-being, occupational health, and safety of their clinical nursing staff. Nurses have a responsibility to stay home if they have travelled to areas that have declared states of emergency or contract COVID-19 in their work. Healthcare leaders must support and provide resources for nurses who are exposed to COVID-19 or experience other outbreak-related harm as a result of their work, even if nursing resources become strained. Despite these occupational risks and the immediate need for health system interventions to support nurses, nursing also has unique responsibilities in the COVID-19 outbreak. Nurses will continue to be at the front line of patient care in hospitals and closely involved with assessment and monitoring in outpatient and community settings. They must ensure that all patients receive individualized, high-quality care regardless of their infection status and participate in preparation for increased nursing and health system demand related to COVID-19. Nurses also must continue to provide education to patients and the public about the outbreak. This includes confronting misinformation, directing communities to reputable public health resources such as the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and promoting evidence-based infection prevention measures (Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, 2020; WHO, 2020). Leaders and educators in nursing should provide education to clinical nurses and support staff about current COVID-19 issues and risks specific to their practice area (e.g., paediatrics, maternal–infant health, nursing homes, schools, places of worship). This education should extend to nursing students, who may have additional considerations related to being in a campus environment. Finally, nurses should advocate for local, state, and national policy response to the COVID-19 outbreak and support local preparedness and prevention efforts (International Council of Nurses, 2020; National Nurses United, 2020). Particularly, there is a need for care coordination across public health departments, communities, and healthcare systems that nurses are ideally suited to providing. A global outbreak requires the active participation of the nursing workforce in clinical care, education and information sharing, public health, and policy. Nurses are already fully engaged in COVID-19 response and, with appropriate support, will be key players in ending the outbreak. No conflict of interest was declared by the authors in relation to the study itself. Note that M. Cynthia LOGSDON is a JAN editor but, in line with usual practice, this paper was edited by another editor. This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

The EU Response to COVID-19: From Reactive Policies to Strategic Decision-Making.

Heterogeneity and Interoperability in Local Public Health Information Systems.

Laboratory Industry Perspectives on the Role of Self-Collection and Self-Testing in Remote Care for Sexually Transmitted Infections: How Do We Bring These Services to Scale?

Background: Pakistan reported its first case of COVID-19 in February 2020 and joined other countries in activating a national emergency response following the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). Playing a vital role in the early phase of the country's response was the National Stop Transmission of Polio (NSTOP) program, a highly trained cadre of polio workers who ordinarily support polio eradication efforts in the country. Methods: We developed a reporting tool using Microsoft Excel that tracked the activities of NSTOP officers to support the COVID-19 response. All NSTOP officers submitted their activity reports fortnightly using this reporting tool. Each provincial NSTOP officer reviewed and compiled their respective officers' reports and sent them to the federal NSTOP Team. We present a summary of the reports for the period from 1 March 2020 to 31 July 2020. Results: A total of 71 officers of the NSTOP program supported various aspects of Pakistan's COVID-19 response, including coordination, detection and response activities, surveillance, quarantine/isolation management, training and orientation sessions for healthcare personnel, data analysis, community engagement, and risk communication. They successfully investigated 32,729 suspected COVID-19 cases, of which about one-third were confirmed cases, and facilitated the collection and dispatch of >57,000 samples from these cases. Conclusions: This report details NSTOP contributions to the early phase of the COVID-19 response in Pakistan, demonstrating the value of polio investments beyond eradicating the disease to encompass having a workforce that is ready to respond to emergent disease threats and outbreaks. Such a workforce could also play a role in strengthening the capacity of existing immunization systems to help improve routine vaccination coverage in resource-limited settings.

Two years after SARS-COV-2 was declared a public health emergency, global estimates of excess deaths from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation indicate that 18·2 million people died due to the pandemic by Dec 31, 2021—three times higher than official records suggest. 100 million people have been plunged into extreme poverty by the pandemic, according to World Bank estimates. While the true burden of COVID-19 is being unravelled, is a mental health crisis being unmasked? The pandemic has exposed long-standing gaps and a global underinvestment in mental health care and prevention, disproportionately affecting young people and women.

A call to action for anticoagulation stewardship

Australian scientists lobby for antimicrobial oversight body

Digital ethnography is proposed in this theoretical paper as a methodological innovation for investigating transpersonal care phenomena in contemporary public health contexts. The relevance of this research to public health is considered paramount, as the importance of holistic, spiritually integrated approaches to care that transcend traditional biomedical models is increasingly being recognized by healthcare systems globally. A new theoretical framework, termed the Digital Transpersonal Care Framework (DTCF), has been developed and is presented, which represents a significant departure from existing methodologies in public health research. The novelty of DTCF is found in its unique integration of three previously disconnected domains: transpersonal nursing theory, digital anthropological methods, and consciousness studies, through which an unprecedented approach to understanding spiritual dimensions of health in digital environments has been created. Unlike traditional ethnographic methods that are confined to physical spaces or existing digital health research that focuses primarily on technological functionality, the consciousness-based, spiritual aspects of healing relationships as they manifest in online environments are specifically addressed by DTCF. Building on Watson’s (2008) Transpersonal Caring Theory and recent developments in digital anthropology, it is argued that unique affordances for capturing the multidimensional nature of transpersonal experiences that are increasingly relevant to public health practice are offered by digital ethnography. Through systematic analysis of methodological literature and theoretical frameworks, a comprehensive approach has been developed that addresses three critical gaps in public health research. Firstly, the limitations of traditional ethnography in capturing transpersonal phenomena that are essential to holistic public health approaches are addressed. Secondly, the need for methodological tools that can investigate collective consciousness and spiritual dimensions of healing in digital spaces, which have become integral to modern healthcare delivery, is recognized. Thirdly, the absence of theoretical frameworks linking digital methods with transpersonal theory in ways that can inform public health policy and practice is identified. The theoretical contribution is found in the conceptualization of digital spaces as legitimate fields for transpersonal experiences and the proposal of specific methodological protocols for their investigation within public health contexts. Profound implications for public health practice are held by this framework, with new ways to understand and facilitate healing relationships in telehealth settings, online support communities, and digital mental health interventions being offered. The DTCF is found to be particularly useful for public health as evidence-based approaches to integrate spiritual care into digital health services are provided, the growing need for culturally sensitive healthcare delivery in diverse online populations is addressed, and methodological tools to evaluate the effectiveness of consciousness-based interventions in improving health outcomes across populations are offered.

Resource Depletion Risk for Medical Equipment: Embracing the Circular Economy.

COVID-19 is a global challenge that demands researchers, policy makers, and governments address multiple dimensions which go far beyond the implications of this pandemic for health and wellbeing. Just as the UN Sustainable Development Goals call for focus on the connections between development policy sectors, the pandemic has exposed the complex global interdependencies that underpin economies and highlighted fault lines in societal structures that perpetuate ethnic, economic, social, and gender inequalities.Here,wehighlightthepandemic’semerging potential consequences for achieving sustainable development with respect to the six global challenge areas we collectively address at the UK Research and Innovation’s Global Challenges Research Fund:1 food systems; education; cities and sustainable infrastructure; security, protracted conflict, refugee crises, and forced displacement; environmental resilience; and global health. As the immediate health consequences of the pandemic unfold and begin to be superseded by the impact of public health containment measures, we call for a refocusing of research and action not only to mitigate these impacts but to build sustainability and strengthened resilience into future recovery.