New papers on Public health
121 new papers on public health in the last 7 days, within Medicine & health. These are the 50 Pipette rates most worth reading, with the main result in the authors' own words.
The best of the week
Nuclear Genome Amplification of Antibody VDJ Regions in Wastewater
Here, we report the successful amplification and sequencing of human immunoglobulin heavy and light chain variable regions from wastewater.
PreprintClaims a big stepThe Online Health Safety Gap: Consensus Alignment Does Not Imply Safety in Peer-to-Peer Health Narratives.
This paper identifies and empirically validates the Online Health Safety Gap, a structural misspecification in which medically accurate content can carry substantial health risk.
PreprintReal-world useContact without protection: high antenatal attendance, minimal hepatitis B testing in Nigerias mother-to-child prevention cascade -- how far from elimination?
Nigeria already reaches most mothers through antenatal care but rarely uses that contact to test for hepatitis B, and the universal birth dose is only half delivered.
PreprintReal-world useMortality and healthcare services in Pennsylvania state prisons following extreme ambient temperatures
Here, we show that among people imprisoned in Pennsylvania (2000-2023), both warmer and cooler temperatures were significantly associated with higher rates of mortality, transfers to outside medical facilities and prison infirmary admissions, relative to outcome-specific reference minimum threshold temperatures.
Peer-reviewed journalReal-world useEasy to readEconomic Loss due to Health Funding Cuts as Distributed Across Geospatial Units
We estimate that 60% of U.S. counties will experience over 100,000 due to NIH grant terminations and freezes, again more widespread than the 4% of counties containing affected institutions.
PreprintEasy to readA national-scale digital atlas of recorded care patterns across more than 1000 diagnostic categories using real-world health data: a retrospective observational study
Added value of this studyWe applied a previously clinically benchmarked concept-reduction workflow to longitudinal OMOP-mapped health data across 1080 ICD-10 diagnostic categories and three observation windows, producing 3240 diagnosis-window summaries from 509,856 individuals.
PreprintSocio-Spatial Patterns of Suicide Mortality in the United States
Our findings suggest that social networks can facilitate the diffusion of both harmful exposures and protective interventions.
Preprint with a published versionReal-world useAge trajectories of infant mortality among Palestinian refugees born in 2010-2020: evidence from electronic health records
ConclusionOur findings highlight the potential of electronic health records for mortality monitoring in forced displacement settings as they reveal consistent mortality trajectories by sex and gestational age, while identifying meaningful variation across refugee settings and subgroups.
PreprintReal-world useA national atlas of county-level decarceration mechanisms and their association with mortality across the United States
Of the four types, reduced pretrial detention and reduced prison admissions - the two front-end strategies - were associated with 3.4% (95% CI, 0.7-6.1) and 1.9% (95% CI, 0.2-3.5) lower all-cause mortality, respectively, in large central metropolitan counties.
PreprintReal-world useHigh-Throughput Observational Evidence Generation Using Linked Electronic Health Record and Claims Data
ConclusionsStandardized, high-throughput workflows can move evidence generation beyond fragmented individual studies toward comprehensive evidence packages.
PreprintReal-world useEffectiveness of a Community-Based Cervical Cancer Stigma Reduction Intervention on Cancer Stigma and Cervical Cancer Screening Uptake in Nepal: A Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial
Conclusions Compared with the control condition, participants allocated to a community-based multicomponent intervention designed to reduce cancer stigma had lower odds of elevated cancer stigma two months after the intervention and higher odds of cervical cancer screening by six months.
PreprintReal-world useECC-MR: an error-correcting-code framework for robust Mendelian randomization and pleiotropy decoding on correlated instruments
Here we present ECC-MR, an MR framework that brings ideas from error-correcting codes into causal inference: a parity-check matrix constructed from LD structure places the causal signal in its null space, so that pleiotropic effects become a decodable sparse error syndrome rather than a nuisance.
PreprintQuantifying CAHOOTS: Measuring a mobile crisis response program’s impact on police response through call diversion and prevention
Our findings provide evidence that MCRPs significantly reduce police response call volume through direct substitution and likely incident prevention.
Peer-reviewed journalReal-world useExamining the Appeal of Cigarette Filters: An Online Randomised Experiment Among Adults in Great Britain
SummaryRemoving cigarette filters reduced the appeal of cigarettes among the general population and people who smoke.
PreprintReal-world useEasy to readExamining the Appeal of Cigarette Filters: An Online Randomised Experiment Among Adults in Great Britain
SummaryRemoving cigarette filters reduced the appeal of cigarettes among the general population and people who smoke.
PreprintReal-world useEasy to readFederated learning in a regulator-audited secure processing environment: a multi-hospital deployment study
The principal contribution is a reusable governance and infrastructure model that separates assessment of system-level controls from study-specific evaluation of data, models, parameter exchanges, and outputs.
PreprintReal-world useTattooing and cervical cancer risk: an unexpected finding from a negative control analysis in the CRABAT cohort
Conclusions: Despite being selected as a negative control, elevated cervical cancer risk among tattooed women persisted even after comprehensive confounding adjustment.
PreprintMind the gap: emergent clinical risk at the interface of two individually safe AI systems in a multilingual ambient scribe
ConclusionsLow serious-error rates in individual layers did not preclude higher end-to-end note risk.
PreprintReal-world useNeuro-Symbolic AI for Automated Pathology Quality Measurement
The NSAI system's agreement with the adjudicated gold standard (Cohen's kappa = 0.95) matched or modestly exceeded that of the trained human abstractors measured against the same standard (kappa = 0.92), with particularly strong performance on Gastrointestinal Metaplasia (CAP 43).
PreprintReal-world useLong-term mortality rate changes and inverse patterns for pandemic and post-pandemic excess mortality
Post-pandemic deficits, especially in more vulnerable populations, may reflect pandemic deaths of people with modest life expectancy, paid off in 2024-2025.
PreprintPublic awareness of the hearing loss-dementia link and self-reported behavioral changes in middle- to older-aged Canadians
Awareness thus follows socioeconomic and demographic gradients, but these alone do not appear to ensure behavior change.
PreprintReal-world useEasy to readPilots and Flight Attendants Have the Highest Radiation-Related Cancer Mortality, Study Finds
This Medical News article discusses findings that pilots and flight attendants have a higher risk of death from radiation-related cancers than other professions and examines what the results may mean for occupational protections for aircrew.
Peer-reviewed journalBroad interestReal-world useEasy to readMultinational Public Opinion on Race, Ethnicity, and Algorithmic Reform in Medicine
Conclusions: In this diverse but non-representative multinational sample, respondents were comfortable with the use of race and ethnicity in clinical algorithms, although many did not feel represented by existing categories and were less comfortable with alternatives based on postal or ZIP codes.
PreprintReal-world useHOW SAFE IS EXERCISE? ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN MID-LIFE PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND FRACTURE IN UK BIOBANK: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY
ConclusionsHigher fracture risk was observed in individuals undertaking higher volumes of leisure-time physical activity, with the association largely driven by vigorous-intensity activity.
PreprintReal-world useSocial Isolation and All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality in the UK Biobank: The Modifying Role of Non-Commute Transportation Mode
ConclusionMixed transport, including a car, showed the greatest reduction in the association between SI and all-cause mortality.
PreprintReal-world useEvaluating agentic simulation for local public health estimation
These findings demonstrate that individually represented AI agents can aggregate into population-level patterns that retain measurable features of real-world health behavior across temporal and geographic transfer, while identifying calibration, distributional fidelity and subgroup performance as key challenges for generative population simulation.
PreprintDevelopment of a comprehensive database of markers of ultra-processing to identify ultra-processed food in the UK according to the Nova classification
The database is freely accessible for researchers to improve consistency in using the Nova classification in the UK.
PreprintReal-world usePrevalence of dementia among community-dwelling older adults in rural Uganda: findings from DEPEND Uganda (Dementia Epidemiology, unmet need and co-developing solutions in Uganda)
Dementia prevalence was 18.6%, and most cases were mild or very mild.
PreprintReal-world useDistinct workforce activation states among licensed US nurses outside nursing employment
ConclusionsThe licensed nonworking RN population is a stratified labor reserve.
PreprintSanitation barriers, lack of awareness and unaffordability affecting menstrual health management among urban low-income group, informal sector women workers: A study from Mumbai suburbs
(iv) Interpretation and conclusionsFor low-income women in the informal urban workforce, menstrual health challenges arise from gaps in knowledge, inadequate sanitation infrastructure and unaffordability of menstrual hygiene products.
PreprintReal-world useEasy to readMedical Service Use for Dental Problems in Australia: A National Cross-Sectional Study
ConclusionA significant proportion of Australians rely on medical services for dental problems, particularly those facing financial and geographic barriers to dental care.
PreprintReal-world useEasy to readWorsening pre-existing health conditions in U.S. adults with Long COVID
DiscussionWhile Long COVID literature often focuses on the development of new-onset long-term symptoms, more than 1 in 10 adults reported worsening of a pre-existing condition following COVID-19.
PreprintReal-world useEasy to readMedical Service Use for Dental Problems in Australia: A National Cross-Sectional Study
ConclusionA significant proportion of Australians rely on medical services for dental problems, particularly those facing financial and geographic barriers to dental care.
PreprintReal-world useEasy to readLived Experiences Following Sepsis: Burden, Challenges, and Care Needs - A Qualitative Study
The findings highlight the need to better recognise and respond to longer-term health needs following sepsis and to develop coordinated, accessible approaches to ongoing support in Ireland.
PreprintReal-world useEasy to readInternational trends in clozapine utilisation prevalence in adults, adolescents and older people: An observational study in 42 countries between 2015 and 2024
Conclusion and relevanceClozapine use increased modestly over the past decade but remained highly variable between countries.
PreprintReal-world useInternational trends in clozapine utilisation prevalence in adults, adolescents and older people: An observational study in 42 countries between 2015-2024
Conclusion and relevanceClozapine use increased modestly over the past decade but remained highly variable between countries.
PreprintReal-world useUnderstanding urgent blood-donor mobilisability: a cross-sectional online survey of digitally reachable adults in Ghana
Conclusions Digital reachability and stated donation willingness may overestimate the population pool available for emergency donation.
PreprintReal-world useCircadian syndrome and incident non-neoplastic digestive disease in middle-aged and older Chinese adults: a prospective cohort study
Interpretation: CircS is associated with incident non-neoplastic digestive disease, driven by its circadian-emotional rather than metabolic components.
PreprintReal-world useCollecting health narratives at scale: A multi-study evaluation of speech-to-text in health surveys
STT may enable population-scale collection of richer health narratives, provided implementation is tailored to the study population and research context.
PreprintReal-world useAn LLM-Based Auditing Framework for Targeted Quality Assurance in Cancer Registries
By directing review toward records most likely to contain discrepancies, the framework offers an efficient, auditable alternative to random QA sampling for cancer registries.
PreprintReal-world useBeyond Awareness: Factors Associated with Willingness to Participate in Living Kidney Donation
Willingness appeared to be shaped by personal exposure, altruistic motivation, donor safety concerns and financial considerations.
PreprintReal-world useEasy to readHigh stakes, low information, no roads: a qualitative evaluation of determinants of air ambulance utilization and decision making in rural Alaska
ConclusionAir ambulance use reflects clinical-logistical constraints rather than critical illness alone.
PreprintReal-world usePatterns of modifiable lifestyle, behavioural and health-related risk factors and their associations with incident dementia in UK Biobank
Compared to participants with zero or one risk factor, all classes were associated with dementia risk: 'multiple risk factors' (hazard ratio [HR] 2.38, 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.11-2.68), 'hearing loss and unhealthy lifestyle' (HR=1.37, 95% CI 1.22-1.55), 'sleep and psychosocial factors' (HR=1.34, 95% CI 1.20-1.49), 'poor cardiometabolic health' (HR=1.32, 95% CI 1.19-1.46), 'heavy drinking and unhealthy lifestyle' (HR=1.20, 95% CI 1.07-1.35), and 'vitamin D deficiency, sedentary and psychosocial factors' (HR=1.18, 95% CI 1.03-1.35).
PreprintReal-world useTesting the Feasibility of a Smartphone Application for Collecting Data on Occupational Violence Exposure Among Nurses and Midwives
ConclusionSmartphone-based EMA feasibly and acceptably captures contextually rich, near-real-time data on occupational violence, including the witnessed exposure and under-reporting that conventional systems miss.
PreprintReal-world useWhen Campus Feeds the Clock: How the University Food Environment Shapes the Circadian Rhythms of Undergraduate Students at the University of Medical Sciences, Ondo
ConclusionThe university food environment, particularly physical accessibility and food policy, significantly influences circadian eating patterns among undergraduate students.
PreprintReal-world useEvaluating the accessibility of exercise referral schemes to stroke survivors in England: A census of local authorities
However, stroke-specific services are very limited and there is substantial variation in scheme eligibility, capacity, costs, and referral pathways.
PreprintReal-world useEasy to readProtective Effects of Increased EHR-Mediated Information Sharing Within- and Between-Healthcare Teams on Patient Outcomes
These network measures showed both statistical and practical significance, suggesting that this modifiable dimension of teamwork-information sharing through the EHR-could reduce acute care utilization.
PreprintReal-world useEvaluating Nursing Performance During Heatwave Simulations: Protocol for a Repeated Measures Cross-Over Study
By providing a controlled methodological framework for assessing the effects of heat exposure on hospital nurses physiological, perceptual, and clinical performance, this study will provide empirical evidence on air temperature-related changes in nursing performance and physiological strain and the role of cooling interventions in modifying these responses.
PreprintReal-world useHigh-Dimensional Heterogeneity in Heat-Related Health Impacts Across Germany Districts.
Conclusion: There is substantial variation in heat susceptibility across and within districts in Germany.
PreprintIdentifying Family Relationships from Electronic Health Records: A Machine Learning Approach
ResultsThe models achieved precision of 0.92 to 1.00, recall of 0.97 to 1.00, and F1 scores of 0.94 to 1.00 across all relationship types (Mother-Child 0.97, Father-Child 0.98, Sibling-Sibling 0.98, Twin-Twin 1.00, Partner-Partner 0.94).
PreprintReal-world use