Researchers from University of Hawaii and University of Florida published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that argues that a biological account of human behavior, especially undesirable behavior, will benefit human welfare. This biological perspective can complement traditional psychological, anthropological, and economic perspectives on consumption, particularly with respect to the vital topic of self-control. The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled "Consumer Self-Control and the Biological Sciences: Implications for Marketing Stakeholders" and is authored by Yanmei Zheng and Joe Alba. Society's understanding of human ills is constantly evolving. Many ill-advised consumer behaviors are conventionally viewed through a non-biological ...

CLEVELAND--The combined effectiveness of three COVID-prevention strategies on college campuses--mask-wearing, social distancing, and routine testing--are as effective in preventing coronavirus infections as the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), according to a new study co-authored by a Case Western Reserve University researcher. The research, published in Annals of Internal Medicine, has immediate significance as college semesters are poised to start again--and as the distribution of approved vaccines lags behind goals. The study found that a combination of just two common measures--distancing and mandatory masks--prevents 87% of campus COVID-19 infections and costs only $170 per infection prevented. ...

New research from King's College London shows nearly half of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) staff are likely to meet the threshold for PTSD, severe anxiety or problem drinking during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results from a study of ICU healthcare workers, published today in Occupational Medicine, shows the stark impact of working in critical care during the COVID-10 pandemic. The researchers found poor mental health was common in many ICU clinicians although they were more pronounced in nurses than in doctors or other healthcare professionals. Lead author, Professor Neil Greenberg, from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), King's College London said: 'Our results show a substantial burden of mental health symptoms being reported by ICU staff towards the end ...

As schools prepare to re-open to all pupils in February, experts warn that UK government plans for mass testing risks spreading covid-19 more widely. Writing in The BMJ, Professor Jon Deeks and colleagues at the Royal Statistical Society argue that using the INNOVA rapid lateral flow tests to manage classroom outbreaks, without isolating close contacts, risks increasing disease spread and causing further disruption to children's education. Before Christmas, schools limited pupil mixing and activities, and isolated pupil groups at home once a covid-19 case was identified, they explain. This year the government is relying on the INNOVA rapid lateral flow tests to mass screen staff and pupils, and test close contacts ...

Crowdsourced Responses from Dermatologists on Twitter Found to be as Effective as Formal Telemedicine At the start of the pandemic, many doctors on the front lines turned to Twitter and other social media platforms to find guidance and solace directly from their peers. In early 2020, information on COVID-19 had yet to be studied and published in peer-reviewed journals or printed in medical textbooks. Since then, social media has been characterized as both a boon to medical communities seeking real time information and a major driver of misinformation on the virus and its spread. A new study from researchers at the ...

Mothers with multiple children report more fragmented sleep than mothers of a single child, but the number of children in a family doesn't seem to affect the quality of sleep for fathers, according to a study from McGill University. A total of 111 parents (54 couples and 3 mothers of single-parent families) participated in the study published in the Journal of Sleep Research led by McGill doctoral student Samantha Kenny under the supervision of Marie-Hélène Pennestri, Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology. Participants' ...

At the start of the pandemic, many doctors on the front lines turned to Twitter and other social media platforms to find guidance and solace directly from their peers. In early 2020, information on COVID-19 had yet to be studied and published in peer-reviewed journals or printed in medical textbooks. Since then, social media has been characterized as both a boon to medical communities seeking real time information and a major driver of misinformation on the virus and its spread. A new study from researchers at the University of Paris provides support for social media as a potentially useful ...

A study of biomass burning aerosols led by University of Wyoming researchers revealed that smoke from wildfires has more of a cooling effect on the atmosphere than computer models assume. "The study addresses the impact of wildfires on global climate, and we extensively used the NCAR-Wyoming supercomputer (Cheyenne)," says Shane Murphy, a UW associate professor of atmospheric science. "Also, the paper used observations from UW and other teams around the world to compare to the climate model results. The main conclusion of the work is that wildfire smoke is more cooling than current models assume." Murphy was a contributing author of a paper, titled "Biomass Burning Aerosols in Most Climate Models Are Too Absorbing," that was published ...

BOSTON - New research from Boston Medical Center finds that using clear, unambiguous language when recommending HPV vaccination both increases vaccine acceptance and increases conversation efficiency while preserving patient satisfaction. Published in Vaccine, the new research findings show that adolescents are nine times more likely to receive a vaccine when providers introduce the topic to parents with a simple statement like "your child is due for vaccines today." It also results in a shorter vaccine discussion. In this study, the acceptance of the HPV vaccine and the meningococcal vaccine were compared. The indicated ...

A recent statewide survey of Californians uncovered that 30% of Black adults and 13% of Hispanic adults felt that they have been judged or treated differently by a health care provider because of their race/ethnicity or language. One out of six Black and Latino Californians were more likely to report strong mistrust of their health care providers. Researchers at the Charles R. Drew University in Los Angeles analyzed data from more than 2,300 White, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic Black adults who asked to report on perceived discrimination due to race, ethnicity, language, income, and insurance status or type. Black and Hispanic adults reported higher rates ...

Traditional gendered patterns of child care persisted during the COVID-19 shutdown, with more than a third of couples relying on women to provide most or all of it, according to a study from University of Georgia researcher Kristen Shockley. Some previous research has found that typical familial patterns may get upended during crises, but that's not what Shockley and her colleagues found in the early months of the COVID-19 shutdown. "Most people have never undergone anything like this before, where all of a sudden they can't rely on their normal child care, and most people's work situation ...

North Carolina did not expand Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act, which continued to put many low-income women at risk for losing health care coverage post partum. The state did comply with ACA standards for simplifying Medicaid enrollment, automating the process and removing a stringent and often cumbersome financial assessment process. Analysis from researchers at Duke University found that these reforms enabled more low-income women to qualify for full Medicaid and reduced the number of women who instead qualified for more limited benefits under the state's ...

A rapid, evidence-based review summarizes the effectiveness of cloth masks in protecting health care clinicians from respiratory viral infections, such as COVID-19. Nine studies were included in the review, and all but one were conducted prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The only randomized trial of cloth face masks published at the time of this review compared the infection rates of influenza-like illness among groups of health care professionals who wore cloth masks, medical masks, or inconsistent mask use in the hospital setting. That study reported wide-ranging confidence intervals ...

Despite having some of the densest living spaces and the highest number of international visitors, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Beijing have utilized their respective primary health care systems to keep their COVID-19 cases and deaths relatively low. Researchers studied the primary health care systems in the three cities to identify features of each system that other cities can use as examples to prepare for and prevent deaths in future health crises. Wong et al write that all three cities have made use of primary care in performing public health surveillance and ...

Physical pain and social pain may be more closely related than previously thought. Social pain, which typically results from interpersonal rejection or abuse, has been viewed as a non-medical response to external factors. However, recent research suggests that some physical and social stress responses may arise because of shared processing in the brain. Long-term usage of opioid medications could perpetuate a cycle of experiencing both physical and social pain and may increase risk of addiction. The authors, both of whom prescribe opioid medications, caution, "We must recognize ...

Despite seeing gains in insurance coverage for preventive health services under the Affordable Care Act, the US has seen a declining rate of primary care visits over the past fifteen years. Are fewer individuals seeing primary care physicians? The authors of this study compared two factors that contribute to that decline to determine whether it was the number of primary care patients or the frequency of their clinical visits that contributed most to the overall decline. Over a fifteen year period from 2002 to 2017, both the number of unique patients seeing PCPs and the number of visits per patient declined. At the start of their analysis in 2002, most Americans saw a primary care physician about 4.3 times in a two-year span. By the end of the study in 2016, frequency ...

Patients are sometimes asked to share their personal health information for research purposes. Informed consent and trust are critical components in a patient's decision to participate in research. Researchers at the University of Florida conducted a three-arm randomized controlled trial to compare the effects on patient experiences of three electronic consent (e-consent) designs that asked them to share PHI for research purposes. Participants were randomized to a standard e-consent form (standard); an e-consent that contained standard information plus hyperlinks to additional interactive details (interactive); or an e-consent that contained standard information, interactive hyperlinks, and factual ...

URBANA, Ill. - Soil erosion is a major challenge in agricultural production. It affects soil quality and carries nutrient sediments that pollute waterways. While soil erosion is a naturally occurring process, agricultural activities such as conventional tilling exacerbate it. Farmers implementing no-till practices can significantly reduce soil erosion rates, a new University of Illinois study shows. Completely shifting to no-till would reduce soil loss and sediment yield by more than 70%, says Sanghyun Lee, doctoral student in the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at U of I and lead author on the study, published in Journal of Environmental Management. But even a partial change in tilling practices could have significant results, he adds. "If we ...

Harmful medical practices, like inappropriate prescribing of opioids and racial and income-based discrimination in clinical settings, can vary across medical practices and individuals. Patients may find that even common primary care health services, like getting a chest x-rays or a referral to a heart or lung specialist, can differ widely depending on your doctor or clinic location. These variations in medical practice can have serious consequences for the quality, equity and cost of one's health care; however, it's unclear whether these disparities can be attributed to individual differences, from one ...

Researchers at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) have developed a technique to more quickly analyze extensive data from Arctic ice sheets in order to gain insight and useful knowledge on patterns and trends. Over the years, vast amounts of data have been collected about the Arctic and Antarctic ice. These data are essential for scientists and policymakers seeking to understand climate change and the current trend of melting. Masoud Yari, research assistant professor, and Maryam Rahnemoonfar, associate professor of information systems, have utilized new AI technology to develop a fully automatic technique to analyze ice data, published in the Journal ...

Study published in the American Journal of Kidney Diseases (AJKD) projects that prevalence of patients receiving dialysis in China will increase from 384.4 patients per million (PPM) in 2017 to 629.7 PMP in 2025 with a predicted 874,373 patients receiving dialysis in 2025. The national prevalence of dialysis in China has not been well studied due to its large population and limited resources. Insurance claims data provide a unique opportunity to understand the burden of kidney failure and have been used to characterize dialysis patients in the ...

Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, in collaboration with Dutch scientists, have found that certain metabolites -- small molecules produced by the process of metabolism -- may be predictive indicators for persons at risk for recurrent major depressive disorder. The findings were published in the January 11, 2021 online issue of Translational Psychiatry. "This is evidence for a mitochondrial nexus at the heart of depression," said senior author Robert K. Naviaux, MD, PhD, professor of medicine, pediatrics and pathology at UC San Diego School of Medicine. "It's a small study, but it is the first to show the potential of using metabolic ...

New Rochelle, NY, January 12, 2021--The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is committed to removing unnecessary medical barriers to contraception use by people with certain characteristics or medical conditions. The CDC is celebrating the 10th anniversary of the release of its U.S. Medical Eligibility Criteria for Contraceptive Use (MEC), with an exclusive article published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Women's Health. Click here to read the article now. The CDC has updated the MEC recommendations over the past decade based on new evidence. It has collaborated with national partners to disseminate and implement the guidelines and has conducted surveys of health ...

The SARS-CoV-2 virus that is causing the COVID-19 pandemic is just one of many different viruses in the coronavirus family. Many of these are circulating in populations of animals like bats and have the potential to "jump" into the human population, just as SARS-CoV-2 did. Researchers in the laboratory of Pamela Björkman, the David Baltimore Professor of Biology and Bioengineering, are working on developing vaccines for a wide range of related coronaviruses, with the aim of preventing future pandemics. Now, led by graduate student Alex Cohen, a Caltech ...

Berkeley -- Each year, thousands of migratory mule deer and pronghorn antelope journey northwest from their winter homes in the Green River Basin, a grassland valley in western Wyoming, to their summer homes in the mountainous landscape near Grand Teton National Park. But to reach their destination, these ungulates must successfully navigate the more than 6,000 kilometers (3,728 miles) of fencing that crisscrosses the region. That's enough distance to span nearly twice the length of the U.S.-Mexico border. In a new study, wildlife biologists at the University of California, Berkeley, combined GPS location data of tagged mule deer and pronghorn with satellite imagery of ...