Researchers have come up with a computer model that mirrors the way misinformation spreads in real life. The work might provide insight on how to protect people from the current contagion of misinformation that threatens public health and the health of democracy. No, it’s not a virus. It’s the contagious spread of misinformation and disinformation…

A new strategy for modeling the spread of COVID-19 incorporates smartphone-captured data on people’s movements and shows promise for aiding development of optimal lockdown policies. Evidence shows that lockdowns are effective in mitigating the spread of COVID-19. However, they do come at a high economic cost, and in practice, not everybody follows government guidance on…

A new study captures the scope of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on public health: Many public health workers have been redeployed to COVID-related duties, leaving other critical public health issues with reduced or suspended services. That means investigation of other communicable diseases, food-related illness, public-health surveillance, chronic diseases and other critical services have suffered. The…

Researchers describe the improved mathematical methodology of an open source tool called Gerrychain, which can help observers detect gerrymandering in a voting district plan by creating an ensemble of alternate maps that also meet legal voting criteria. In an article in the Harvard Data Science Review, the researchers describe the improved mathematical methodology of an…

A study of 6,654 child care providers found that child masking was associated with a 13 percent to 14 percent reduced rate of program closure due to COVID-19 over the following year. The first-of-its-kind study of child masking, publishing Thursday in JAMA Network Open, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Medical Association, followed the experiences…

A new study of 1040 online participants from five western countries explores people’s response to the stresses of the escalating pandemic, finding more than 13 percent of the sample had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) related symptoms consistent with levels necessary to qualify for a clinical diagnosis. A new Flinders University study of 1040 online participants…

Pandemic-related anxiety, boredom, and irregular routines were cited as major drivers of increased nicotine and tobacco use during the initial COVID-19 ‘lockdown,’ according to new research. The study highlights ways that public health interventions and policies can better support quit attempts and harm reduction, both during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Between April-May 2020, the…

A multi-site study finds that seniors are more concerned with being infected with COVID-19 than the effects of social isolation. Researchers from five institutions, including UCLA, found that the older adults, who were already enrolled in ongoing studies of treatment resistant depression, also exhibited resilience to the stress of physical distancing and isolation. The findings…

New research finds that the differences between conservative and liberal responses to COVID-19 are mitigated when people perceive the virus itself to have agency — the ability to control its own actions and thus exert power over people. Conservatives are generally more sensitive to threats that are relatively high in agency, say researchers. Conservatives are…

Private well owners should test water quality annually, according to a recent study that revealed nitrate levels in shallow wells above US Environment Protection Act standards. «The changes we measured in the Great Bend Prairie Aquifer appear to be large relative to changes observed in a national study by the U.S. Geological Survey,» said Matthew…