The aim of this study is to explore the feasibility and acceptability of teledentistry as a vehicle that provides enhanced delivery of oral care for the people who need special care (PNSC).

Between January 2018 and September 2020, PNSC who were admitted in the study were either waiting for a follow-up (F) appointment or on a waiting list. An examination via video call was carried out for initial examination (IE) and F purposes. The virtual examination was scored by the clinician who performed the examinations. The experience of the participants was evaluated with a satisfaction questionnaire.

Forty PNSC (26 females, 14 males) between ages 7 and 48 years (21.17 ± 10.62) participated in the study. According to the clinician ratings, the accuracy of the examination was rated as the lowest. The F group had higher scores when compared to the IE group regarding clinician rating. No significant differences were found in terms of the scoring of the clinician and patient/parent satisfaction regarding cooperation status and type of examination (P ≥ 0.05).

Through adequate adaptation of the technology into clinical practice and overcoming the barriers for wider implementation, the teledentistry approach could be a reliable and feasible alternative in triaging, treatment planning, and F purposes for PNSC.

We investigated the extent of delays in the response time of emergency medical services (EMS) as an impact of mass casualty incidences (MCIs) in the same area.

We defined an MCI case as an event that resulted in 6 or more patients being transported by EMS, and prehospital response time as the time from the call to arrival at the scene. We matched patients before and after MCIs by dividing them into categories of 3 hours before, 0-1 hour after, 1-2 hours after, and 2-3 hours after the MCIs. We compared prehospital response times using multiple linear regression.

A total of 33,276 EMS-treated patients were matched. The prehospital response time for the category of 3 hours before the MCIs was 8.8 minutes (SD: 8.2), treated as the reference, whereas that for the category of 0-1 hour after the MCI was 11.3 minutes (P<0.01). The multiple linear regression analysis revealed that prehospital response time increased by 2.5 minutes (95% CI: 2.3-2.8) during the first hour and by 0.3 minutes (95% CI: 0.1-0.6) during the second hour after MCIs.

There were significant delays in the prehospital response time for emergency patients after MCIs, and it lasted for 2 hours as the spillover effect. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;12:94–100)

In January 2017, Washington, DC, hosted the 58th United States presidential inauguration. The DC Department of Health leveraged multiple health surveillance approaches, including syndromic surveillance (human and animal) and medical aid station–based patient tracking, to detect disease and injury associated with this mass gathering.

Patient data were collected from a regional syndromic surveillance system, medical aid stations, and an internet-based emergency department reporting system. Animal health data were collected from DC veterinary facilities.

Of 174 703 chief complaints from human syndromic data, there were 6 inauguration-related alerts. Inauguration attendees who visited aid stations (n = 162) and emergency departments (n = 180) most commonly reported feeling faint/dizzy (n = 29; 17.9%) and pain/cramps (n = 34;18.9%). In animals, of 533 clinical signs reported, most were gastrointestinal (n = 237; 44.5%) and occurred in canines (n = 374; 70.2%). Ten animals that presented dead on arrival were investigated; no significant threats were identified.

Use of multiple surveillance systems allowed for near-real-time detection and monitoring of disease and injury syndromes in humans and domestic animals potentially associated with inaugural events and in local health care systems.

The aim of this study is to describe the risk factors of injured children’s posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in China and provide the scientific data for PTSD prevention and control in children.

Electronic databases, including Medline, Science Direct, Google Scholar, and CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure), were searched for articles published on or before October 30, 2018, searching for the words, “PTSD,” “child”/“children,” “injury”/“injuries,” and “China”/“Chinese.” Forty-seven articles met the inclusion criteria and were meta-analyzed using random-effect models.

The total sample size in our meta-analysis was 65 298, and there were 13 402 children diagnosed with PTSD. The prevalence of PTSD after suffering from injury was 20.52% (95% CI = 17%–23%). PTSD occurrence was higher in girls than boys (24.61% vs 19.36%, P < 0.001). The PTSD rate for students was 51.82%, 37.12%, and 14.02% in senior, junior high school children, and primary school student, respectively. PTSD prevalence was 58.93% in rural children and higher than the urban children (57.36%). The prevalence of PTSD in ethnic minority children was significantly higher than that of Han Chinese children (35.38% vs 13.50%).

PTSD in injured children is significantly higher in girls, senior high school children, in rural areas, and in ethnic minority children. PTSD prevention and control should be focused on these 4 subgroups.

This study explores how social networks for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) are differentiated by regions.

This study employs a social network analysis for Twitter in New York and California.

National key players play an important role in New York, whereas regional key players exert a significant impact on California. Some key players, such as the US President, play an essential role in both New York and California. Hispanic key players play a crucial role in California. Each group is more likely to show communication networks within groups in New York, whereas it is more apt to exhibit communication networks across groups in California. Government players play a different role in social networks according to regions.

Governments should understand how social networks for COVID-19 are differentiated by regions to control the ongoing pandemic effectively.

The aim of this study was to pilot test the Household Emergency Preparedness Instrument (HEPI) with a diverse sample, allowing for assessment of reliability and validity of the instrument. The HEPI is an international, all-hazards questionnaire created to measure disaster preparedness of households, which results in data that can be used to enhance health promotion/disease prevention for individuals and promote resilience for communities.

A cross-sectional study of faculty, staff, and students (N = 284) was completed to perform factor analysis to establish the HEPI’s construct validity and compare preparedness across groups.

The factor analysis revealed 2 dimensions of general preparedness, explaining 35% of the sample variance (Cronbach’s α = 0.89): preparedness actions and planning (α = 0.86) and disaster supplies and resources (α = 0.80). This factor analysis resulted in the revision of the subscaling of HEPI questions. Consistent with previous studies, faculty/staff, older age, higher income, and those with previous disaster experience were more prepared. The mean score was 15.28 out of 40 points.

The HEPI is easy to administer and explains an acceptable amount of variance. The reliability was strong in this assessment, particularly for a pilot test. Construct, criterion, face, and content validity support the adequacy of the HEPI to capture essentials of household emergency preparedness.

Researchers have developed numerous indices to identify vulnerable sub-populations. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) is the most common and highly serviceable, but it has some temporal limitations considering that some variables used in calculating the CDC-SVI were not available before 1980. Changes in societal composition over time can impact social vulnerability. This study defines an alternate, but similar, index that could serve as a surrogate for the CDC-SVI without the temporal limitations.

An inventory analysis of the historical census data (1960-2018) was used to develop a Modified SVI that allows for historic analyses. To consider the chronic effect of social vulnerabilities, a longitudinal SVI was introduced to elucidate how a community’s multidimensional experiences exacerbate vulnerability to disaster events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. We use Harris County, Texas, in this case study to examine how the Modified SVI performs against the original CDC-SVI.

This Modified SVI was used to generate historical maps, find temporal patterns, and inform a longitudinal SVI measure. The results showed a good agreement among the developed indices and the CDC-SVI. We also observed satisfactory performance in identifying the areas that are most vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Modified SVI overcomes temporal limitations associated with the CDC-SVI, and the longitudinal SVI captures a community’s multidimensional experiences that exacerbate a community’s vulnerability to disaster events over time.

In 2022, Pakistan witnessed unprecedented flooding, submerging one-third of the country under-water, ruining millions of houses, taking lives, afflicted injuries, and displacing scores of people. Our study documents not only the public health problems that have arisen due to this natural calamity but also the state of health systems’ response.

We conducted a qualitative study asking key questions around prevalent health problems, health-care seeking, government’s response, resource mobilization, and roadmap for the future. We purposively selected 16 key frontline health workers for in-depth interviews.

Waterborne and infectious diseases were rampant posing huge public health challenges. Disaster mitigation efforts and relief operations were delayed and not at scale to cover the entire affected population. Moreover, a weak economy, poverty, and insufficient livelihoods compounded the tribulations of floods. Issues of leadership and governance at state level resulted in disorganized efforts and response.

Pakistan is famous for its philanthropy; however, lack of transparency and accountability, the actual benefits seldom reach the beneficiaries. Such climatic disasters necessitate a more holistic approach and a greater responsiveness of the health system. In addition to health services, the state must respond to financial, social, and infrastructural needs of the people suffering from the calamity.

Literature investigating the change in psychological problems of the health care workers (HCWs) throughout the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is lacking. We aimed at comparing the psychological problems and attitudes toward work among HCWs over two waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in India.

A survey was conducted involving HCWs (n = 305, first wave, 2020; n = 325, second wave, 2021). Participants’ demographic and professional and psychological characteristics (using attitude toward COVID-19 questionnaire [ATCQ]; Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale – 21 Items and impact of event scale – 22) were recorded. The unpaired t-test/chi-squared test was used for comparison.

Significant improvements (χ2(1) = 7.3 to 45.6, P < 0.05) in level of depression (42.2% vs 9.6%), anxiety (41.3% vs 16.3%), stress (30.1% vs 6.7%), event-related stress symptoms (31.2% vs 27%), work-related stress (89.8% vs 76.8%), and stigma (25.9% vs 22.8, though marginally significant) were found among the participants of the second wave (vs first wave). However, on subgroup analysis, allied-HCWs (housekeeping staff and security personnel) reported lesser concerns over the domains of the ATCQ vis-a-viz frontline-HCWs (doctors and nurses).

This improvement could be attributed to greater awareness about the illness, better coping skills, vaccination, and so forth; however, more research is warranted to investigate these determinants.

Vaccine hesitancy impacts the ability to cope with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) effectively in the United States. It is important for health organizations to increase vaccine acceptance. Addressing this issue, this study aimed to predict citizens’ acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine through a synthetic approach of public segmentation including cross-situational and situational variables. Controlling for demographics, we examined institutional trust, negative attitudes toward, and low levels of knowledge about vaccines (ie, lacuna public characteristics), and fear of COVID-19 during the pandemic. Our study provides a useful framework for public segmentation and contributes to risk and health campaigns by identifying significant predictors of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance.

We conducted an online survey on October 10, 2020 (N = 499), and performed hierarchical regression analyses to predict citizens’ COVID-19 vaccine acceptance.

This study demonstrated that trust in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and federal government, vaccine attitude, problem recognition, constraint recognition, involvement recognition, and fear positively predicted COVID-19 vaccine acceptance.

This study outlines a useful synthetic public segmentation framework and extends the concept of lacuna public to the pandemic context, helping to predict vaccine acceptance. Importantly, the findings could be useful in designing health campaign messages.