Misinformation and disinformation regarding COVID-19 and vaccination against it may be contributing to vaccine hesitancy. Social media outlets have reportedly made efforts to limit false information ...yet untruths related to COVID-19 persist online. The purpose of this study was to describe the content on COVID-19 vaccination on TikTok, an emerging social media platform. One-hundred trending videos were identified from the hashtag #covidvaccine and were coded for content. Collectively, these videos garnered over 35 million views. The coding category with the highest number of videos was "Discouraged a Vaccine" (n = 38), followed by "Encouraged a Vaccine" (n = 36). While only 36 videos encouraged a vaccine, these videos garnered over 50% of the total cumulative views and just under 50% of the total likes; the 38 videos that discouraged a vaccine garnered 39.6% of the total cumulative views, 44.3% of likes, and 47.4% of comments. Of the 38 videos discouraging the vaccine, 25 (65.79%) showed a parody of an adverse reaction and, collectively, received 71.07% of the total views among videos in this category. Twenty-two of these 38 videos (57.89%) falsely conveyed that a vaccine was available, as they were not at the time of the study. Anti-vaccination messaging may undermine efforts to ensure widespread uptake of the various COVID-19 vaccines, particularly for young people who are more likely than other age cohorts to use TikTok.
Diabetes is a chronic disease that requires lifelong management and care, affecting around 422 million people worldwide and roughly 37 million in the United States. Patients newly diagnosed with ...diabetes must work with health care providers to formulate a management plan, including lifestyle modifications and regular office visits, to improve metabolic control, prevent or delay complications, optimize quality of life, and promote well-being.
Our aim is to investigate one component of system-wide access to timely health care for people with diabetes in New York City (NYC), namely the length of time for someone with newly diagnosed diabetes to obtain an appointment with 3 diabetes care specialists: a cardiologist, an endocrinologist, and an ophthalmologist, respectively.
We contacted the offices of 3 different kinds of specialists: cardiologists, endocrinologists, and ophthalmologists, by telephone, for this descriptive cross-sectional study, to determine the number of days required to schedule an appointment for a new patient with diabetes. The sampling frame included all specialists affiliated with any private or public hospital in NYC. The number of days to obtain an appointment with each specialist was documented, along with "time on hold" when attempting to schedule an appointment and the presence of online booking capabilities.
Of the 1639 unique physicians affiliated with (private and public) hospitals in the 3 subspecialties, 1032 (cardiologists, endocrinologists, and ophthalmologists) were in active practice and did not require a referral. The mean wait time for scheduling an appointment was 36 (SD 36.4; IQR 12-51.5) days for cardiologists; 82 (SD 47; IQR 56-101) days for endocrinologists; and 50.4 (SD 56; IQR 10-72) days for ophthalmologists. The median wait time was 27 days for cardiologists, 72 days for endocrinologists, and 30 days for ophthalmologists. The mean time on hold while attempting to schedule an appointment with these specialists was 2.6 (SD 5.5) minutes for cardiologists, 5.4 (SD 4.3) minutes for endocrinologists, and 3.2 (SD 4.8) minutes for ophthalmologists, respectively. Over 46% (158/341) of cardiologists enabled patients to schedule an appointment on the web, and over 55% (128/228) of endocrinologists enabled patients to schedule an appointment on the web. In contrast, only approximately 25% (117/463) of ophthalmologists offered web-based appointment scheduling options.
The results indicate considerable variation in wait times between and within the 3 specialties examined for a new patient in NYC. Given the paucity of research on wait times for newly diagnosed people with diabetes to obtain an appointment with different specialists, this study provides preliminary estimates that can serve as an initial reference. Additional research is needed to document the extent to which wait times are associated with complications and the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of people served by different providers.
Shortly after the first case reports in 2019, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. Early messages from trusted experts, which later proved to be inadequate or incorrect, highlight the need for continual ...adjustment of messages to the public as scientific knowledge evolves. During this time, social media exploded with greatly sought-after information, some of which was misinformation based on incomplete or incorrect facts or disinformation purposefully spread to advance a specific agenda. Because of the nature of social media, information, whether accurate or not at the time posted, lives on and remains accessible to the public even when its usefulness has been discredited. While the impact of mis/disinformation on COVID-19 risk-reducing behaviors is debatable, it is clear that social media has played a significant role in both extending the reach of COVID-19-related falsehoods and promoting evidence-based content. Over the last decade, social media has become a dominant source of information that consumers turn to for health information. A great deal of misinformation and disinformation has reached large numbers of social media users, which points to a need for the agencies of the US Public Health Service to create communications to convey accurate and current information and appeals that will actually be viewed. This viewpoint highlights the challenges, risks, and potential benefits that social media present in mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic.
Micromobility vehicles (MMVs) have become increasingly popular, particularly in urban areas where infrastructure has improved in recent years to facilitate their use. The purpose of this study was to ...observe protected bike lanes in 10 zones of Manhattan, NYC to: (1) describe the MMVs in bike lanes by type, phone and helmet use; and (2) document MMV users’ responses to obstructions. Approximately 1 in 4 of all riders (260/998) were wearing a helmet. Fewer than 2% were observed using a phone while moving. Fewer than 9% of Citi Bike users were wearing a helmet. In contrast, over one-third of non-Citi Bike users were wearing a helmet (228 of 670, 34.03%). This difference was determined to be significant by a chi-squared test (a = 0.05) with a p-value less than 0.0001. Of the 988 MMVs observed in this study, 398 (40.28%) were motorized and 590 (59.72%) were non-motorized. A similar proportion of users of motorized riders versus non-motorized vehicles were wearing a helmet (28.14%, 112/398 versus 24.41%, 144/590). A total of 232 riders (23.50%) encountered an obstruction in their bike lane. Of these obstructions in a bike lane, 82.33% (191/232) were a car/vehicle and 17.67% (41/232) was garbage. A large majority of riders (87.93%) reacted by riding into the traffic lane. These findings suggest that further research and local education, enforcement, and legislative efforts are needed to examine and implement best practices in the safe operation of MMVs, decreasing bike lane obstructions, promoting helmet use, and raising awareness of MMV legislation.
This study examined 100 widely viewed YouTube videos on COVID-19 vaccination. Information such as length, format, upload source, content, and cumulative views was coded. As of April 6, 2020, the ...videos were viewed >33 million times. Almost 75% were uploaded by news sources (garnering >20 million views). While only 16% were uploaded by consumers, these videos garnered over 25% of cumulative views (n = 8,581,186 views). The majority of videos mentioned the vaccine manufacturing process (61.0%) and 45.0% speculated on the amount of time needed to have a vaccine ready for use, which most often was thought to be 1-2 years. Even once the biological and technical aspects of vaccine development and manufacturing are accomplished, the benefits conferred on population health will also depend on public willingness to be vaccinated. Ongoing tracking of YouTube is needed to identify what is communicated about vaccines for COVID-19. To the extent that public health officials learn how to create videos about the safety and effectiveness of a COVID-19 vaccine, which attract viewers, this could help increase awareness and interest about vaccination and help individuals make an informed decision about vaccine uptake.
•This ESMO Guideline provides key recommendations on the role of PROMs during the care of patients with cancer.•It covers the use of PROMs in patients with cancer from the start of active treatment ...during follow-up and at the end of life.•Recommendations are based on available scientific evidence and the authors’ collective expert consensus.•Authorship includes a multidisciplinary group of experts from Europe, North America, Asia and Australia.
Because COVID-19 and other emerging infectious diseases are likely to play an increasingly important role in shaping American and global society in years to come, there is a need to prepare young ...people to make informed decisions in this changing global context. One way to do so is teaching and learning about basic principles of epidemiology in secondary schools. Improved understanding about the agent of infection, mechanisms of transmission, factors that increase or decrease susceptibility, place variation and environmental factors that facilitate or hinder transmission, reservoirs of infection (where the agent lives and multiplies), and when the disease is more or less likely to occur comprise the main facts about an infectious disease relevant to prevention and control. Improved understanding of these basic concepts could help future generations make informed decisions in a changing global context with emerging infectious diseases and a plethora of widely disseminated misinformation and disinformation. This viewpoint considers why learning about epidemiology in secondary school would benefit population health using COVID-19 as an illustration.
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