Publisher Health

Researchers from the Gulf Long-term Follow-up Study (GuLF STUDY) found that workers involved in cleaning up the nation’s largest oil spill were 60% more likely than those who did not work on the cleanup to be diagnosed with asthma or experience asthma symptoms one to three years after the spill.
This ongoing study, led by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health, is the largest study to look at the health of workers who responded to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
“This is the first study to ever look at specific chemicals from oil spills and link them to respiratory diseases,” said Dale Sandler, Ph.D., chief of the NIEHS Epidemiology Branch and lead researcher for the GuLF STUDY. “If you were an oil spill cleanup worker in the gulf experiencing wheezing or other asthma-like symptoms, it would be good to let your healthcare provider know you worked on the oil spill.”
The researchers analyzed data from 19,018 oil spill response and cleanup workers and another 5,585 people who had completed required safety training but did not work on cleanup. None of the participants had been diagnosed with asthma before the spill. The non-workers were considered an unexposed comparison group.
The researchers estimated worker’s exposures to specific oil spill chemicals. They then looked at the relationship between doctor diagnosed asthma or asthma-related symptoms and the types of jobs the cleanup workers held and the resulting exposure to total hydrocarbons. Researchers also assessed associations of outcomes with a subgroup of chemicals in crude oil, including benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene, and n-hexane (collectively known as BTEX-H). These chemicals are classified as hazardous air pollutants according to the U.S. Clean Air Act and are linked to other health effects in the GuLF STUDY.
Researchers found that the relative risk for asthma symptoms increased with increasing levels of exposure to individual BTEX-H chemicals as well as the BTEX-H mixture.
“The more a worker was exposed to these crude oil chemicals, including total hydrocarbons, the individual BTEX-H chemicals, and the BTEX-H mixture, the more likely they were to have asthma symptoms,” said Kaitlyn Lawrence, Ph.D., a staff scientist in the NIEHS Epidemiology Branch and lead author of the study published in Environmental International. She noted, “Exposure levels varied depending on the person’s clean-up jobs and how long they worked.”
Jobs varied from administrative support and environmental water sampling, to mopping up crude oil from aboard a sea vessel or shoreline vessel to decontaminating equipment or wildlife. (A breakdown of all participant jobs is available on GuLF STUDY website).
The paper reports that 983 (5%) of the cleanup workers reported asthma and asthma symptoms, while only 196 (3%) non-workers reported the asthma outcome. Workers that were involved in operating, maintaining, or refueling the heavy cleanup equipment had the highest incidence of asthma. For this study, asthma is defined as reporting a doctor’s diagnosis of asthma or, for never-smokers, self-reporting wheezing or whistling in the chest all or most of the time.
“Because the GuLF STUDY population is socioeconomically vulnerable, with less than half reporting access to medical care, we included non-doctor confirmed asthma cases to minimize any underreporting of true asthma cases in the population that would be missed due to lack of access to health care,” Sandler said.
The definition for asthma used in this study builds off an established definition used successfully as a clinical outcome in other large epidemiological studies.
The GuLF STUDY continues to follow the nearly 33,000 participants enrolled in the original study to monitor potential health outcomes and answer important public health questions. More information about the GuLF STUDY can be found at https://gulfstudy.nih.gov/en/index.html.

Published17 August 2022Shareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Family HandoutA woman orphaned when her parents died from HIV eight days apart has vowed to continue campaigning until everyone affected by the infected blood scandal have been compensated.Lauren Palmer’s father, a severe haemophiliac, received blood clotting product Factor VIII in the late 1970s, unaware it was contaminated.He tested positive for HIV and went on to infect his wife.Bristol student Ms Palmer said their deaths “devastated her life.”On Wednesday , the Government announced an interim compensation payment of £100,000 each for contaminated blood survivors and their partners.Ms Palmer, a make-up artist currently studying for a forensic science degree in Bristol, said the compensation is “a step forward”, but said there were many families being excluded from the payments.Now 39, she lost her parents Stephen and Barbara Palmer in August 1993, when she was nine years old.Image source, PA MediaShe said: “Factor VIII was supposed to prolong my father’s life, not take him and my mum prematurely.”I am doing this [campaigning] because it feels like a duty. I don’t want them to get away with this.”It’s been a long time getting to this stage. It [compensation] is a step in the right direction.”There are still a lot of bereaved families excluded, so there is more work for us to do until those families are included.”Losing both parents resulted in Ms Palmer enduring a “miserable childhood” after being separated from her half-brothers and sent to live with another family, she said.Why the NHS gave thousands HIV-contaminated bloodBlood-scandal orphan disappointed by government payoutsTwo month delay in telling patients they had HIV Kate Burt, chief executive of the Haemophilia Society, echoed Ms Palmer’s views, saying the “majority” of the bereaved are currently left with nothing.Image source, PA MediaMs Burt said: “This is a significant development.”However, the majority of the bereaved, including parents and the children of those who died, will receive nothing.”The contamination of blood products in the 1970s and 1980s resulted in an estimated 24,00 deaths of patients infected with HIV and hepatitis C.The catastrophe was labelled the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS, with new cases of HIV and hepatitis being diagnosed decades later.The Government said it intends to make payments to those who have been infected and bereaved partners in England by the end of October. The same payments will be made in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “While nothing can make up for the pain and suffering endured by those affected by this tragic injustice, we are taking action to do right by victims and those who have tragically lost their partners by making sure they receive these interim payments as quickly as possible.”Follow BBC West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: bristol@bbc.co.uk More on this storyInfected blood: ‘Money can’t quantify the suffering’Published17 August 2022Infected blood victims get £100,000 compensationPublished17 August 2022What is the infected blood scandal and how many people died?Published2 AprilParents and pupils kept in dark at infected blood schoolPublished26 June 2021Contaminated-blood orphan disappointed by paymentsPublished16 April 2021

Did you text Mom recently asking if you had been vaccinated against polio? So did we.Michelle Tynan, 32, texted her mother a question last week that had never crossed her mind before: Had she received the polio vaccine?“Yes you did!” her mother wrote back, sending a picture of her polio vaccination records and another, less pressing reminder: “Also, you got mail.”After health officials reported a case of polio in a New York suburb in July — the first detected in the United States in nearly a decade — and traces of the poliovirus circulating in New York City wastewater, some Americans felt the urge to take stock of their immunization history. If you, like Ms. Tynan — or this reporter for that matter — found yourself reaching out to parents and guardians inquiring about polio for the first time, you were not alone.The conversation was one played out across the United States.In Chicago, Tyler Edwards, 33, texted his mother a few times recently about his vaccine status. First it was to see if Mr. Edwards, who is gay, had received the smallpox vaccine, which has shown to provide some protection against monkeypox. (He had not.) He reached out again after the possible polio outbreaks, and she confirmed he had received that vaccine and sent him his old vaccine card as proof.“It went through my head like, I knew I had some vaccines but didn’t know for sure,” said Mr. Edwards, who has also received his monkeypox vaccine. “It was definitely a relief.”For Ms. Tynan, the confirmation came as a relief as well amid coronavirus worries. She had recently tested positive for the coronavirus and had to quarantine in her parents’ basement during a visit home two weeks ago to Olympia, Wash.For younger generations on edge after they thought they had figured out how to fend off one virus, the threat of more — like polio and monkeypox — has caught many off guard. Polio may be seared into the memories of many older Americans as a disease with devastating consequences like paralysis and death, but a successful vaccination campaign beginning in the 1950s largely eradicated polio in the United States, and with it, the virus retreated from the public consciousness.“Polio was once so feared here in the United States, but there’s a reason we don’t fear it anymore, and that’s because of vaccines,” said Dr. William Moss, director of the International Vaccine Access Center at Johns Hopkins University. “This is one of the challenges of vaccines — you prevent a disease and it goes away, and people kind of forget about the disease or why it went away.”The first polio epidemic in the United States began in Vermont in 1894, an outbreak that killed 18 people and left at least 58 paralyzed. Waves of outbreaks tore through the country over the next half-century, and peaked in 1952, when nearly 60,000 children were infected and more than 3,000 died. Many were paralyzed, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, who went on to start the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, later renamed March of Dimes. The organization sponsored vaccine trials and later, vaccination clinics across the country.In 1953, Dr. Jonas Salk introduced the first polio vaccine, a multiple-shot regimen spread out over the school year. By 1955, after the vaccine was licensed, images of Americans with polio in leg braces and wheelchairs were replaced with mass vaccination sites in school gyms. Even Elvis Presley posed for a photograph while getting the vaccine in New York City in 1956.Elvis Presley receiving a Salk polio vaccine shot in New York City on Oct. 28, 1956. AP Photo/FileFrom the 1960s to the 1990s, the United States pivoted to an oral polio vaccine, which was more easily administered through drops. The oral vaccine contained weakened live poliovirus. It is still considered safe and effective, but in very rare instances, the weakened virus from the vaccine can revert to a form that is transmissible to other people who are not vaccinated and can cause paralysis. As a result of the rare side effect, the United States pivoted back to the highly effective shot, which does not contain live virus.If you grew up in the United States, chances are you are vaccinated. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, all 50 states and the District of Columbia have state laws that require children entering child care or public schools to have certain vaccinations, including polio, diphtheria and tetanus. The C.D.C. now recommends a four-dose regimen for children.Still, after three years of managing their coronavirus status and taking precautions, many young people found themselves whispering aloud their unknown status on social media.Dr. Moss said adults who received vaccines decades ago should not be concerned that their vaccine is wearing off. The C.D.C. is considering whether or not to recommend a booster shot to high-risk individuals, Dr. Moss said, but for the time being, that applies only to people who come into regular contact with polio patients either in the United States or abroad.“In general, people should not worry,” he said. “People who have been fully vaccinated or received at least three doses of a polio vaccine are in general going to be protected and should not worry.”Dr. Moss’s children, who are in their 20s, have not reached out to check on their vaccination status, he said. But he has heard from family members who live near the New York suburb where the polio case in an unvaccinated person was found. His message to them was simple: No extra vaccinations are necessary, but they “shouldn’t drink the wastewater.”

Published1 hour agoSharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesMore than 4,000 UK victims of the infected blood scandal are to receive interim compensation of £100,000 each, the government has announced.It will be given to those whose health is failing after developing blood-borne viruses like hepatitis and HIV, as well as partners of people who have died.It is the first time compensation will be paid after decades of campaigning.Families welcomed the news but said there were many people, like bereaved parents, who would miss out.The payments will be made by the end of October in England. Those living in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will also receive the money.It comes after the chair of the public inquiry, Sir Brian Langstaff, said there was a compelling case to make payments quickly – and victims were on borrowed time because of failing health.Currently, victims and families get financial support payments – and for some these will have run into tens of thousands of pounds.But this is the first time the government has agreed to a compensation payment for things such as loss of earnings, care costs and other lifetime losses. The government said the compensation would be tax-free and not affect the support payments these people are receiving. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “While nothing can make up for the pain and suffering endured by those affected by this tragic injustice, we are taking action to do right by victims and those who have lost their partners.”This could be just the first stage of compensation payments as the inquiry is looking into whether more payouts should be paid to a greater number of people.Why the NHS gave thousands HIV-contaminated bloodThe woman who lost two husbands to the scandalThe secret in my blood’NHS’s worst-ever treatment disaster’The contaminated blood scandal has been called the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS.Thousands of NHS patients with haemophilia and other blood disorders became seriously ill after being given a new treatment called factor VIII or IX from the mid-1970s onwards.At the time the medication was imported from the US where it was made from the pooled blood plasma of thousands of paid donors, including some in high-risk groups, such as prisoners.If a single donor was infected with a blood-borne virus such as hepatitis or HIV then the whole batch of medication could be contaminated.Image source, Factor VIII/Marc marnieAn unknown number of UK patients were also exposed to hepatitis B or C though a blood transfusion after childbirth or hospital surgery. At least 2,400 people died after contracting HIV or hepatitis C through NHS treatments in the 1970s and 80s.A ‘significant development’Over the years, the government has put in place a number of schemes offering victims financial support without any admission of liability but, unlike in the Republic of Ireland and some other countries, compensation has never been paid to individuals or families affected.In July public inquiry chairman Sir Brian said individuals who currently qualify for financial support, including some bereaved partners of those killed, should now be offered interim compensation of £100,000 each.Final recommendations on compensation for a wider group of people are expected when the inquiry concludes next year.This video can not be playedTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.An independent study commissioned by the government, published last month, said victims should eventually be compensated for physical and social injury, the stigma of the disease, the impact on family and work life, and the cost of care. It recommended that partners, children, siblings and parents of those who had been infected should be eligible for payments too.If the inquiry and the government accept those proposals completely then it is possible the final bill could be more than £1bn.The recipients of the interim compensation payments are people who are already registered for financial support payments, but campaigners say there could be tens of thousands of others who have not yet come forward.Campaigner Sue Threakall, whose husband died in 1991 after contracting hepatitis B and HIV from contaminated blood, said she will continue to campaign for those left out of the compensation announcement.She said: “This is not just about money – it’s about recognition of people whose lives have been destroyed, young adults have grown up their whole life without their parents and they have not been recognised, and parents whose young children died in their arms…”We still have a huge swathe of people whose lives were destroyed and who have not had anything, so we will continue to fight for them.”Kate Burt, chief executive of the Haemophilia Society, said: “Finally, after nearly five decades the government has accepted it must pay compensation to those infected as a result of the contaminated blood scandal. “This is a significant development. However, the majority of the bereaved – including parents and the children of those who died – will receive nothing. “Steps must be taken now to set up a workable scheme which can deliver full compensation quickly and fairly to all those who suffered devastating loss because of this NHS treatment disaster.’Image source, PA MediaMore on this storyClarke defends flawed blood products advice28 July 2021Parents and pupils kept in dark at infected blood school26 June 2021Why the NHS gave thousands HIV-contaminated blood27 July 2021

A new study from the C.D.C. provides more details about a polio case detected in New York last month, and suggests the virus has been spreading elsewhere for a year.Polio may have been circulating widely for a year, and was present in New York’s wastewater as early as April, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.A wastewater sample collected in April in Orange County, N.Y., tested positive for the virus, pushing back the earliest known detection in the area. Officials had previously announced that the virus had been found in wastewater samples dating back to May in neighboring Rockland County.Changes in the genome of the virus suggest that this version has been circulating, somewhere in the world, for up to a year. Genetically similar versions of the virus were detected in Israel in March and in Britain in June.The new study provides more details from a continuing investigation into a polio case detected in New York last month, when officials announced that a young adult in Rockland County had become paralyzed from polio. It was the first report of polio in the United States since 2013.The findings are not altogether surprising, especially given that polio, which is highly contagious, often spreads without causing serious symptoms, said Joseph Eisenberg, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Michigan. “It can be circulating pretty extensively, being under the radar, before you actually start seeing paralysis cases,” he said.Officials had previously warned that the Rockland County patient was most likely the “tip of the iceberg.”In at least one of the county’s ZIP codes, just 37 percent of children under 24 months old have received three doses of the polio vaccine, according to the new study.The patient, who had not been vaccinated against polio, was hospitalized in June after developing symptoms including a fever, neck stiffness and lower-limb weakness, according to the study. Poliovirus, which spreads mainly through feces, was subsequently detected in the patient’s stool.Genomic sequencing revealed that the patient was infected with a version of the virus derived from the oral polio vaccine, which contains a weakened version of the virus. The oral vaccine has not been used in the United States since 2000. (American children are routinely immunized with an injected vaccine.)The oral vaccine is safe and effective, but people who receive it can shed the weakened virus in their stool for weeks, potentially infecting others. In communities with many unvaccinated people, the virus can keep circulating and eventually acquire enough mutations to again become dangerous.The discovery of the Rockland case prompted health experts to begin testing wastewater samples collected in the region, including those that had previously been collected for coronavirus surveillance.Officials had previously announced that they had found the virus in 20 wastewater samples collected in Rockland and Orange counties and that all had been genetically linked to the patient sample.The new study revealed that a 21st sample, collected in Orange County in April, also tested positive for the virus. However, there was not enough genomic information available to conclusively link it to the other samples.Two hundred and sixty wastewater samples from Rockland and Orange Counties had been tested as of Aug. 10, and polio was detected in 8 percent of them, according to the new study.“This suggests that there is a lot of community spread under the radar,” John Dennehy, a virologist and wastewater surveillance expert at Queens College, said in an email.The virus has also been found in six wastewater samples from New York City.The Rockland County patient was most likely exposed to polio one to three weeks before developing symptoms, the report noted. The patient did not travel abroad during this time, but did attend “a large gathering,” according to the study.Polio was detected in wastewater in Rockland County 25 days before the patient developed symptoms, suggesting that others had been previously infected.“The fact that we see it in the sewage 25 days before means that he’s probably not even the second case,” Dr. Eisenberg said.People who have received three doses of the inactivated polio vaccine are well protected against the virus, but the virus poses a potential danger to unvaccinated people, including children who are too young to be vaccinated.Nationally, polio vaccination rates are relatively high. But there are pockets of the country, including in New York, where vaccination rates are much lower, and the pandemic has set back childhood vaccination campaigns.As of July 2020, just 67 percent of Rockland County children younger than 24 months had received three doses of the polio vaccine, a figure that fell to 60 percent by this month, according to the study.After the Rockland County case was detected, the local Health Department began a vaccination campaign, but the number of shots given “was not sufficient to meaningfully increase” vaccination rates, the researchers reported.

Scientists studying a COVID-19 coronavirus enzyme at temperatures ranging from frosty to human-body warm discovered subtle structural shifts that offer clues about how the enzyme works. The findings, published in IUCrJ, the journal of the International Union of Crystallography, may inspire the design of new drugs to counteract COVID-19 — and possibly help head off future coronavirus pandemics.
“No previous study has looked at this important coronavirus enzyme at physiological (or body) temperature,” said Daniel Keedy, a structural biologist at the City University of New York (CUNY), who conducted the study in collaboration with scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Most structures to date come from frozen samples — far from the temperatures at which the molecules operate within living cells. “If you are working at physiological temperature, you should get a more realistic picture of what’s happening during an actual infection, because that’s where biology happens,” Keedy said.
In addition, he added, the team used temperature as a tool. “By turning that knob and seeing how the protein reacts, we can learn about its mechanics — how it physically works.
Deciphering Mpro’s structure
The protein in question is the main protease (Mpro) of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Like all proteases, it’s an enzyme that cuts other proteins. In many viral infections, including COVID-19, infected cells initially produce a virus’s functional proteins as one single connected protein chain. Proteases cut the pieces apart so the individual proteins can make and assemble themselves into new copies of the virus. Finding a drug to disable Mpro could put the brakes on COVID-19.

A novel peptide augments the brain’s natural mechanism to help prevent seizures and protect neurons in research models of both Alzheimer’s and epilepsy, scientists report.
The A1R-CT peptide the scientists developed, which can be administered through a nasal spray, holds promise for tamping down the uncontrolled electrical activity that is common after traumatic brain injury, stroke and which affects more than half of individuals with Alzheimer’s, says Dr. Qin Wang, neuropharmacologist and founding director of the Program for Alzheimer’s Therapeutics Discovery at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University.
The fact that it can be delivered through the nose indicates the peptide’s potential as a new seizure rescue medication as well, to help interrupt, for example, a seizure cluster, where disabling seizures are occurring back-to- back, says Wang, corresponding author of the study in the journal JCI Insight.
A1R-CT works by inhibiting neurabin, a protein that helps ensure that the protective mechanism itself, which tamps down the hyperexcitability of neurons that disrupts normal communication and produces seizures, doesn’t overdo, she says.
The peptide was named after the protective adenosine 1 receptor on the surface of neurons, which gets activated by adenosine, a chemical made mostly in the brain by neuron-supporting glial cells in response to hyperexcitability.
“This is a powerful receptor to then silence the neurons,” Wang says. This natural, calming relationship also is known to block electrical activity that can result in an irregular heartbeat. In fact, an injectable form of adenosine is used to treat a very high heart rate.

A light-based, food sanitization technique successfully eliminated multiple harmful pathogens in a new study carried out by Penn State researchers.
The pulsed light technique shows promise as an effective alternative to the chemical, heat and water-based antimicrobial technologies commonly used in the food industry — and could be applicable more generally in sanitized environments such as hospitals, water treatment facilities and pharmaceutical plants, according to the researchers.
The Centers for Disease Control estimates that upwards of nine million people get sick, 56,000 are hospitalized and 1,300 die annually in the U.S. due to foodborne diseases. Despite improvements in technology and increased regulation, food contamination remains a global problem with major public health implications, explained Ali Demirci, professor of agricultural and biological engineering at Penn State and member of the research team.
“Any improvements to prevent illness or save lives would be the best outcome of this research,” Demirci said. “We want to reduce the number of foodborne disease fatalities to zero.”
The study, recently published in the Journal of Food Engineering, revealed that targeted pulses of broad-spectrum light established a germicidal response in E. coli, Salmonella Typhimurium, Listeria monocytogenes, Bacillus cereus, Aspergillus niger spores and Penicillium roqueforti spores. The study also defined the spectrum and energy characteristics of pulsed light and found that ultraviolet radiation played an important role in the process.
The work was conducted in Demirci’s lab in collaboration with Ed Mills, associate professor of meat science, and Josh Cassar, former doctoral candidate in animal science, who has since graduated and works as a food safety consultant.

A rare genetic mutation could help explain why some families are more susceptible to diabetes and kidney failure, according to a new study led by University of Utah Health scientists. They say the discovery, made within multiple generations of a single family, could ultimately lead to better treatments for these conditions among a range of patients, no matter if they inherited the mutation or not.
“In the past, we’ve seen sporadic cases here and there, but this is the first family to demonstrate that this mutation can be inherited.” says Marcus Pezzolesi, Ph.D., M.P.H., the study’s corresponding author and a U of U Health associate professor of Internal Medicine in the Division of Nephrology. “What’s exciting is that there are therapies being developed that could improve this condition not just within this family but more broadly among a vast spectrum of patients with diabetes who are at risk of kidney disease.”
The study, conducted in collaboration with Joslin Diabetes Center and the Harvard Medical School in Boston, appears in NPJ Genomic Medicine.
Scientists have long known that people who are overweight or obese produce less adiponectin, a hormone that promotes insulin sensitivity, inhibits cell death, and decreases inflammation. As a result, these individuals are more prone to insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, kidney disease, and other life-threatening conditions.
To determine if there might be a genetic cause for diabetic kidney disease, Pezzolesi and colleagues analyzed DNA samples from 14 members of a single family collected at the Joslin Diabetes Center. In all, six of the family members across three generations had diabetes and end-stage kidney disease.
Digging deeper, the researchers used whole genome sequencing to isolate a defect in a gene called ADIPOQ, which encodes the adiponectin protein. The mutation shortens the gene, disrupting its ability to produce the hormone, which breaks down ceramides, a fatty substance similar to cholesterol. As a result, people with the mutation have higher levels of ceramides. Previous studies suggest that ceramides are a driving force behind the onset of type 2 diabetes and may contribute to diabetic kidney disease.
In laboratory studies of human embryonic kidney cells, the researchers found that just a single copy of this mutation was capable of decreasing adiponectin production. The researchers determined that this mutation occurs in about one in every 57,000 people.
Overall, carriers of the genetic mutation had about 85% less adiponectin and 30% higher levels of ceramides circulating in their blood relative to non-carriers within this same family, who were used as a control group.
“What’s most exciting for me is that this finding allows us to confirm decades of research in animals,” says William Holland, Ph.D., a co-corresponding author of the study and a U of U Health associate professor of Nutrition and Integrative Physiology. “The biological effects of adiponectin in regulating insulin sensitivity, glucose tolerance, and ceramide levels is well established in mice, and the current study shows that a loss of adiponectin impairs metabolic health in humans.”
Although the study was conducted in a single family, Holland says, its findings could have broad implications for diagnoses and treatment of these conditions in many people. “We can use these findings as a starting point for the development of personalized medicines that mimic the beneficial effects of adiponectin and diminishes the risk of diabetes and kidney disease,” he says.
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Countries with greater progress toward universal health coverage (UHC) had smaller declines in childhood vaccination coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study publishing August 16 in open-access journal PLOS Medicine by Yesim Tozan of New York University’s School of Global Public Health, USA, and colleagues.
Many previous studies have indicated that UHC strategies improve health service coverage, utilization and outcomes, and result in improvements in population health. However, a robust quantitative assessment of the effects of UHC on health system performance and outcomes has been challenging, since many systems-wide contextual factors confound the relationship.
In the new study, researchers used the COVID-19 pandemic as a natural experiment to compare differences in childhood immunization coverage based on countries’ progress toward UHC. Immunization data were derived from the WHO/UNICEF Joint Estimates of National Immunization Coverage dataset, which includes information on 195 countries and 14 childhood vaccines between 1997 and 2020. The 2019 UHC Service Coverage Index (UHC SCI), a measure that represents indicators of coverage for a range of health services across the lifespan, was used to divide countries into a “high UHC index” group and the rest.
The researchers found that countries with a high UHC index were associated with a 2.7% smaller decline in childhood immunization coverage during 2020 compared to countries with a lower UHC index, after adjusting for potential confounders (95% CI 0.75-4.65, p=0.007). Pre-pandemic, countries with a high UHC index had an average childhood immunization coverage rate of 92.7% whereas those with a lower UHC index had a coverage rate of 86.2%. During the pandemic year of 2020, countries with a high UHC index had a coverage rate of 91.9% while those with a lower UHC index had a coverage rate of 81.7%.
“Our findings strongly suggest that policymakers should continue to advocate for policies aimed at achieving universal health coverage in coming years,” the authors say. “This study also sets the stage for future research in understanding the synergistic impact of investments in global health security and universal health coverage strategies on countries’ health system resilience.”
“The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the delivery of essential health services across countries worldwide,” Tozan adds. “This study provided the much- needed quantitative evidence of the protective effects of universal health coverage in times of public health crises, underpinning the policy recommendations for sustained political commitment and investments for universal health coverage to build resilient health systems.”
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