Social Media Echo Chambers Spread Vaccine Misinformation
WHO has named vaccine hesitancy one of the greatest threats to global health. Nonetheless, some people are hesitant or refuse to get vaccinated because they do not trust vaccines and health authorities. A new research result from DTU, published in the journal PLOS One, shows that misinformation on social media contributes to this distrust and creates a false image of benefits and disadvantages concerning vaccines.
Read more ...
Open-Source Patient Model Tops Industry Standard
A newly developed open-source patient deterioration model is improving care at the University of Michigan's health system.
Now, a study published in the British Medical Journal demonstrates that it is effective at 12 other hospital centers around the United States, outperforming the accuracy of the widely used EPIC Deterioration Index by more than 21%.
Telehealth might be Best as a Supplement to Office Visits, not a Replacement
With the pandemic, there has been a rise in the use of virtual appointments for patients seeking health care. A new study by Tufts researchers, however, suggests that for many older and chronically ill patients, telehealth appointments may be most effective when they augment in-person health-care visits rather than fully replace them.
Read more ...
NFTs Offer New Method to Control Personal Health Information
NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, created using blockchain technology, first made a splash in the art world as a platform to buy and sell digital art backed by a digital contract. But could NFT digital contracts be useful in other marketplaces? A global, multidisciplinary team of scholars in ethics, law and informatics led by bioethicists at Baylor College of Medicine wrote one of the first commentaries on how this new emerging technology could be repurposed for the healthcare industry.
Read more ...
Researchers Develop Highly Accurate Modeling Tool to Predict COVID-19 Risk
As new coronavirus variants emerge and quickly spread around the globe, both the public and policymakers are faced with a quandary: maintaining a semblance of normality, while also minimizing infections. While digital contact tracing apps offered promise, the adoption rate has been low, due in part to privacy concerns.
Read more ...
More than 100,000 Unknown Viruses have been Discovered Using a New Computer Tool
Viruses are the largest known group of biological agents. Now, an international team of scientists with the participation of the Institute for Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology (IBMCP), a joint centre of the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), has taken an important step towards understanding their diversity.
Read more ...
App and Lab Kit can Turn Your Smartphone into a COVID-19 and Flu Virus Detection Test
In a potential game changer for COVID-19 pandemic control efforts, a new cell phone app and lab kit have transformed a smartphone into a COVID-19 / flu detection system. The detection system is among the most rapid, sensitive, affordable and scalable tests known - and can be readily adapted for other pathogens with pandemic potential including deadly variants of COVID and flu. It also provides a platform for inexpensive home-based testing.
Read more ...