Among sheeples and antivaxxers: Social media responses to COVID-19 vaccine news posted by Canadian news organizations, and recommendations to counter vaccine hesitancy

Background: To create a successful public health initiative that counters vaccine hesitancy and promotes vaccine acceptance, it is essential to gain a strong understanding of the beliefs, attitudes and subjective risk perceptions of the population. Methods: A qualitative analysis of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine discourse from 3,731 social media posts on the Twitter and Facebook accounts of six Canadian news organizations was used to identify the perceptions, attitudes, beliefs and intentions of Canadian news organizations’ social media commenters toward taking a COVID-19 vaccine. Results: Four main themes were identified: 1) COVID-19 vaccine safety and efficacy concerns; 2) conspiracy theories stemming from mistrust in government and other organizations; 3) a COVID-19 vaccine is unnecessary because the virus is not dangerous; and 4) trust in COVID-19 vaccines as a safe solution. Based on themes and subthemes, several key communication recommendations were developed for promotion of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance, including infographics championed by Public Health that highlight the benefits of the vaccine for those who have received it, public education about the contents and safety of the vaccine and eliciting an emotional connection through personal stories of those impacted by COVID-19. Conclusion: Specific considerations, such as leveraging the public’s trust in healthcare professionals to act as a liaison between Public Health and the Canadian public to communicate the benefits of the vaccine against COVID-19 and its variants, may help reduce COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.

Assessing The Public Health Benefits of Parkrun By Modelling Performance And Participation At Events In Scotland

Background: parkrun is a hugely successful public health initiative that encourages inactive people to exercise. The parkrun results database is likely to contain a wealth of potentially important public health information on the fitness benefits and participation patterns of parkrun, yet this resource has been ignored. The aim was to identify patterns in performance and attendance of participants at parkrun events in Scotland to enhance the future health benefits of parkrun through widening participation particularly by identifying features of events that overcome barriers to women taking part.Study design: The study conducted linear and binomial mixed models of age-graded performance, sex ratio and age of participants at parkrun events held in Scotland. Predictor variables were age, sex, parkrun ID number, number of runs, elevation gain, surface type and travelling time to the next nearest parkrun event. The data were generated from parkrun results pages for 56 events in Scotland. Results: There was a decline in the mean performance of participants at events, however individual performances improved over time. The sex ratio was male biased but the proportion of female participants has been increasing. Events in the most remote parts of Scotland had the lowest age graded performance scores and the highest proportion of female participants with the remotest events exhibiting a female bias in participation. Events on slower surfaces had a higher proportion of female participants.Conclusion: This study reports that parkrun events are becoming more inclusive with new participants being increasingly unfit women. In remoter parts of Scotland the traditional male bias in participation in sport has actually become a slight female bias revealing parkrun has seemingly overcome traditional barriers to female participation in sport. Events with slower surfaces had more female participants. Prioritising the creation of events at more remote locations and on slower surfaces could increase inclusivity and widen participation further. These findings could also help general practitioners prescribe those events that are most likely to benefit new participants making the parkrun practice initiative more effective. For example, women might be encouraged to attend traditionally slower events than men.

Optimal Genetic Screening for Cystic Fibrosis

Improving Newborn Screening for Genetic Diseases Screening newborns for life-threatening genetic diseases is an important public health initiative. Cystic fibrosis is one of the most prevalent diseases in this context. As part of the cystic fibrosis screening process, all states in the United States use multiple tests, including genetic tests that detect a subset of the more than 300 genetic variants (specific mutations) that cause cystic fibrosis. In “Optimal Genetic Screening for Cystic Fibrosis,” El-Hajj, D.R. Bish, and E.K. Bish develop a decision support model to select which genetic variants to screen for, considering the trade-off between classification accuracy and testing cost, and the technological constraints that limit the number of variants selected. Because variant prevalence rates are highly uncertain, a robust optimization framework is developed. Further, two commonly used cystic fibrosis screening processes are analytically compared, and conditions under which each process dominates are established. A case study based on published data are provided.

The Effects of Play Streets on Social and Community Connectedness in Rural Communities

Promoting physical activity (PA) is a long-standing public health initiative to improve overall health and wellbeing. Innovative strategies such as Play Streets, temporary activation of public spaces to provide safe places for active play, are being adopted in urban and rural communities to increase PA among children. As part of these strategies, aspects of social and community connectedness may be strengthened. This study analyzes focus groups and interviews from rural Play Street implementation team members (n = 14) as well as adults (n = 7) and children (n = 25) who attended Play Streets hosted in rural North Carolina, Maryland, Oklahoma, and Texas to better understand the added benefits of Play Streets in community connectedness. Overall, elements of social support and social cohesion are mentioned most frequently with instrumental and conditional support; however, concepts of social capital, collective-efficacy, and social identification are also presented. Participants expressed that Play Streets provided more than just PA; they provided opportunities to access and share resources, build perceptions of safety and trust in the community, and develop relationships with others. Fostering community connection through Play Streets may reduce health inequities in rural communities by building community resilience. Community-based PA programming that enhance and capitalize on community connectedness could be effective ways to improving the overall health and wellbeing of residents.

Positive attitudes to advance care planning – a Norwegian general population survey

Background Authorities recommend advance care planning and public acceptance of it is a prerequisite for widespread implementation. Therefore, we did the first study of the Norwegian public with an aim of getting knowledge on their attitudes to issues related to advance care planning. Methods An electronic survey to a nationally representative web panel of Norwegian adults. Results From 1035 complete responses (response rate 40.7%), we found that more than nine out of ten of the general public wanted to participate in advance care planning, believed it to be useful for many, and wanted to make important healthcare decisions themselves. Almost nine out of ten wanted to be accompanied by next of kin during advance care planning. Most (69%) wanted health care personnel to initiate advance care planning and preferred it to be timed to serious illness with limited lifetime (68%). Only about 9% stated that health care personnel should have the final say in healthcare decisions in serious illness. Conclusions Developing and implementing advance care planning as a public health initiative seems warranted based on the results of this study. Patient perspectives should be promoted in decision-making processes. Nevertheless, training of health care personnel should emphasise voluntariness and an individual approach to initiating, timing and conducting advance care planning because of individual variations.

Motivation and Behaviour Change in Parkrun Participants in the Western Cape Province, South Africa

Mass participation events are promoted in South Africa as a positive public health initiative. Parkrun has grown to be one of the most popular. The present study identifies the motives of residents in the Western Cape Province to join parkrun and how their involvement influences future physical activity levels. Participants (N = 1787) completed a survey consisting of demographic history, parkrun participation history, motivations for participation, and physical activity-related behaviour changes associated with parkrun participation. The majority of participants were female (n = 952) and over 50 years of age (median = 50; IQR = 38–59). Along with health-related benefits, the provision of a safe and organised event was reported as a key motive to participate. The social connectedness developed by parkrun encouraged continued participation and promoted uptake of more physical activity. Close to half the participants reported increases in physical activity levels after joining parkrun, which demonstrates the benefit obtained from participation in structured mass participation events. With the large diversity in socioeconomic status in South Africa related to physical activity levels, parkrun provides a protected and engaging environment that provides opportunity for increased physical activity and potentially reducing the burden on the healthcare system.

Homeworking, Well-Being and the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Diary Study

As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments encouraged or mandated homeworking wherever possible. This study examines the impact of this public health initiative on homeworkers’ well-being. It explores if the general factors such as job autonomy, demands, social support and work–nonwork conflict, which under normal circumstances are crucial for employees’ well-being, are outweighed by factors specific to homeworking and the pandemic as predictors of well-being. Using data from four-week diary studies conducted at two time periods in 2020 involving university employees in the UK, we assessed five factors that may be associated with their well-being: job characteristics, the work–home interface, home location, the enforced nature of the homeworking, and the pandemic context. Multi-level analysis confirms the relationship between four of the five factors and variability in within-person well-being, the exception being variables connected to the enforced homeworking. The results are very similar in both waves. A smaller set of variables explained between-person variability: psychological detachment, loneliness and job insecurity in both periods. Well-being was lower in the second than the first wave, as loneliness increased and the ability to detach from work declined. The findings highlight downsides of homeworking, will be relevant for employees’ and employers’ decisions about working arrangements post-pandemic, and contribute to the debate about the limits of employee well-being models centred on job characteristics.

Healthy Cities South Auckland: A focus on youth leadership and sustainability in the post-COVID world

Introduction: This paper draws on a presentation given at the American Public Health Association (APHA) annual meeting in Philadelphia in 2019 (Drs. Conn and Field). It is based on an innovative public health initiative in the Aotearoa New Zealand context, which incorporates key themes relating to sustainable and healthy cities in the post-COVID world. Method: Healthy cities South Auckland began in 2019, and involves Auckland University of Technology (AUT) faculty and students, many of whom are from indigenous Māori and Pacific Island communities, working collaboratively. The initiative aims to improve the health and wellbeing of the urban population using a series of codesigned projects that prioritise youth leadership and principles of sustainability. Current projects include an investigation of healthy food youth enterprise and the role of urban sustainable food environments; and student, faculty, and industry codesign of future-oriented public health higher education. Discussion: Whilst this public health initiative is grounded in known principles of community action and determinants of health, it is innovative in the close and contextualised attention to Māori and Pacific youth leadership and to a more overt sustainability agenda. Emphasising the shift from healthy cities focusing on people, to one that focuses on the inextricable link between people and the natural environment, the initiative is underpinned by indigenous guardianship concepts, such as Māori Kaitiakitanga (guardianship of the natural order) and Pacific Va (healthy spaces). Traditionally associated with rural and marine spaces, a valuable new development is the application of indigenous principles by youth in an urban setting and for a public health agenda. These notions resonate with global shifts such as the ‘school strikes for climate change’ movement and seem particularly apt in a post-COVID world which must mobilise new ways of bringing about transformative change. These include addressing disease outbreaksand chronic disease and health inequities, while also taking into consideration the contexts of community, culture and natural environments. Conclusion: In the Aotearoa New Zealand context, strengths-based approaches are a vital way forward, positioning Māori and Pacific young people as champions. Notions of healthy cities as sustainable cities; based on indigenous guardianship applied to 21st century urban spaces; youth activism and urban health in the digital age; and partnership between academia, youth, and industry are significant areas for further study, providing useful lessons for cities’ agendas, both locally and internationally.

Scientific Citizenship’s Youngest Domain: Function Creep in Norway’s Newborn Screening Programme

Newborn screening (NBS) for inborn errors of metabolism and other serious conditions with onset during infancy is a widespread public health initiative. Like other screening programmes, it aims to discover and treat a disease before effects manifest themselves. Recently, there have been two prominent changes in NBS: a substantial increase in the number of conditions screened for and growing attention to secondary use of residual newborn blood spots. Here, we analyse how this latter change has transpired in Norway. In 2018, Norway’s parliament sanctioned the secondary use of NBS samples for epidemiological research unrelated to NBS. This broadened the programme’s scope, co-opting it for research purposes, making samples available for inclusion in Norway’s biobanking strategy. We argue that this transformation is a case of function creep, whereby the function of screening samples is expanded to serve purposes other than helping newborns. The process provided only minimal involvement from ordinary citizens, but it transformed screened infants into potential scientific citizens. Henceforth, all future generations of Norwegians must choose to stay in or opt out of biobank research when they turn sixteen. Additionally, consenting to this research may occasion a second form of function creep, as ‘actionable findings’ are fed back to participants.