Background An infodemic is an overflow of information of varying quality that surges across digital and physical environments during an acute public health event. It leads to confusion, risk-taking, and behaviors that can harm health and lead to erosion of trust in health authorities and public health responses. Owing to the global scale and high stakes of the health emergency, responding to the infodemic related to the pandemic is particularly urgent. Building on diverse research disciplines and expanding the discipline of infodemiology, more evidence-based interventions are needed to design infodemic management interventions and tools and implement them by health emergency responders. Objective The World Health Organization organized the first global infodemiology conference, entirely online, during June and July 2020, with a follow-up process from August to October 2020, to review current multidisciplinary evidence, interventions, and practices that can be applied to the COVID-19 infodemic response. This resulted in the creation of a public health research agenda for managing infodemics. Methods As part of the conference, a structured expert judgment synthesis method was used to formulate a public health research agenda. A total of 110 participants represented diverse scientific disciplines from over 35 countries and global public health implementing partners. The conference used a laddered discussion sprint methodology by rotating participant teams, and a managed follow-up process was used to assemble a research agenda based on the discussion and structured expert feedback. This resulted in a five-workstream frame of the research agenda for infodemic management and 166 suggested research questions. The participants then ranked the questions for feasibility and expected public health impact. The expert consensus was summarized in a public health research agenda that included a list of priority research questions. Results The public health research agenda for infodemic management has five workstreams: (1) measuring and continuously monitoring the impact of infodemics during health emergencies; (2) detecting signals and understanding the spread and risk of infodemics; (3) responding and deploying interventions that mitigate and protect against infodemics and their harmful effects; (4) evaluating infodemic interventions and strengthening the resilience of individuals and communities to infodemics; and (5) promoting the development, adaptation, and application of interventions and toolkits for infodemic management. Each workstream identifies research questions and highlights 49 high priority research questions. Conclusions Public health authorities need to develop, validate, implement, and adapt tools and interventions for managing infodemics in acute public health events in ways that are appropriate for their countries and contexts. Infodemiology provides a scientific foundation to make this possible. This research agenda proposes a structured framework for targeted investment for the scientific community, policy makers, implementing organizations, and other stakeholders to consider.

Background: Evidence-based HIV interventions often fail to reach anticipated impact due to insufficient utilization in realworld health systems. Human-centered design (HCD) represents a novel approach in tailoring innovations to fit end-users, narrowing the gap between efficacious interventions and impact at scale. Methods:We combined a narrative literature review of HCD in HIV programs with our experience using HCD to redesign an intervention promoting patient-centered care (PCC) practices among health care workers (HCW) in Zambia. We summarize the use and results of HCD in the global HIV response and share case study insights to advance conceptualization of HCD applications. Results:The literature review identified 13 articles (representing 7 studies) on the use of HCD in HIV. All studies featured HCD hallmarks including empathy development, user-driven inquiry, ideation, and iterative refinement. HCD was applied to mHealth design, a management intervention and pre-exposure prophylaxis delivery. Our HCD application addressed a behavioral service delivery target: changing HCW patient-centered beliefs, attitudes, and practices. Through in-depth developer-user interaction, our HCD approach revealed specific HCW support for and resistance to PCC, suggesting intervention revisions to improve feasibility and acceptability and PCC considerations that could inform implementation in transferable settings. Conclusions:As both a research and implementation tool, HCD has potential to improve effective implementation of the HIV response, particularly for product development; new intervention introduction; and complex system interventions. Further research on HCD application strengths and limitations is needed. Those promoting PCC may improve implementation success by seeking out resonance and anticipating the challenges our HCD process identified.

Objectives: Diarrheal illness is a leading cause of childhood morbidity and mortality and has longterm negative impacts on child development. Although flooring, water, and sanitation have been identified as important routes of transmission of diarrheal pathogens, research examining variability in the association between flooring and diarrheal illness by water and sanitation is limited.Methods: We utilized cross-sectional data collected for the evaluation of Zimbabwe's Prevention of Mother-to-Child HIV transmission program in 2014 and 2017-18. Mothers of infants 9-18 months of age self-reported the household's source of drinking water and type of sanitation facility, as well as infant diarrheal illness in the four-weeks prior to the survey. Household flooring was assessed using interviewer observation, and households in which the main material of flooring was dirt/earthen were classified as having unimproved flooring and those with solid flooring (e.g. cement) were classified as having improved flooring.Results: Mothers of infants living in households with improved flooring were less likely to report diarrheal illness in the last four weeks (PD a =-4.9%, 95%CI: -8.6, -1.0). The association between flooring and diarrheal illness did not vary by the presence of improved/unimproved water (p RERI =0.91) or sanitation (p RERI =0.76). Conclusions: Our findings support the hypothesis that household flooring is an important pathway for the transmission of diarrheal pathogens, even in settings where other aspects of sanitation are sub-optimal.Improvements to household flooring do not require behavior change and may be an effective and expeditious strategy for reducing childhood diarrheal illness irrespective of household access to improved water and sanitation.

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Background Hepatitis E virus, typically genotypes 1 and 2, is a major cause of avoidable morbidity and mortality in South Asia. Although case fatality risk among pregnant women can reach as high as 25%, a lack of population-level disease burden data has been cited as a primary factor in key global policy recommendations against the routine use of licensed hepatitis E vaccines, one of the only effective tools available for preventing disease and death. Methods We tested serum from a nationally-representative serosurvey in Bangladesh for anti-HEV IgG. We estimated the proportion of the population with evidence of historical HEV infection and used Bayesian geostatistical models to generate high-resolution national maps of seropositivity. We examined variability in seropositivity by individual-level, household-level, and community-level risk factors using spatial logistic regression. Results We tested serum samples from 2924 individuals from 70 communities representing all divisions of Bangladesh and estimated a national seroprevalence of hepatitis E of 20% (95% CI 17-24%). Seropositivity increased with age and male sex (Odds Ratio: 2.2 male vs. female, 95% Confidence Interval: 1.8–2.8). Community-level seroprevalence ranged from 0-78% with the seroprevalence in urban areas being higher, including Dhaka, the capital, with 3.0-fold (95% Credible Interval 2.3-3.7) higher seroprevalence than the rest of the country. Conclusion Hepatitis E infections are common throughout Bangladesh. Strengthening clinical surveillance for hepatitis E, especially in urban areas may help generate additional evidence needed to appropriately target interventions like vaccines to the populations most likely to benefit.

Background Hepatitis E virus is responsible for outbreaks of acute jaundice in Africa and Asia, many of which occur among displaced people or in crisis settings. While an efficacious vaccine for HEV has been developed, we lack key epidemiologic data needed to understand how best to use the vaccine for hepatitis E control in endemic countries. Methods We conducted a systematic review of articles published on hepatitis E in low and lower-middle-income countries (LMIC) in Africa and Asia. We searched PubMed, Scopus, and Embase databases to identify articles with data on anti-HEV IgG seroprevalence, outbreaks of HEV, or risk factors for HEV infection, disease, or death, and all relevant data were extracted. Using these data we describe the evidence around temporal and geographical distribution of HEV transmission and burden. We estimated pooled age-specific seroprevalence and assessed the consistency in risk factor estimates. Results We extracted data from 148 studies. Studies assessing anti-HEV IgG antibodies used 18 different commercial assays. Most cases of hepatitis E during outbreaks were not confirmed. Risk factor data suggested an increased likelihood of current or recent HEV infection and disease associated with fecal-oral transmission of HEV, as well as exposures to blood and animals. Conclusion Heterogeneity in diagnostic assays used and exposure and outcome assessment methods hinder public health efforts to quantify burden of disease and evaluate interventions over time and space. Prevention tools such as vaccines are available, but require a unified global strategy for hepatitis E control to justify widespread use.

Background Rotavirus is the most common cause of fatal diarrhoeal disease among children under the age of five globally and is responsible for millions of hospitalizations each year. Although nutritional status and environmental enteric dysfunction (EED) are recognized as important predictors of susceptibility to diarrhoeal disease, no research to date has examined the mechanisms by which undernutrition and EED may protect against prevalence of rotavirus infection.

Background Pregnancy among adolescents, whether intended or not, is a public health concern as it is generally considered high risk for both mothers and their newborns. In Zambia, where many women engage in early sexual behaviour or marry at a young age, 28.5% of girls aged 15–19 years were pregnant with their first child in the year 2013–2014. This study sought to explore associations between maternal age and neonatal outcomes among pregnant women in Lusaka, Zambia. Methods This was a secondary analysis of data nested within a larger population-based prospective cohort study which was implemented in three government health facilities-two first level hospitals and one clinic in Lusaka, Zambia. Women presenting to the study sites for antenatal care were enrolled into the study and followed up for collection of maternal and neonatal outcomes at 7, 28 and 42 days postpartum. The study’s primary outcomes were the incidence of maternal and newborn complications and factors associated with adverse neonatal outcomes. Statistical significance was evaluated at a significance level of P < 0.05. Results The study included 11,501 women, 15.6% of whom were adolescents aged 10–19 years. Generally, adolescence did not have statistically significant associations with poor maternal health outcomes. However, the risk of experiencing obstructed labour, premature rupture of membranes and postpartum hemorrhage was higher among adolescents than women aged 20–24 years while the risk of severe infection was lower and non-significant. Adolescents also had 1.36 times the odds of having a low birthweight baby (95% CI 1.12, 1.66) and were at risk of preterm birth (aOR = 1.40, 95% CI 1.06, 1.84). Their newborns were in need of bag and mask resuscitation at birth (aOR = 0.62, 95% CI 0.41, 0.93). Advanced maternal age was significantly associated with increased odds of hypertension/ pre-eclampsia (95% CI 1.54, 5.89) and preterm labour (aOR = 2.78, 95% CI 1.24, 6.21). Conclusions Adolescence is a risk factor for selected pregnancy outcomes in urban health facilities in Lusaka, Zambia. Health care workers should intensify the provision of targeted services to improve neonatal health outcomes. Trial registration Clinical trial number and URL: NCT03923023 (Retrospectively registered). Clinical trial registration date: April 22, 2019.