Widespread use of face coverings is a key public health strategy to prevent the spread of COVID-19. However, few studies have examined why Americans use or do not use face coverings, and little is known about the most effective messaging strategies. This study explored perceptions of face coverings, including motivations and barriers for use, and examined reactions to messaging promoting the use of face coverings. Six virtual focus groups were conducted with 34 North Carolina residents in July 2020. Participants reported high compliance with face covering recommendations but often did not wear them around family, friends, and colleagues. The most prevalent motivation for the use of face coverings was to protect or respect other people, including high-risk populations and individuals. Other motivators were self-protection, responsibility, desire for control, requirements, and expert advice. Barriers included physical and social discomfort, confusion or misinformation, low perceived susceptibility to COVID-19, and perceptions of identity and autonomy. Even among individuals who frequently wear face coverings, there are opportunities to improve compliance. Messaging should highlight how face coverings protect the wearer and others around them, normalize the use of face coverings in social settings, and emphasize requirements. Positive messages that focus on unity, personal experiences and the rationale for face coverings are recommended.

Ghana has made great progress in meeting most Millennium Development Goals; 1 however, the country's reproductive health indicators continue to lag. Among married women, use of modern contraceptives is low (23%) and unmet need for family planning remains high (26%). 2 Similarly, the total fertility rate decreased only slightly between 1998 and 2008, from 4.4 to 4.0. 3 As a result, the Ghanaian government has identified increasing contraceptive prevalence as a priority. 4Among the reasons for low use of contraceptives in Ghana are barriers to access, stock-outs and a shortage of trained health staff.5 These problems are more acute in rural areas of the country, where health facilities tend to be few and the distribution chain is often weaker-conditions that contribute to an urban-rural disparity in contraceptive use and unmet need. 3 In addition, access to communitybased family planning services is limited outside of select hard-to-reach areas where nurses have been mandated to provide family planning as part of the Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) model. CHPS zones are currently being scaled up, but as of 2011, only 22% of the population was being served under CHPS. 6In many countries, private-sector drug shops are the first place people seek health care, especially in areas with few health facilities or pharmacies. [7][8][9][10] In Ghana, such shops are called licensed chemical sellers and are independent businesses operated by nonpharmacists who have a minimum of a secondary education and are licensed by the Pharmacy Council to sell some over-the-counter medicines. Shop operators sometimes receive training from the Licensed Chemical Seller Association and Pharmacy Council, but it is not required to obtain a license. As privately owned enterprises, licensed chemical seller shops are positioned to provide socially marketed family planning methods using their existing infrastructure, which is sustained by the sale of other health products. Most pill and condom users in Ghana (75% and 54%, respectively) receive their contraceptives from such shops; however, the country's most popular method-the threemonth injectable contraceptive, depot medroxyprogesterone acetate or DMPA-is a prescription drug and is available only from a qualified medical provider or for purchase, but not injection, from a pharmacy.3 Most injectable users (87%) rely on public-sector health facilities to receive their injections, even though these facilities often experience stock-outs of the method.

Our main findings indicate that a social media campaign is a low-cost approach to making the CycleBeads app accessible to women. The app addresses multiple reproductive intentions and attracts a diverse demographic of users across different life stages. For many women the app was the first modern method they used in the last 3 months, showing that fertility awareness-based apps have the potential to address an unmet need. Future studies should focus on changes in behavior during the fertile window, partner communication, and future family planning intentions.

Offering the CycleBeads app to support women in use of the Standard Days Method may expand family planning options, reduce unmet need and make family planning more widely available.

United States national parks attract Ͼ275 million visitors annually and collectively present risk of exposure for staff and visitors to a wide range of arthropod vector species (most notably ßeas, mosquitoes, and ticks) and their associated bacterial, protozoan, or viral pathogens. We assessed the current state of knowledge for risk of exposure to vector-borne pathogens in national parks through a review of relevant literature, including internal National Park Service documents and organismal databases. We conclude that, because of lack of systematic surveillance for vector-borne pathogens in national parks, the risk of pathogen exposure for staff and visitors is unclear. Existing data for vectors within national parks were not based on systematic collections and rarely include evaluation for pathogen infection. Extrapolation of human-based surveillance data from neighboring communities likely provides inaccurate estimates for national parks because landscape differences impact transmission of vector-borne pathogens and human-vector contact rates likely differ inside versus outside the parks because of differences in activities or behaviors. Vector-based pathogen surveillance holds promise to deÞne when and where within national parks the risk of exposure to infected vectors is elevated. A pilot effort, including 5Ð10 strategic national parks, would greatly improve our understanding of the scope and magnitude of vector-borne pathogen transmission in these high-use public settings. Such efforts also will support messaging to promote personal protection measures and inform park visitors and staff of their responsibility for personal protection, which the National Park Service preservation mission dictates as the core strategy to reduce exposure to vector-borne pathogens in national parks.