Health Sciences In The Media

When the CDC announced in mid-May that fully vaccinated people no longer needed to wear masks in most indoor settings, it felt like a milestone to many Americans. But now that the circumstances have shifted, so should our behavior to deal with them. “The vaccines are highly effective, but we know they’re not perfect, so it’s important to use complementary measures like masking for those areas with higher levels of Covid in the community,” said Saskia Popescu, PhD, MPH, MA, an infectious disease epidemiologist and adjunct professor at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health.

A study at the University of Arizona that began this past May is specifically tracking self-reported menstrual experience in a subset of participants in a larger, longer-running study of the effects of the pandemic on health. "We have about 600 women in this reproductive cohort and we're following them for a variety of things, so we're collecting saliva to measure cortisol, we're collecting dried blood spots to measure anti-Müllerian hormones, which is a marker of ovarian reserve," said Leslie Farland, ScD, MSc, an assistant professor at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health.

High levels of community spread, a category that currently engulfs almost the entire state of Arizona, puts everyone at some risk, though unvaccinated people not wearing a mask face the most serious risks. "They have no protection against the virus," said Farshad Fani Marvasti, MD, an associate professor and director of the public health, prevention and health promotion curriculum at the College of Medicine – Phoenix.

In Arizona and around the United States, hospitals are noticing a shortage in the number of nurses available to work around the clock to care for both COVID-19 patients and those with other conditions. Betty Parisek , EdD, MSN, RN, a clinical assistant professor with the College of Nursing and the program director of the Bachelor of Science in Nursing Integrative Health (BSN-IH), hopes the holistic approach taught by the BSN-IH program will be a great start towards a greater number of qualified nurses in the time to come.

Michael Grandner, PhD, the director of the Sleep and Health Research Program at the College of Medicine – Tucson, shares tips for getting a good night's sleep.

UArizona researchers Altaf Engineer, PhD, and Esther Sternberg, MD, a professor of medicine at the College of Medicine – Tucson and director of research at the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine, say the pandemic has forced employers to think about how office spaces can reduce employees' stress and enhance their well-being. The researchers are the lead authors of a new paper that aims to be the go-to guide for architects, planners and others in the building industry for designing spaces that help improve people's emotional well-being and physical health.

Research conducted by Joe Gerald, MD, PhD, associate professor of public health policy and management at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, shows the rate of COVID-19 transmission among children is poised to surpass that of older age groups for the first time. “With continued K–12 in-person instruction, plus opening of our major universities, there will be additional pressure on transmission among children and young adults," Dr. Gerald said.

Dr. Koenraad Van-Doorslaer, PhD, an assistant professor of virology and immunobiology at the College of Medicine – Tucson, says the most effective mask is the N95, usually reserved for healthcare workers, followed by the KN95. "Regardless of what type of mask people are wearing, I think it's important that we wear something," Van-Doorslaer said.

Deepta Bhattacharya, PhD, an immunologist at the College of Medicine – Tucson, explains how COVID-19 vaccines provide lasting immune durability. "The quality of the antibody improves over time. It takes far fewer of those new antibodies to protect you. So I think that worrying about antibody decline is not something that's productive," Bhattacharya says. Note: This content appeared on more than 60 local NPR affiliate websites.

Uncertainty remains over whether the vaccine or negative-test requirements actually make large concerts safe even if held outdoors. It turned out that Lollapalooza was not a superspreader event, at least according to Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady, who reported only 203 attendees were diagnosed with COVID. Saskia Popescu, PhD, MPH, MA, an infectious disease epidemiologist and adjunct professor at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health sees the Lollapalooza data as "a really good sign,” but says an outdoor concert is not without risk, especially in places where the delta variant has thrived.