and an incidence-based estimation of person-years of life lost because of the disease. By using NCHS multiple causes of death data, hepatitis C virus (HCV) and liver cancer-associated death rates were examined from 1999 through 2013. RESULTS: Among men and women of all major racial and ethnic groups, death rates continued to decline for all cancers combined and for most cancer sites; the overall cancer death rate (for both sexes combined) decreased by 1.5% per year from 2003 to 2012. Overall, incidence rates decreased among men and remained stable among women from 2003 to 2012. Among both men and women, deaths from liver cancer increased at the highest rate of all cancer sites, and liver cancer incidence rates increased sharply, second only to thyroid cancer. Men had more than twice the incidence rate of liver cancer than women, and rates increased with age for both sexes. Among nonHispanic (NH) white, NH black, and Hispanic men and women, liver cancer incidence rates were higher for persons born after the 1938 to 1947 birth cohort. In contrast, there was a minimal birth cohort effect for NH Asian and Pacific Islanders (APIs). NH black men and Hispanic men had the lowest median age at death (60 and 62 years, respectively) and the highest average person-years of life lost per death (21 and 20 years, respectively) from liver cancer. HCV and liver cancer-associated death rates were highest among decedents who were born during 1945 through 1965. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, cancer incidence and mortality declined among men; and, although cancer incidence was stable among women, mortality declined.The burden of liver cancer is growing and is not equally distributed throughout the population. Efforts to vaccinate populations that are vulnerable to hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and to identify and treat those living with HCV or HBV infection, metabolic conditions, alcoholic liver disease, or other causes of cirrhosis can be effective in reducing the incidence and mortality of liver cancer.Cancer 2016;000:000-000. V C 2016 American Cancer Society.

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Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, 1975-2012, featuring the increasing incidence of liver cancer.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD), once thought to be confined primarily to industrialized nations, has emerged as a major health threat in developing countries. Cardiovascular disease now accounts for nearly 30 percent of deaths in low and middle income countries each year, and is accompanied by significant economic repercussions. Yet most governments, global health institutions, and development agencies have largely overlooked CVD as they have invested in health in developing countries. Recognizing the gap between the compelling evidence of the global CVD burden and the investment needed to prevent and control CVD, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) turned to the IOM for advice on how to catalyze change. In this report, the IOM recommends that the NHLBI, development agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and governments work toward two essential goals: * creating environments that promote heart healthy lifestyle choices and help reduce the risk of chronic diseases, and * building public health infrastructure and health systems with the capacity to implement programs that will effectively detect and reduce risk and manage CVD. To meet these goals, the IOM recommends several steps, including improving cooperation and collaboration; implementing effective and feasible strategies; and informing efforts through research and health surveillance. Without better efforts to promote cardiovascular health, global health as a whole will be undermined.

Promoting Cardiovascular Health in the Developing World: A Critical Challenge to Achieve Global Health

Pertussis has reemerged as a problem across the world. To better understand the nature of the resurgence, we reviewed recent epidemiologic data and we report disease trends from across the world. Published epidemiologic data from January 2000 to July 2013 were obtained via PubMed searches and open-access websites. Data on vaccine coverage and reported pertussis cases from 2000 through 2012 from the 6 World Health Organization regions were also reviewed. Findings are confounded not only by the lack of systematic and comparable observations in many areas of the world but also by the cyclic nature of pertussis with peaks occurring every 3-5 years. It appears that pertussis incidence has increased in school-age children in North America and western Europe, where acellular pertussis vaccines are used, but an increase has also occurred in some countries that use whole-cell vaccines. Worldwide, pertussis remains a serious health concern, especially for infants, who bear the greatest disease burden. Factors that may contribute to the resurgence include lack of booster immunizations, low vaccine coverage, improved diagnostic methods, and genetic changes in the organism. To better understand the epidemiology of pertussis and optimize disease control, it is important to improve surveillance worldwide, irrespective of pertussis vaccine types and schedules used in each country.

Pertussis Across the Globe: Recent Epidemiologic Trends From 2000 to 2013.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of the current investigation is to assess and validate the factor structure of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System's (BRFSS) Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) module. METHOD: ACE data available from the 2009 BRFSS survey were fit using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to estimate an initial factorial structure. The exploratory solution was then validated using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with data from the 2010 BRFSS survey. Lastly, ACE factors were tested for measurement invariance using multiple group factor analysis. RESULTS: EFA results suggested that a 3-factor solution adequately fit the data. Examination of factor loadings and item content suggested the factors represented the following construct areas: Household Dysfunction, Emotional/Physical Abuse, and Sexual Abuse. Subsequent CFA results confirmed the 3-factor solution and provided preliminary support for estimation of an overall latent ACE score summarizing the responses to all available items. Measurement invariance was supported across both gender and age. CONCLUSIONS: Results of this study provides support for the use of the current ACE module scoring algorithm, which uses the sum of the number of items endorsed to estimate exposure. However, the results also suggest potential benefits to estimating 3 separate composite scores to estimate the specific effects of exposure to Household Dysfunction, Emotional/Physical Abuse, and Sexual Abuse. Language: en

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Examination of the factorial structure of adverse childhood experiences and recommendations for three subscale scores.

Predicting the number of new suspected or confirmed cases of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is crucial in the prevention and control of the COVID-19 outbreak. Social media search indexes (SMSI) for dry cough, fever, chest distress, coronavirus, and pneumonia were collected from 31 December 2019 to 9 February 2020. The new suspected cases of COVID-19 data were collected from 20 January 2020 to 9 February 2020. We used the lagged series of SMSI to predict new suspected COVID-19 case numbers during this period. To avoid overfitting, five methods, namely subset selection, forward selection, lasso regression, ridge regression, and elastic net, were used to estimate coefficients. We selected the optimal method to predict new suspected COVID-19 case numbers from 20 January 2020 to 9 February 2020. We further validated the optimal method for new confirmed cases of COVID-19 from 31 December 2019 to 17 February 2020. The new suspected COVID-19 case numbers correlated significantly with the lagged series of SMSI. SMSI could be detected 6-9 days earlier than new suspected cases of COVID-19. The optimal method was the subset selection method, which had the lowest estimation error and a moderate number of predictors. The subset selection method also significantly correlated with the new confirmed COVID-19 cases after validation. SMSI findings on lag day 10 were significantly correlated with new confirmed COVID-19 cases. SMSI could be a significant predictor of the number of COVID-19 infections. SMSI could be an effective early predictor, which would enable governments' health departments to locate potential and high-risk outbreak areas.

Prediction of Number of Cases of 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Using Social Media Search Index.

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Public Health Surveillance: A Tool for Targeting and Monitoring Interventions

Cancer incidence and mortality are decreasing, but inequities in outcomes persist. This paper describes the San Francisco Cancer Initiative (SF CAN) as a model for the systematic application of epidemiological evidence to reduce the cancer burden and associated inequities.SF CAN is a multi-institutional implementation of existing evidence on the prevention and early detection of five common cancers (i.e., breast, prostate, colorectal, liver, and lung/tobacco-related cancers) accounting for 50% of cancer deaths in San Francisco. Five Task Forces follow individual logic models designating inputs, outputs, and outcomes. We describe the progress made and the challenges faced by each Task Force after 5 years of activity.SF CAN is a model for how the nation's Comprehensive Cancer Centers are ideally positioned to leverage cancer epidemiology for evidence-based initiatives that, along with genuine community engagement and multiple stakeholders, can reduce the population burden of cancer. 

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s40471-021-00280-7.pdf

Maya Vijayaraghavan

Papers

Public Health Surveillance: A Tool for Targeting and Monitoring Interventions

From Cancer Epidemiology to Policy and Practice: the Role of a Comprehensive Cancer Center