Epidemiology and Global Health

eLife assessment

This valuable work by Zheng and colleagues uses a large cohort database from Shanghai to identify that post-infection vaccination among previously vaccinated individuals provides significant low to moderate protection against re-infection. The evidence supporting the conclusion is solid with some limitations, e.g., lack of symptom severity as an outcome, no inclusion of time since infection as an independent variable, improper definitions of some key variables, difficult-to-interpret figures, and exclusion of key groups (infected and then vaccinated). This study will be of interest to vaccinologists, public health officials and clinicians.

eLife assessment

This study assessed antibody levels, which are indicative of protection, resulting from both COVID-19 vaccination and natural infection in a representative sample of the Canadian population. The work provides solid evidence that Individuals who received a booster vaccination and had a prior infection had the highest antibody levels, particularly when either the vaccination or natural infection had occurred within the past six months. These findings are of fundamental importance in supporting the value of booster vaccination in populations vulnerable to severe COVID-19.

eLife assessment

This important study examines SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence in Bolivia and aims to provide insights into the transmission of the virus and the effects of vaccination on population immunity. However, the evidence for the main claims is incomplete because of the uncertainties about the accuracy of the neutralization assays given the cross-neutralization present across variants, as well as the selected population of blood donors tested. These uncertainties need to be addressed to support the premise of the paper.

eLife assessment

This valuable work explores death coding data to understand the impact of COVID-19 on cancer mortality. The work provides solid evidence that deaths with cancer as a contributing cause were not above what would be expected during pandemic waves, suggesting that cancer did not strongly increase the risk of dying of COVID-19. These results are an interesting exploration into the coding of causes of death that can be used to make sense of how deaths are coded during a pandemic in the presence of other underlying diseases, such as cancer.

eLife assessment

This paper explores the relationships among evolutionary and epidemiological quantities in influenza, and presents fundamental findings that substantially advance our understanding of the drivers of influenza epidemics. The authors use a rich set of data sources to gather and analyze compelling evidence on the roles of genetic distance, other influenza dynamics and epidemiological indicators in predicting influenza epidemics. The central findings highlight the significant influence of genetic distance on A(H3N2) virus epidemiology and emphasize the role of A(H1N1) virus incidence in shaping A(H3N2) epidemics, suggesting subtype interference as a key factor. This paper also makes relevant data available to the research community.

eLife assessment

The manuscript provides convincing evidence that both circulating omega-6 and omega-3 PUFAs are associated with lower all-cause, cancer, and cardiovascular mortality in the UK BioBank population and that omega-3s have a stronger effect than omega-6s. The findings have important public health implications.

eLife assessment

This important study will provide evidence about a novel screen-triage-treat strategy for cervical cancer prevention. The trial will generate convincing evidence regarding the efficacy, effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, feasibility and acceptability in a range of geographically spread low-resource settings. The strategy should contribute to improving access to cervical cancer prevention to vulnerable women with low access to health care, and, therefore, at the highest risk of cervical cancer.

eLife assessment

This study provides a potentially useful assessment of the effect of testing contacts of cases in school classes when identified, rather than at the end of quarantine, on both the number of secondary infections and other outcomes including tracing delay and identification of the possible source of infection. The authors find that the intervention likely led to a decrease in tracing delay and an increase in the number of possible sources of infection, though were unable to determine whether secondary transmission decreased, due in part to unmeasured confounding. While the surveillance system described provides a solid dataset appropriate for this analysis, the description of methods, study outcomes, and consideration of potential confounding factors is incomplete.

eLife assessment

The study presents important findings for public health authorities and policymakers to enable them to make evidence-based decisions when deciding on how to manage the effect of HPV vaccination disruptions. This study is particularly relevant in light of the efforts of the WHO to achieve global elimination of cervical cancers. The findings are convincing and the model used is appropriate.

eLife assessment

This paper is of interest to researchers and policy makers involved in cervical cancer prevention. The paper provides insight into how the Covid19 pandemic accelerated changes in organized cervical cancer screening. The claim that self-sampling led to a major improvement of test coverage seems somewhat exaggerated and alternative hypotheses to those provided by the authors on the population who chose self-sampling are possible. Nonetheless, this is a valuable piece of work given the scope of the intervention(s) and the precedent it sets i.e. a crisis can in fact accelerate positive changes in screening that have been academic possibilities rather than practical realities.

eLife assessment

This study presents a valuable finding on the associations and causal relationship between second primary cancers and the initial diagnosis of a primary cancer via using a large database. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid. The work will be of interest to cancer clinicians.

eLife assessment

The manuscript by Bull et al provides valuable information on the relationship between metabolic features, in particular different lipoproteins and fatty acids, and colorectal cancer. They use solid methods and combine different data sources to analyze forward and reverse Mendelian Randomizations that support their claims.

eLife assessment

The study presents patterns of cancer care disruption in southern Illinois and eastern Missouri in the summer of 2020. Survey results show factors that impact cancer care during the COVID-19 pandemic, including group differences by race. The important findings provide solid evidence about variation in cancer care disruptions and opportunities to improve return to care.

eLife assessment

This study presents a valuable finding on the optimal prioritization in different malaria transmission settings for the distribution of insecticide-treated nets to reduce the malaria burden. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid. The work will be of interest from a global funder perspective, though somewhat less relevant for individual countries.

eLife assessment

This article is of broad interest to public health researchers and to health policymakers in populations with national screening programs. It provides important knowledge on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on participation in mammography screening in Denmark by socio-economic indicators. The study provides convincing evidence for how the pandemic exacerbated disparities in breast cancer screening in Denmark.

eLife assessment

This study presents important evidence of the impact of the covid pandemic on breast cancer screening globally but with important variations by healthcare setting. The data analysis is comprehensive, using solid systematic review methods. The results will be of interest to public health policymakers and health care and cancer control practitioners and researchers across the globe.

eLife assessment

This study provides useful information on the impact of the pandemic on the quantity of healthcare delivered to patients with pancreatic cancer in England. The authors showed that there was no difference in the number of diagnoses of pancreatic cancer during the pandemic compared to the preceding 5-year period, but a reduction in surgical resections by nearly 25%. They reported no difference in deaths between the two periods. They show no differences in rates of diagnosis, but the clinical relevance is incomplete as they have not compared survival from cancer between those time periods.

eLife assessment

This manuscript provides fundamental findings on the association between sleep regularity and mortality in the UK Biobank, which is a popular topic in recent sleep and circadian research in population-based studies. The study is based on a large accelerometer study with validated follow-up of incident diseases and deaths, and the data quality and large sample size are convincing and strengthen the credibility of the conclusion. This will be of wide interest to researchers in the sleep study field, epidemiologists, practicing clinicians and the general public.

eLife assessment

Although largely descriptive, this meta-analysis of 13,000 published Typhi genomes is hugely important to public health. The dataset and presented analysis represents the first wholesale analysis of all available Typhi genomes from the last 21 years. The findings are of great significance to tracking the emergence and maintenance of AMR in Typhi and include novel insights into XDR strain emergence in Pakistan as well as the relationship between MDR maintenance and chromosomal integration.

eLife assessment

The authors used the Multiethnic Cohort (MEC) study to study how COVID-19 impacted access to cancer screenings and treatment. This study's important findings served to identify key factors associated with cancer-related screening and healthcare-seeking during the pandemic. This investigation provides solid evidence to inform future policies, particularly in older and vulnerable populations.