Influences of HPV disease perceptions, vaccine accessibility, and information exposure on social media on HPV vaccination uptake among 11,678 mothers with daughters aged 9-17 years in China: a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Mothers play a crucial role in influencing their daughters' HPV vaccination decisions. Addressing barriers to receiving HPV vaccination among mothers of girls may achieve two goals in one strike: increasing vaccination coverage among both mothers and their daughters. This study aims to examine the HPV vaccination uptake and its determinants among mothers of girls in China at both the individual and interpersonal levels. METHODS: From July to October 2023, a cross-sectional online study was conducted to investigate HPV vaccine refusal for daughters aged 9-17 years among 11,678 mothers in Shenzhen, China. A randomized selection method was employed, targeting 11 primary schools and 13 secondary schools in Shenzhen. The research team invited mothers of girls to participate in an anonymous online survey. Multilevel logistic regression models (level 1: schools; level 2: individual participants) were employed to analyze the data. RESULTS: Among 11,678 mothers, 41.1% self-reported receiving at least one dose of HPV vaccination. Through multilevel logistic regression analysis, eight items measuring illness representations of HPV, which refers to how people think about HPV, were associated with higher HPV vaccination uptake (AOR: 1.02-1.14). These items included identity (identifying symptoms of HPV), timeline (whether HPV is acute/chronic), negative consequences, personal and treatment control (whether HPV is under volitional control), concern, negative emotions, and coherence (overall understanding of HPV). In addition, participants refusing HPV vaccines for the index daughters (AOR: 0.82, 95%CI: 0.76, 0.89) had lower vaccine uptake. Perceived more difficulties in accessing the 9-valent vaccines (AOR: 1.06, 95%CI: 1.04, 1.08) and more satisfaction with vaccine-related promotional materials (AOR: 1.50, 95%CI: 1.46, 1.54) at the individual level were associated with higher vaccine uptake. At the interpersonal factors, higher frequency of exposure to testimonials given by others about HPV vaccination on social media (AOR: 1.19, 95%CI: 1.14, 1.25) and thoughtful consideration of the veracity of the information (AOR: 1.11, 95%CI: 1.07, 1.16) were correlated with higher HPV vaccination uptake. CONCLUSIONS: These findings offer essential implications for modifying HPV disease perceptions, addressing difficulties in accessing the 9-valent HPV vaccines, and enhancing health communication needs to improve HPV vaccine uptake among mothers of girls.

PlantMine: A Machine-Learning Framework to Detect Core SNPs in Rice Genomics.

As a fundamental global staple crop, rice plays a pivotal role in human nutrition and agricultural production systems. However, its complex genetic architecture and extensive trait variability pose challenges for breeders and researchers in optimizing yield and quality. Particularly to expedite breeding methods like genomic selection, isolating core SNPs related to target traits from genome-wide data reduces irrelevant mutation noise, enhancing computational precision and efficiency. Thus, exploring efficient computational approaches to mine core SNPs is of great importance. This study introduces PlantMine, an innovative computational framework that integrates feature selection and machine learning techniques to effectively identify core SNPs critical for the improvement of rice traits. Utilizing the dataset from the 3000 Rice Genomes Project, we applied different algorithms for analysis. The findings underscore the effectiveness of combining feature selection with machine learning in accurately identifying core SNPs, offering a promising avenue to expedite rice breeding efforts and improve crop productivity and resilience to stress.

The effectiveness of booster vaccination of inactivated COVID-19 vaccines against susceptibility, infectiousness, and transmission of omicron BA.2 variant: a retrospective cohort study in Shenzhen, China.

Little studies evaluated the effectiveness of booster vaccination of inactivated COVID-19 vaccines against being infected (susceptibility), infecting others (infectiousness), and spreading the disease from one to another (transmission). Therefore, we conducted a retrospective cohort study to evaluate the effectiveness of booster vaccination of inactivated COVID-19 vaccines against susceptibility, infectiousness, and transmission in Shenzhen during an Omicron BA.2 outbreak period from 1 February to 21 April 2022. The eligible individuals were classified as four sub-cohorts according to the inactivated COVID-19 vaccination status of both the close contacts and their index cases: group 2-2, fully vaccinated close contacts seeded by fully vaccinated index cases (reference group); group 2-3, booster-vaccinated close contacts seeded by fully vaccinated index cases; group 3-2, fully vaccinated close contacts seeded by booster-vaccinated index cases; and group 3-3, booster-vaccinated close contacts seeded by booster-vaccinated index cases. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were applied to estimate the effectiveness of booster vaccination. The sample sizes of groups 2-2, 2-3, 3-2, and 3-3 were 846, 1,115, 1,210, and 2,417, respectively. We found that booster vaccination had an effectiveness against infectiousness of 44.9% (95% CI: 19.7%, 62.2%) for the adults ≥ 18 years, 62.2% (95% CI: 32.0%, 78.9%) for the female close contacts, and 60.8% (95% CI: 38.5%, 75.1%) for the non-household close contacts. Moreover, booster vaccination had an effectiveness against transmission of 29.0% (95% CI: 3.2%, 47.9%) for the adults ≥ 18 years, 38.9% (95% CI: 3.3%, 61.3%) for the female close contacts, and 45.8% (95% CI: 22.1%, 62.3%) for the non-household close contacts. However, booster vaccination against susceptibility did not provide any protective effect. In summary, this study confirm that booster vaccination of the inactivated COVID-19 vaccines provides low level of protection and moderate level of protection against Omicron BA.2 transmission and infectiousness, respectively. However, booster vaccination does not provide any protection against Omicron BA.2 susceptibility.

Transmission characteristics and inactivated vaccine effectiveness against transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.2 variant in Shenzhen, China.

We conducted a retrospective cohort study to evaluate the transmission risk of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Omicron BA.2 variant and the effectiveness of inactivated COVID-19 vaccine boosters in Shenzhen during a BA.2 outbreak period from 1 February to 21 April 2022. A total of 1,248 individuals were infected with the BA.2 variant, and 7,855 close contacts were carefully investigated. The risk factors for the high secondary attack rate of SARS-CoV-2 infection were household contacts [adjusted odds ratio (aOR): 1.748; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.448, 2.110], younger individuals aged 0-17 years (aOR: 2.730; 95% CI: 2.118, 3.518), older persons aged ≥60 years (aOR: 1.342; 95% CI: 1.135, 1.588), women (aOR: 1.442; 95% CI: 1.210, 1.718), and the subjects exposed to the post-onset index cases (aOR: 8.546; 95% CI: 6.610, 11.050), respectively. Compared with the unvaccinated and partially vaccinated individuals, a relatively low risk of secondary attack was found for the individuals who received booster vaccination (aOR: 0.871; 95% CI: 0.761, 0.997). Moreover, a high transmission risk was found for the index cases aged ≥60 years (aOR: 1.359; 95% CI: 1.132, 1.632), whereas a relatively low transmission risk was observed for the index cases who received full vaccination (aOR: 0.642; 95% CI: 0.490, 0.841) and booster vaccination (aOR: 0.676; 95% CI: 0.594, 0.770). Compared with full vaccination, booster vaccination of inactivated COVID-19 vaccine showed an effectiveness of 24.0% (95% CI: 7.0%, 37.9%) against BA.2 transmission for the adults ≥18 years and 93.7% (95% CI: 72.4%, 98.6%) for the adults ≥60 years, whereas the effectiveness was 51.0% (95% CI: 21.9%, 69.3%) for the individuals of 14 days to 179 days after booster vaccination and 51.2% (95% CI: 37.5%, 61.9%) for the non-household contacts. The estimated mean values of the generation interval, serial interval, incubation period, latent period, and viral shedding period were 2.7 days, 3.2 days, 2.4 days, 2.1 days, and 17.9 days, respectively. In summary, our results confirmed that the main transmission route of Omicron BA.2 subvariant was household contact, and booster vaccination of the inactivated vaccines was relatively effective against BA.2 subvariant transmission in older people.