A scoping review of digital health interventions for combating COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation.

OBJECTIVE: We provide a scoping review of Digital Health Interventions (DHIs) that mitigate COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation seeding and spread. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We applied our search protocol to PubMed, PsychINFO, and Web of Science to screen 1666 articles. The 17 articles included in this paper are experimental and interventional studies that developed and tested public consumer-facing DHIs. We examined these DHIs to understand digital features, incorporation of theory, the role of healthcare professionals, end-user experience, and implementation issues. RESULTS: The majority of studies (n = 11) used social media in DHIs, but there was a lack of platform-agnostic generalizability. Only half of the studies (n = 9) specified a theory, framework, or model to guide DHIs. Nine studies involve healthcare professionals as design or implementation contributors. Only one DHI was evaluated for user perceptions and acceptance. DISCUSSION: The translation of advances in online social computing to interventions is sparse. The limited application of behavioral theory and cognitive models of reasoning has resulted in suboptimal targeting of psychosocial variables and individual factors that may drive resistance to misinformation. This affects large-scale implementation and community outreach efforts. DHIs optimized through community-engaged participatory methods that enable understanding of unique needs of vulnerable communities are urgently needed. CONCLUSIONS: We recommend community engagement and theory-guided engineering of equitable DHIs. It is important to consider the problem of misinformation and disinformation through a multilevel lens that illuminates personal, clinical, cultural, and social pathways to mitigate the negative consequences of misinformation and disinformation on human health and wellness.

Microbial quality of surface water and subsurface soil after wildfire.

Runoff from wildfire affected areas typically carries high concentrations of fine burned residues or eroded sediment and deposits them in surface water bodies or on subsurface soils. Although the role of wildfire residues in increasing the concentration of chemical contaminants in both environments is known, whether and to what degree wildfire residues may affect microbial contaminants is poorly understood. To examine the effect of wildfire residues on growth and die-off of Escherichia coli (E. coli) -a pathogen indicator, we mixed stormwater with E. coli and suspended particles from the pre- and post-wildfire area in batch reactors and monitored E. coli concentration. E. coli grew initially in the presence of all particles, but the relative E. coli concentration was 10 times lower in the presence of wildfire residues than in natural soil from unaffected areas. Wildfire residues also decreased the persistence of E. coli during a 15-day incubation period. These results indicate that the growth or persistence of E. coli in surface water in the presence of wildfire residues was less than that in the presence of unburned soil particles, potentially due to depletion of nutrient concentration and/or loss of viability of bacteria in the presence of wildfire residues. To examine the transport potential of wildfire residues and their ability to facilitate the transport of E. coli in the subsurface system, suspensions containing wildfire residues and/or E. coli were injected through unsaturated sand columns-a model subsurface system. Transport of wildfire residues in sand columns increased with decreases in the depth and increases in the concentration of particles, but increased transport of wildfire residues did not result in the increased transport of E. coli, suggesting wildfire residues do not facilitate the transport of E. coli. Overall, the results indicate that wildfire residues may not increase the risk of the microbial contamination of surface water or groundwater via subsurface infiltration.

Disulfiram reduces metastatic osteosarcoma tumor burden in an immunocompetent Balb/c or-thotopic mouse model.

INTRODUCTION: The overall survival rate of patients with osteosarcoma (OS) and pulmonary metastases has remained stagnant at 15-30% for several decades. Disulfiram (DSF) is an FDA-approved aldehyde dehydrogenase inhibitor that reduces the metastatic phenotype of OS cells in vitro. Here we evaluate its in vivo efficacy, as compared to doxorubicin chemotherapy, in a previously-validated orthotopic model of metastatic OS. RESULTS: All treatment groups displayed a significantly reduced quantitative OS metastatic burden compared with controls. The metastatic burden of Lo DSF-treated animals was equivalent to the DXR group. Ninety-five percent of control animals displayed evidence of metastatic disease, which was significantly greater than all treatment groups. DISCUSSION: Disulfiram treatment resulted in a reduced burden of OS metastatic disease compared with controls. This was statistically-equivalent to doxorubicin. No additive effect was observed between these two therapies. MATERIALS AND METHODS: One-hundred twenty immunocompetent Balb/c mice received proximal tibia paraphyseal injections of 5 × 105 K7M2 murine OS cells. Therapy began three weeks after injection: saline (control), low-dose disulfiram (Lo DSF), high-dose disulfiram (Hi DSF), doxorubicin (DXR), Lo DSF + DXR, and Hi DSF + DXR. Transfemoral amputations were performed at 4 weeks. Quantitative metastatic tumor burden was measured using near-infrared indocyanine green (ICG) angiography.