Ethnological aspects of COVID-19

Abstract Within recent past, coronavirus has shaken the whole world. The world faced a new pandemic of novel coronavirus 2019 (SARS-CoV-2/ COVID-19).It has socioeconomically impacted world population a lot in terms of education, economy as well as physical and mental health. This novel coronavirus is notorious enough that put human health at a great risk. Currently, researchers all over the world aretrying hard to develop a new drug/vaccine for its treatment. In past decades, the world population has faced various viral infectious illness outbreaks. Influenza A, Ebola, Zika, SARS and MERS viruses had whacked public health and economy. Medical science technology achieved the landmark in developing coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) vaccines that are approved currently for emergency use. Some of the recently approved vaccines are developed by Pfizer and Moderna, Johnson and Johnson, Gam-COVID-vac (Sputnik V), Bharat Biotech (covaxin) andOxford-AstraZeneca vaccines (covishield) (Badenet al., 2021). Here, a short review is drafted focusingon infection, immune system, pathogenesis, phylogenesis, mode of transmission and impact of coronavirus on health and economy and recent developments in treating COVID-19

Evaluating the Diversity of Emergency Medicine Foundation (EMF) Grant Recipients in the Last Decade.

INTRODUCTION: To study diversity of researchers and barriers to success among Emergency Medicine Foundation (EMF) grant recipients in the last 10 years. METHODS: EMF grant awardees were approached to complete a brief survey, which included demographics, queries related to contributions to the literature, success in obtaining grants, and any perceived barriers they encountered. RESULTS: Of the 342 researchers contacted by email, a total of 147 completed the survey for a response rate of 43%. The respondents were predominately mid to late career white-male-heterosexual-Christian with an average age of 44 years (range 25-69 years of age). With regards to training and education, the majority of respondents (50%) were either Associate or Professor clinical rank (8% instructor/resident/fellow and 31% Assistant). Sixty-two percent of the respondents reported perceived barriers to career advancement since completion of residency. The largest perceived barrier to success was medical specialty (26%), followed by gender (21%) and age (16%). CONCLUSION: Our survey of EMF grant recipients in the last 10 years shows a considerable lack of diversity. The most commonly perceived barriers to career advancement by this cohort were medical specialty, gender, and age. An opportunity exists for further definition of barriers and development of mechanisms to overcome them, with a goal of increased success for those that are underrepresented.

Privacy and Security Issues with Mobile Health Research Applications.

This article examines the privacy and security issues associated with mobile application-mediated health research, concentrating in particular on research conducted or participated in by independent scientists, citizen scientists, and patient researchers. Building on other articles in this issue that examine state research laws and state data protection laws as possible sources of privacy and security protections for mobile research participants, this article focuses on the lack of application of federal standards to mobile application-mediated health research. As discussed in more detail below, the voluminous and diverse data collected by some independent scientists who use mobile applications to conduct health research may be at risk for unregulated privacy and security breaches, leading to dignitary, psychological, and economic harms for which participants have few legally enforceable rights or remedies under current federal law. Federal lawmakers may wish to consider enacting new legislation that would require otherwise unregulated health data holders to implement reasonable data privacy, security, and breach notification measures.

Mobile Research Applications and State Data Protection Statutes.

This article focuses on state privacy, security, and data breach regulation of mobile-app mediated health research, concentrating in particular on research studies conducted or participated in by independent scientists, citizen scientists, and patient researchers. Prior scholarship addressing these issues tends to focus on the lack of application of the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules and other sources of federal regulation. One article, however, mentions state law as a possible source of privacy and security protections for individuals in the particular context of mobile app-mediated health research. This Article builds on this prior scholarship by: (1) assessing state data protection statutes that are potentially applicable to mobile app-mediated health researchers; and (2) suggesting statutory amendments that could better protect the privacy and security of mobile health research data. As discussed in more detail below, all fifty states and the District of Columbia have potentially applicable data breach notification statutes that require the notification of data subjects of certain informational breaches in certain contexts. In addition, more than two-thirds of jurisdictions have potentially applicable data security statutes and almost one-third of jurisdictions have potentially applicable data privacy statutes. Because all jurisdictions have data breach notification statutes, these statutes will be assessed first.

Mobile Research Applications and State Research Laws.

This article assesses the protections provided by state research laws for participants in mobile application (mobile app) mediated health research conducted by independent scientists, citizen scientists, and patient researchers. Prior scholarship in this area focuses on the lack of application of: (1) federal regulations governing research conducted or funded by one of sixteen signatory federal departments and agencies (the Common Rule); and (2) separate federal regulations promulgated by the Food and Drug Administration applicable to research conducted in anticipation of a submission to the FDA for approval of a drug or medical device. This article builds on this prior scholarship by carefully examining state research laws and suggesting ways in which these laws could be improved to better protect participants of mobile appmediated research conducted by independent scientists, citizen scientists, and patient researchers.

Unregulated Health Research Using Mobile Devices: Ethical Considerations and Policy Recommendations.

Mobile devices with health apps, direct-to-consumer genetic testing, crowd-sourced information, and other data sources have enabled research by new classes of researchers. Independent researchers, citizen scientists, patient-directed researchers, self-experimenters, and others are not covered by federal research regulations because they are not recipients of federal financial assistance or conducting research in anticipation of a submission to the FDA for approval of a new drug or medical device. This article addresses the difficult policy challenge of promoting the welfare and interests of research participants, as well as the public, in the absence of regulatory requirements and without discouraging independent, innovative scientific inquiry. The article recommends a series of measures, including education, consultation, transparency, self-governance, and regulation to strike the appropriate balance.

Expert Perspectives on Oversight for Unregulated mHealth Research: Empirical Data and Commentary.

In qualitative interviews with a diverse group of experts, the vast majority believed unregulated researchers should seek out independent oversight. Reasons included the need for objectivity, protecting app users from research risks, and consistency in standards for the ethical conduct of research. Concerns included burdening minimal risk research and limitations in current systems of oversight. Literature and analysis supports the use of IRBs even when not required by regulations, and the need for evidence-based improvements in IRB processes.

Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood? Personas Populating Unregulated mHealth Research.

A key feature of unregulated mHealth research is the diversity of participants in this space. Applying an approach drawn from user experience design, we describe a set of archetypal unregulated mHealth researcher "personas," which range from individuals who seek empowerment or have philanthropic objectives to those who are primarily motivated by financial gain or have misanthropic objectives. These descriptions are useful for evaluating policies applicable to mHealth to understand how they will impact various stakeholders.

Identification and Ranking of Biomedical Informatics Researcher Citation Statistics through a Google Scholar Scraper.

To overcome limitations of previously developed scientific productivity ranking services, we created the Biomedical Informatics Researchers ranking website (rank.informatics-review.com). The website is composed of four key components that work together to create the automatically updating ranking website: 1) list of biomedical informatics researchers, 2) Google Scholar scraper, 3) display page, and 4) updater. The interactive website has facilitated identification of leaders in each of the key citation statistics categories (i.e., number of citations, h-index, and i10-index), and it has allowed other groups, such as tenure and promotions committees, to more effectively and efficiently evaluate researchers and interpret the various citation statistics reported by candidates. Creation of the biomedical informatics researcher ranking website highlights the vast differences in scholarly productivity among members of the biomedical informatics research community. Future efforts are underway to add new functionality to the website and to expand the work to identify top papers in biomedical informatics.

Changes in the Number and Employment Conditions of Clinical Research Coordinators in South Korea.

BACKGROUND: This study was aimed to examine the number and employment conditions of clinical research coordinators (CRCs) in Korea, with comparison to data from 2010 to identify changes. METHODS: The descriptive study examined 65 sites that participated in a survey or phone interviews among 184 sites registered as clinical trial sites by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, and 2 site management organizations. The data were analyzed for mean, standard deviation or median, range, frequency, and percentage. RESULTS: There were 2855 CRCs in 65 sites and 3711 CRCs nationwide, which reflected an increase of 268 people every year on average since 2010. The most common employment system (60.6%) was where CRCs were hired by sites and allocated to clinical trial departments. As for employment type, 48.5% of posts were full-time, and monthly wage payment was the most common at 54.5%. An employment/personnel management department was reported at 87.9% of sites. The average duration from hiring to resignation was 19 months. CONCLUSIONS: The number of CRCs was increased, and such an increase of CRCs was attributed to the increase of investigator-affiliated CRCs rather than site-affiliated CRCs. Though the employment conditions of CRCs have been improved, most improvements were confined to site-affiliated CRCs. It is recommended that each site have a CRC registration and management system for both site-affiliated CRCs and investigator-affiliated CRCs, standardized CRC employment guidelines, and support for CRCs to participate in the training program for the overall improvement of employment conditions of CRCs in Korea.

Productivity of CNPq Researchers from Different Fields in Biomedical Sciences: The Need for Objective Bibliometric Parameters-A Report from Brazil.

In Brazil, the CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development) provides grants, funds and fellowships to productive scientists to support their investigations. They are ranked and categorized into four hierarchical levels ranging from PQ 1A (the highest) to PQ 1D (the lowest). Few studies, however, report and analyse scientific productivity in different sub-fields of Biomedical Sciences (BS), e.g., Biochemistry, Pharmacology, Biophysics and Physiology. In fact, systematic comparisons of productivity among the PQ 1 categories within the above sub-fields are lacking in the literature. Here, the scientific productivity of 323 investigators receiving PQ 1 fellowships (A to D levels) in these sub-fields of BS was investigated. The Scopus database was used to compile the total number of articles, citations, h-index values and authorship positions (first-, co- or last-listed author) in the most cited papers by researchers granted CNPq fellowships. We found that researchers from Pharmacology had the best performance for all of the parameters analysed, followed by those in Biochemistry. There was great variability in scientific productivity within the PQ 1A level in all of the sub-fields of BS, but not within the other levels (1B, 1C and 1D). Analysis of the most cited papers of PQ 1(A-D) researchers in Pharmacology revealed that the citations of researchers in the 1C and 1D levels were associated with publications with their senior supervisors, whereas those in the 1B level were less connected with their supervisors in comparison to those in 1A. Taken together, these findings suggest that the scientific performance of PQ 1A researchers in BS is not homogenous. In our opinion, parameters such as the most cited papers without the involvement of Ph.D. and/or post-doctoral supervisors should be used to make decisions regarding any given researcher's fellowship award level.

What is the actual prevalence of migraine?

OBJECTIVES: Population prevalence studies of migraine report prevalence rates of between 2.6 and 21.7%, with an average of ~12%. However, migraine prevalence among neurologists is reported to be significantly higher, between 27.6% and 48.6%. Increasing knowledge of the protean manifestations of migraine may explain this difference. Similarly, under-recognition of migraine in control groups may explain the lack of genetic and biomarker findings in this disorder. We therefore sought to determine the prevalence of migraine in an admixed group of individuals with varied knowledge of migraine symptomatology. METHODS: Attendees at the Australian and New Zealand Association of Neurologists Annual Scientific Meeting (ANZAN ASM) 2017 were surveyed anonymously. Those surveyed included three groups: neurologists, neurology trainees, and others including nonclinical researchers, members of lay organizations, and representatives of the pharmaceutical industry. RESULTS: In total, 313 of 606 attendees responded (51.7%). 65.9% of neurologist, 57.4% of trainee, and 52.5% of others respondents had a personal history of migraine, with the difference between neurologists and others being statistically significant (p = .03). Migraine in migraineurs and nonmigraine headache in nonmigraineurs were nearly all self-diagnosed. Among neurologist migraineurs, 51.2% experienced migraine with aura and 43% migraine without aura. CONCLUSIONS: Migraine prevalence is significantly higher in neurologists compared to non-neurologists and at least 2-3 times higher than reported in population prevalence studies. This may be due to significant under-recognition of migraine in non-neurologists. This under-recognition of migraine may significantly influence the search for genetic predictors and biomarkers of migraine.

Difference in R01 Grant Funding Among Osteopathic and Allopathic Emergency Physicians over the Last Decade.

INTRODUCTION: Receiving an R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is regarded as a major accomplishment for the physician researcher and can be used as a means of scholarly activity for core faculty in emergency medicine (EM). However, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education requires that a grant must be obtained for it to count towards a core faculty member's scholarly activity, while the American Osteopathic Association states that an application for a grant would qualify for scholarly activity whether it is received or not. The aim of the study was to determine if a medical degree disparity exists between those who successfully receive an EM R01 grant and those who do not, and to determine the publication characteristics of those recipients. METHODS: We queried the NIH RePORTER search engine for those physicians who received an R01 grant in EM. Degree designation was then determined for each grant recipient based on a web-based search involving the recipient's name and the location where the grant was awarded. The grant recipient was then queried through PubMed central for the total number of publications published in the decade prior to receiving the grant. RESULTS: We noted a total of 264 R01 grant recipients during the study period; of those who received the award, 78.03% were allopathic physicians. No osteopathic physician had received an R01 grant in EM over the past 10 years. Of those allopathic physicians who received the grant, 44.17% held a dual degree. Allopathic physicians had an average of 48.05 publications over the 10 years prior to grant receipt and those with a dual degree had 51.62 publications. CONCLUSION: Allopathic physicians comprise the majority of those who have received an R01 grant in EM over the last decade. These physicians typically have numerous prior publications and an advanced degree.

Working Definitions of the Roles and an Organizational Structure in Health Professions Education Scholarship: Initiating an International Conversation.

PROBLEM: Health professions education scholarship (HPES) is an important and growing field of inquiry. Problematically, consistent use of terminology regarding the individual roles and organizational structures that are active in this field are lacking. This inconsistency impedes the transferability of current and future findings related to the roles and organizational structures of HPES. APPROACH: Based on data collected during interviews with HPES leaders in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and the Netherlands, the authors constructed working definitions for some of the professional roles and an organizational structure that support HPES. All authors reviewed the definitions to ensure relevance across multiple countries. OUTCOMES: The authors define and offer illustrative examples of three professional roles in HPES (clinician educator, HPES research scientist, and HPES administrative leader) and an organizational structure that can support HPES participation (HPES unit). These working definitions are foundational and not all-encompassing and, thus, are offered as stimulus for international dialogue and understanding. NEXT STEPS: With these working definitions, scholars and administrative leaders can examine HPES roles and organizational structures across and between national contexts to decide how lessons learned in other contexts can be applied to their local contexts. Although rigorously constructed, these definitions need to be vetted by the international HPES community. The authors argue that these definitions are sufficiently transferable to support such scholarly investigation and debate.

Scientific Performance of Brazilian Researchers in Pharmacology with grants from CNPq: A comparative study within the Brazilian categories.

In Brazil, scientific performance of researchers is one important criteria for decision-making in grant allocation. In this context, this study aimed to evaluate and compare the profile of 82 seniors' investigators (graded as level 1A-D) which were receiving CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development) productivity grant in Pharmacology, by analyzing the pattern of citation of their papers and h-index. Total documents, citations (with and without self-citations) and h-index (with and without self-citations) were retrieved from the Scopus database. The results indicated a clear difference among researchers from the higher categories (1A and 1B) in most of the parameters analyzed. However, no noticeable differentiation was found between researchers from grant category 1C and 1D. The results presented here may inform the scientific community and the grant agencies on the profile of PQ 1(A-D) fellows of Pharmacology, and may help to define new differences within CNPq grant categories, and consequently, a better allocation of grants.

Methods for identifying translational researchers.

There is currently no generally accepted method for identifying the community of translational researchers when evaluating Clinical and Translational Science Centers. We use data from the multiyear evaluation of the University of Illinois at Chicago Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS) to investigate the complexities of reliably identifying translational researchers. We use three methods to identify translational researchers: (1) participating in CCTS services and programs; (2) self-identifying as a translational researcher; and (3) engaging in activities that are characteristic of translational science. We find little overlap of these differently defined research groups. We conclude with a discussion of how the findings suggest challenges for evaluating translational science programs and the need for better definition, communication, and demonstration of translational science for scientists and evaluators.