Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A(H5N1) Virus Outbreak in New England Seals, United States.

We report the spillover of highly pathogenic avian influenza A(H5N1) into marine mammals in the northeastern United States, coincident with H5N1 in sympatric wild birds. Our data indicate monitoring both wild coastal birds and marine mammals will be critical to determine pandemic potential of influenza A viruses.

Rhode Island Has the Highest Rate of Medicare Part D Claims for Benzodiazepines Among New England States.

BACKGROUND: Benzodiazepine use among older adults is discouraged. METHODS: We analyzed the Medicare Part D Prescribers by Provider and Drug dataset to determine the number of benzodiazepine claims per 100 Medicare enrollees for each NE state between 2016-2020, and to determine the percentage of benzodiazepine claims by provider type. RESULTS: Rhode Island led all NE states the with highest annual rates of Part D benzodiazepine claims for all years from 2016 to 2020. Benzodiazepine claims decreased in all NE states over the 5-year period. Internal medicine and family practice providers were associated with the highest percentage of benzodiazepine claims. CONCLUSION: While Part D benzodiazepine claims declined between 2016-2020, the overall volume of dispensings suggests that these medications remain overprescribed among older adults. Our findings underscore the need for intensified efforts to reduce benzo- diazepine use among Medicare beneficiaries in RI.

Associations of Anaplasma phagocytophilum Bacteria Variants in Ixodes scapularis Ticks and Humans, New York, USA.

Anaplasmosis, caused by the tickborne bacterium Anaplasma phagocytophilum, is an emerging public health threat in the United States. In the northeastern United States, the blacklegged tick (Ixodes scapularis) transmits the human pathogenic genetic variant of A. phagocytophilum (Ap-ha) and a nonpathogenic variant (Ap-V1). New York has recently experienced a rapid and geographically focused increase in cases of anaplasmosis. We analyzed A. phagocytophilum-infected I. scapularis ticks collected across New York during 2008-2020 to differentiate between variants and calculate an entomological risk index (ERI) for each. Ap-ha ERI varied between regions and increased in all regions during the final years of the study. Space-time scan analyses detected expanding clusters of Ap-ha located within documented anaplasmosis hotspots. Ap-ha ERI was more positively correlated with anaplasmosis incidence than non-genotyped A. phagocytophilum ERI. Our findings help elucidate the relationship between the spatial ecology of A. phagocytophilum variants and anaplasmosis.

Escalating costs of self-injury mortality in the 21st century United States: an interstate observational study.

BACKGROUND: Estimating the economic costs of self-injury mortality (SIM) can inform health planning and clinical and public health interventions, serve as a basis for their evaluation, and provide the foundation for broadly disseminating evidence-based policies and practices. SIM is operationalized as a composite of all registered suicides at any age, and 80% of drug overdose (intoxication) deaths medicolegally classified as 'accidents,' and 90% of corresponding undetermined (intent) deaths in the age group 15 years and older. It is the long-term practice of the United States (US) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to subsume poisoning (drug and nondrug) deaths under the injury rubric. This study aimed to estimate magnitude and change in SIM and suicide costs in 2019 dollars for the United States (US), including the 50 states and the District of Columbia. METHODS: Cost estimates were generated from underlying cause-of-death data for 1999/2000 and 2018/2019 from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) Wide-ranging ONline Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER). Estimation utilized the updated version of Medical and Work Loss Cost Estimation Methods for CDC's Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS). Exposures were medical expenditures, lost work productivity, and future quality of life loss. Main outcome measures were disaggregated, annual-averaged total and per capita costs of SIM and suicide for the nation and states in 1999/2000 and 2018/2019. RESULTS: 40,834 annual-averaged self-injury deaths in 1999/2000 and 101,325 in 2018/2019 were identified. Estimated national costs of SIM rose by 143% from $0.46 trillion to $1.12 trillion. Ratios of quality of life and work losses to medical spending in 2019 US dollars in 2018/2019 were 1,476 and 526, respectively, versus 1,419 and 526 in 1999/2000. Total national suicide costs increased 58%-from $318.6 billion to $502.7 billion. National per capita costs of SIM doubled from $1,638 to $3,413 over the observation period; costs of the suicide component rose from $1,137 to $1,534. States in the top quintile for per capita SIM, those whose cost increases exceeded 152%, concentrated in the Great Lakes, Southeast, Mideast and New England. States in the bottom quintile, those with per capita cost increases below 70%, were located in the Far West, Southwest, Plains, and Rocky Mountain regions. West Virginia exhibited the largest increase at 263% and Nevada the smallest at 22%. Percentage per capita cost increases for suicide were smaller than for SIM. Only the Far West, Southwest and Mideast were not represented in the top quintile, which comprised states with increases of 50% or greater. The bottom quintile comprised states with per capita suicide cost increases below 24%. Regions represented were the Far West, Southeast, Mideast and New England. North Dakota and Nevada occupied the extremes on the cost change continuum at 75% and - 1%, respectively. CONCLUSION: The scale and surge in the economic costs of SIM to society are large. Federal and state prevention and intervention programs should be financed with a clear understanding of the total costs-fiscal, social, and personal-incurred by deaths due to self-injurious behaviors.

RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW OF NEUROLOGIC DISEASE IN STRANDED ATLANTIC HARBOR SEALS (PHOCA VITULINA CONCOLOR) ALONG THE NEW ENGLAND COAST.

Harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) are a common species admitted to marine mammal rehabilitation facilities. As important indicators of marine ecosystem health, monitoring trends of disease in harbor seal populations is critical. However, few studies have evaluated neurologic disease in this species. The general objective of this study was to retrospectively review and delineate neurologic disease in free-ranging Atlantic harbor seals (P. vitulina concolor) that stranded along the New England (United States) coast and entered a rehabilitation facility between 2006 and 2019. Any Atlantic harbor seal that stranded live along the New England coast during the study period and was diagnosed with neurologic disease on either antemortem or postmortem evaluation was included; medical records and pathologic reports were reviewed. From 211 records, 24 animals met the inclusion criteria. Prevalence of neurologic disease was 11% in the study population and six major categories of neurologic disease were identified including: inflammatory (54%), idiopathic (33%), trauma (4%), congenital (4%), and degenerative (4%). Of the seals diagnosed with neurologic disease, 13 (54%) seals died during rehabilitation, 10 (42%) seals were euthanized, and 1 (4%) seal survived to release. Unique cases seen included a seal with Dandy-Walker-like malformation and another seal with histopathologic findings compatible with neuroaxonal dystrophy, a degenerative process that has not been previously reported in marine mammals. This study contributes to the overall knowledge of the health of free-ranging Atlantic harbor seals and may aid clinicians in characterizing neurologic conditions that may be present in seals undergoing rehabilitation.

HCV serostatus and injection sharing practices among those who obtain syringes from pharmacies and directly and indirectly from syringe services programs in rural New England.

BACKGROUND: Among people who inject drugs (PWID), obtaining syringes via syringe services programs (SSPs) and pharmacies reduces injection sharing practices associated with hepatitis C virus (HCV). Whether indirect use of SSPs via secondary exchange confers a similar benefit remains unknown, particularly in rural settings. We compared HCV serostatus and injection sharing practices by primary syringe source among a sample of rural PWID. METHODS: Data are from a cross-sectional study of adults who use drugs recruited from eleven rural counties in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts using respondent-driven sampling (2018-2019). Study staff performed HCV antibody testing. An audio computer-assisted self-interview assessed sociodemographic characteristics, past 30-day injection practices, and past 30-day primary syringe source. Primary syringe source was classified as direct SSP, pharmacy, indirect SSP (secondary exchange), or "other" (friend/acquaintance, street seller, partner/relative, found them). Mixed effects modified Poisson models assessed the association of primary syringe source with HCV seroprevalence and injection sharing practices. RESULTS: Among 397 PWID, the most common primary syringe source was "other" (33%), then pharmacies (27%), SSPs (22%), and secondary exchange (18%). In multivariable models, compared with those obtaining most syringes from "other" sources, those obtaining most syringes from pharmacies had a lower HCV seroprevalence [adjusted prevalence ratio (APR):0.85, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.73-0.9985]; however, the upper bound of the 95% CI was close to 1.0. Compared with those obtaining most syringes from other sources, PWID obtaining most syringes directly from SSPs or pharmacies were less likely to report borrowing used syringes [APR(SSP):0.60, 95% CI 0.43-0.85 and APR(Pharmacies):0.70, 95% CI 0.52-0.93], borrowing used injection equipment [APR(SSP):0.59, 95% CI 0.50-0.69 and APR (Pharmacies):0.81, 95% CI 0.68-0.98], and backloading [APR(SSP):0.65, 95% CI 0.48-0.88 and APR(Pharmacies):0.78, 95% CI 0.67-0.91]. Potential inverse associations between obtaining most syringes via secondary exchange and injection sharing practices did not reach the threshold for statistical significance. CONCLUSIONS: PWID in rural New England largely relied on informal syringe sources (i.e., secondary exchange or sources besides SSPs/pharmacies). Those obtaining most syringes from an SSP or pharmacy were less likely to share injection equipment/syringes and had a lower HCV seroprevalence, which suggests using these sources reduces the risk of new HCV infections or serves as proxy for past injection behavior.

Real-time joint ocean acoustics and circulation modeling in the 2021 New England Shelf Break Acoustics experiment (L).

During the spring of 2021, a coordinated multi-vessel effort was organized to study physical oceanography, marine geology and biology, and acoustics on the northeast United States continental shelf, as part of the New England Shelf Break Acoustics (NESBA) experiment. One scientific goal was to establish a real-time numerical model aboard the research vessel with high spatial and temporal resolution to predict the oceanography and sound propagation within the NESBA study area. The real-time forecast model performance and challenges are reported in this letter without adjustment or re-simulation after the cruise. Future research directions for post-experiment studies are also suggested.

Stakeholder perspectives on scaling up medical device reprocessing: A qualitative study.

BACKGROUND: The United States health care sector is one of the largest polluting industries, which has significant adverse effects on human health. Medical device reprocessing (MDR) is a sustainability solution that has the potential to decrease hospital waste, cut carbon emissions, reduce spending, and improve supply chain resiliency; however, only a small proportion of FDA-approved devices are actually reprocessed. Thus, we conducted a qualitative study to understand barriers and facilitators of scaling up MDR. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We conducted in-depth interviews with 17 stakeholders (exceeding thematic saturation) at a large academic health system in New England and national MDR organizations. We also collected observations through site visits at the health system. We recruited participants from June 2021 to April 2022 through purposive sampling. Using an analytic approach guided by the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research, we applied inductive and deductive codes related to key implementation constructs. We then conducted a thematic analysis and identified five overarching themes related to barriers and facilitators of MDR. First, respondents explained that regulatory bodies and original equipment manufacturers determine which devices can be reprocessed. For example, some respondents described that original equipment manufacturers use tactics of forced obsolescence that prevent their devices from being reprocessed. Second, respondents explained that MDR has variable compatibility with hospital priorities; for example, the potential cost savings of MDR is compatible with their priorities, while the perception of decreased functionality of reprocessed medical devices is incompatible. Third, respondents described that physician preferences influence which reprocessed devices get ordered. Fourth, respondents explained that variable staff knowledge and beliefs about MDR influence their motivations to select and collect reprocessable devices. Lastly, respondents emphasized that there was a lack of infrastructure for evaluating and maintaining MDR programs within their health system. CONCLUSIONS: Based on our findings, we have outlined a number of recommendations that target these barriers and facilitators so that the environmental and financial benefits of MDR can be realized at this health system and nationally. For example, implementing federal policies that prevent original equipment manufacturers from using tactics of forced obsolescence can facilitate the scale-up of MDR nationally. Additionally, providing life cycle assessments that compare the environmental effects of single-use disposable, reprocessable disposable, and reusable devices could facilitate health systems' purchasing decisions. Creating and disseminating audit and feedback reports to hospital staff might also facilitate their continued engagement in the program. Lastly, hiring a full-time program manager that leads MDR programs within health systems could improve program sustainability.

Archival Oddities: Leo Kamin Pounding out Copy for the Daily Worker.

This short research report focuses on psychologist Leon Kamin, who is best known for his research on what became known as the Kamin (blocking) effect. In the 1970s and 1980s he became prominent both inside and outside of psychology, not for laboratory research but for his writings on the heritability of intelligence. Kamin was no stranger to political activism. He joined the Communist Party U.S.A. at age 17, when he was a sophomore at Harvard. By 1949, he was writing for the Daily Worker (pen name: Leo Soft) and was employed as its New England editor in 1949-1950. In January 1954, Kamin was called to testify by Joseph McCarthy's anti-Communist Senate subcommittee, which was visiting Boston and justified its interest in Harvard by citing its winning research grants from the U.S. Department of Defense. Kamin refused to "name names" and he was indicted for contempt of the Senate. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Squash bees host high diversity and prevalence of parasites in the northeastern United States.

The squash bee Eucera (Peponapis) pruinosa is emerging as a model species to study how stressors impact solitary wild bees in North America. Here, we describe the prevalence of trypanosomes, microsporidians and mollicute bacteria in E. pruinosa and two other species, Bombus impatiens and Apis mellifera, that together comprise over 97% of the pollinator visitors of Cucurbita agroecosystems in Pennsylvania (United States). Our results indicate that all three parasite groups are commonly detected in these bee species, but E. pruinosa often exhibit higher prevalences. We further describe novel trypanosome parasites detected in E. pruinosa, however it is unknown how these parasites impact these bees. We suggest future work investigates parasite replication and infection outcomes.

Investigating Changes in Ozone Formation Chemistry during Summertime Pollution Events over the Northeastern United States.

Understanding the local-scale spatial and temporal variability of ozone formation is crucial for effective mitigation. We combine tropospheric vertical column densities (VCDTrop) of formaldehyde (HCHO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2), referred to as HCHO-VCDTrop and NO2-VCDTrop, retrieved from airborne remote sensing and the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) with ground-based measurements to investigate changes in ozone precursors and the inferred chemical production regime on high-ozone days in May-August 2018 over two Northeast urban domains. Over New York City (NYC) and Baltimore/Washington D.C. (BAL/DC), HCHO-VCDTrop increases across the domain, but higher NO2-VCDTrop occurs mainly in urban centers on ozone exceedance days (when maximum daily 8 h average (MDA8) ozone exceeds 70 ppb at any monitor in the region). The ratio of HCHO-VCDTrop to NO2-VCDTrop, proposed as an indicator of the sensitivity of local surface ozone production rates to its precursors, generally increases on ozone exceedance days, implying a transition toward a more NOx-sensitive ozone production regime that should lead to higher efficacy of NOx controls on the highest ozone days in NYC and BAL/DC. Warmer temperatures and enhanced influence from emissions in the local boundary layer on the high-ozone days are accompanied by slower wind speeds in BAL/DC but stronger, southwesterly winds in NYC.

Estimates of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.2 Subvariant Severity in New England.

Importance: The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron subvariant, BA.2, may be less severe than previous variants; however, confounding factors make interpreting the intrinsic severity challenging. Objective: To compare the adjusted risks of mortality, hospitalization, intensive care unit admission, and invasive ventilation between the BA.2 subvariant and the Omicron and Delta variants, after accounting for multiple confounders. Design, Setting, and Participants: This was a retrospective cohort study that applied an entropy balancing approach. Patients in a multicenter inpatient and outpatient system in New England with COVID-19 between March 3, 2020, and June 20, 2022, were identified. Exposures: Cases were assigned as being exposed to the Delta (B.1.617.2) variant, the Omicron (B.1.1.529) variant, or the Omicron BA.2 lineage subvariants. Main Outcomes and Measures: The primary study outcome planned before analysis was risk of 30-day mortality. Secondary outcomes included the risks of hospitalization, invasive ventilation, and intensive care unit admissions. Results: Of 102 315 confirmed COVID-19 cases (mean [SD] age, 44.2 [21.6] years; 63 482 women [62.0%]), 20 770 were labeled as Delta variants, 52 605 were labeled as the Omicron B.1.1.529 variant, and 28 940 were labeled as Omicron BA.2 subvariants. Patient cases were excluded if they occurred outside the prespecified temporal windows associated with the variants or had minimal longitudinal data in the Mass General Brigham system before COVID-19. Mortality rates were 0.7% for Delta (B.1.617.2), 0.4% for Omicron (B.1.1.529), and 0.3% for Omicron (BA.2). The adjusted odds ratio of mortality from the Delta variant compared with the Omicron BA.2 subvariants was 2.07 (95% CI, 1.04-4.10) and that of the original Omicron variant compared with the Omicron BA.2 subvariant was 2.20 (95% CI, 1.56-3.11). For all outcomes, the Omicron BA.2 subvariants were significantly less severe than that of the Omicron and Delta variants. Conclusions and Relevance: In this cohort study, after having accounted for a variety of confounding factors associated with SARS-CoV-2 outcomes, the Omicron BA.2 subvariant was found to be intrinsically less severe than both the Delta and Omicron variants. With respect to these variants, the severity profile of SARS-CoV-2 appears to be diminishing after taking into account various factors including therapeutics, vaccinations, and prior infections.

Separating Proactive Conservation from Species Listing Decisions.

Proactive Conservation is a paradigm of natural resource management in the United States that encourages voluntary, collaborative efforts to restore species before they need to be protected through government regulations. This paradigm is widely used to conserve at-risk species today, and when used in conjunction with the Policy for Evaluation of Conservation Efforts (PECE), it allows for successful conservation actions to preclude listing of species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Despite the popularity of this paradigm, and recent flagship examples of its use (e.g., greater sage grouse, Centrocercus urophasianus), critical assessments of the outcomes of Proactive Conservation are lacking from the standpoint of species status and recovery metrics. Here, we provide such an evaluation, using the New England cottontail (Sylvilagus transitionalis), heralded as a success of Proactive Conservation efforts in the northeastern United States, as a case study. We review the history and current status of the species, based on the state of the science, in the context of the Conservation Initiative, and the 2015 PECE decision not to the list the species under the ESA. In addition to the impacts of the PECE decision on the New England cottontail conservation specifically, our review also evaluates the benefits and limits of the Proactive Conservation paradigm more broadly, and we make recommendations for its role in relation to ESA implementation for the future of at-risk species management. We find that the status and assurances for recovery under the PECE policy, presented at the time of the New England cottontail listing decision, were overly optimistic, and the status of the species has worsened in subsequent years. We suggest that use of PECE to avoid listing may occur because of the perception of the ESA as a punitive law and a misconception that it is a failure, although very few listed species have gone extinct. Redefining recovery to decouple it from delisting and instead link it to probability of persistence under recommended conservation measures would remove some of the stigma of listing, and it would strengthen the role of Species Status Assessments in endangered species conservation.

Damming news: Geospatial media discourse analysis of dams.

Dams are a globally important social-ecological issue, and the practice of removing aging or obsolete dams is increasing in many countries where rivers have been used to fuel industrial growth. News media play an important role in providing information and raising awareness about dam-related decision making and patterns in news media coverage can shape public sense-making about potentially controversial dam decisions. This research focuses on spatial patterns of news media references to "dam removal" georeferenced to a New England dams database, the types of dam removal characteristics that contribute to newsworthiness, and specific media framing strategies. We develop a method, known as DAMMDA, that combines a large geodatabase of dam features and corpus of news media articles. We find that spatial patterns of "dam removal" news media coverage do not necessarily coincide with the actual occurrence of removed dams, nor the distribution of extant dams, in the landscape. Instead, a minority of dams with specific characteristics make up the majority of dam media references. Such "newsworthy dams" are capable of generating hydroelectricity, are situated on large rivers, are located in urban areas, or have already been removed. Further, references to newsworthy dams are often used to frame discussions about future dam decisions in other locations in New England and across the United States. We conclude by reflecting on how this approach is relevant for understanding complex and interconnected factors that can shape controversial sustainability issues, such as the relationships between news media and social-ecological characteristics of infrastructures within landscapes.

Prenatal exposure to PM2.5 and childhood cognition: Accounting for between-site heterogeneity in a pooled analysis of ECHO cohorts in the Northeastern United States.

BACKGROUND: Emerging studies have investigated the adverse health effects of PM2.5 using data from multiple cohorts, and results often are not generalizable across cohorts. We aimed to assess associations between prenatal PM2.5 and childhood cognition in two U.S. cohorts while accounting for between-site heterogeneity. METHODS: Analyses included 348 mother-child dyads enrolled in the dual site (New York City and Boston) PRogramming of Intergenerational Stress Mechanisms (PRISM) cohort and in the First Thousand Days of Life (FTDL) study (Northern Virginia) participating in the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) national consortium. Residential prenatal PM2.5 exposure was estimated using a validated satellite-based model and childhood cognition was measured using the NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery at three to eight years of age. We used a log-linear model applied to contingency tables formed by cross-classifying covariates by site to examine between-site heterogeneity using 3rd trimester PM2.5 exposure, age-corrected cognition scores, and covariates potentially causing heterogeneities. Multivariable linear regression models informed by the combinability analysis were used to estimate the coefficients and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the association between 3rd trimester PM2.5 exposure and age-corrected cognition scores (mean = 100, SD = 15). RESULTS: The log-linear model indicated that inter-study associations were similar between PRISM-NYC and FTDL, which were different from those in PRISM-Boston. Accordingly, we combined the data of PRISM-NYC and FTDL cohorts. We observed associations between 3rd trimester PM2.5 and cognition scores, findings were varying by site, childsex, and test. For example, a 1 µg/m3 increase of 3rd trimester PM2.5 was associated with -4.35 (95% CI = -8.73, -0.25) mean early childhood cognition scores in females in PRISM-Boston. In the pooled NYC + FTDL site, the association between PM2.5 and childhood cognition may be modified by maternal education and urbanicity. CONCLUSIONS: We found associations between prenatal PM2.5 and impaired childhood cognition. Since multi-site analyses are increasingly conducted, our findings suggest the needed awareness of between-site heterogeneity.

Feeding and Activity Environments for Infants and Toddlers in Childcare Centers and Family Childcare Homes in Southeastern New England.

Few studies have documented the food and physical activity (PA) environments of childcare settings caring for children <24 months of age, although they may be key contributors to developing child PA and diet patterns. We used an adapted Environment and Policy Assessment and Observation tool to assess the food and activity environments for infants and toddlers in childcare centers (n = 21) and family childcare homes (FCCH) (n = 20) and explored differences by childcare type. Many similarities were found between childcare site types; however, centers used more recommended feeding practices than FCCH (e.g., 100% of center providers talked with toddlers about feelings of hunger or fullness compared to 18% of family childcare providers (FCCP), p < 0.01). Differences in non-recommended feeding practices (e.g., spoon feeding, bottle propping and encouraging unhealthy foods) were mixed between childcare types. Toddlers in centers spent more time playing at higher PA levels than those in FCCH (61 vs. 13 min, p < 0.001). Screen time was observed in FCCH, but not in centers. Differences between childcare types may indicate differential influences on infant and toddler feeding and PA behaviors, which could predict disparate obesity risk. Future research should further observe these behaviors in a larger sample of centers and FCCH to inform childcare interventions and policies.

Repatriation of a historical North Atlantic right whale habitat during an era of rapid climate change.

Climate change is affecting species distributions in space and time. In the Gulf of Maine, one of the fastest-warming marine regions on Earth, rapid warming has caused prey-related changes in the distribution of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis). Concurrently, right whales have returned to historically important areas such as southern New England shelf waters, an area known to have been a whaling ground. We compared aerial survey data from two time periods (2013-2015; 2017-2019) to assess trends in right whale abundance in the region during winter and spring. Using distance sampling techniques, we chose a hazard rate key function to model right whale detections and used seasonal encounter rates to estimate abundance. The mean log of abundance increased by 1.40 annually between 2013 and 2019 (p = 0.004), and the mean number of individuals detected per year increased by 2.23 annually between 2013 and 2019 (R2 = 0.69, p = 0.001). These results demonstrate the current importance of this habitat and suggest that management options must continually evolve as right whales repatriate historical habitats and potentially expand to new habitats as they adapt to climate change.

Vector competence of Anopheles quadrimaculatus and Aedes albopictus for genetically distinct Jamestown Canyon virus strains circulating in the Northeast United States.

BACKGROUND: Jamestown Canyon virus (JCV; Peribunyaviridae, Orthobunyavirus) is a mosquito-borne pathogen belonging to the California serogroup. The virus is endemic in North America and increasingly recognized as a public health concern. In this study, we determined the vector competence of Anopheles (An.) quadrimaculatus and Aedes (Ae.) albopictus for five JCV strains belonging to the two lineages circulating in the Northeast. METHODS: An. quadrimaculatus and Ae. albopictus were fed blood meals containing two lineage A strains and three lineage B strains. Vector competence of both mosquito species was evaluated at 7- and 14-days post-feeding (dpf) by testing for virus presence in bodies, legs, and saliva. RESULTS: Our results demonstrated that Ae. albopictus mosquitoes are a competent vector for both lineages, with similar transmission levels for all strains tested. Variable levels of infection (46-83%) and dissemination (17-38%) were measured in An. quadrimaculatus, yet no transmission was detected for the five JCV strains evaluated. CONCLUSIONS: Our results demonstrate that establishment of Ae. albopictus in the Northeast could increase the risk of JCV but suggest An. quadrimaculatus are not a competent vector for JCV.

Urbanization drives geographically heterogeneous freshwater salinization in the northeastern United States.

Rising trends in freshwater salinity, collectively termed the Freshwater Salinization Syndrome (FSS), constitute a global environmental concern. Given that the FSS has been observed in diverse settings, key questions regarding the causes, trend magnitudes, and consequences remain. Prior work hypothesized that FSS is driven by state factors, such as human-centered land use change, geology, and climate. Here, we identify the fundamental overriding factors driving FSS within the northeastern United States and quantify the diversity of FSS severity within the region. Specifically, we analyzed decadal-scale trends in specific conductance (a salinity proxy) for 333 lotic sites over four decades. Next, we quantified potential variables driving the rising or falling trends, including impervious surface cover (ISC), winter temperature and precipitation, watershed size, and ambient conductance. Temperature and ISC were considered the most likely candidates for predicting FSS severity because road salts have previously emerged as the fundamental regional driver. Most (62.5%) sites exhibited patterns of significantly increasing conductance; thus, the overall regional state reflects advancing FSS. However, others exhibited an absence of change (28.8%) or decreasing values (8.7%), and slope magnitude did change with latitude. Linear modeling demonstrated that two variables-ISC and watershed size-constitute the best predictors of long-term conductance trends and that an intercept not significantly different than zero suggests that the FSS does not reign in the absence of urbanization. We also detected areas with consistently decreasing trends despite moderate ISC. Therefore, within the region, advancing urbanization causes the typical condition of advancing FSS, but heterogeneity also exists.