ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in introducing a large number of "emerging apps" to the mobile app market. These apps were developed and deployed quickly to address the urgency of the situation. This gave us an indication that the cycle of having new emerging apps will likely reoccur in every upcoming emergency in the future e.g. for advice and guidance during bush fires, floods, other pandemics, etc. We carried out an in-depth analysis of user reviews and version history release notes for 30 COVID-19 apps that were developed in a great hurry in 2020. We identified many diverse accessibility issues that exist, not just related to conventional challenged end-user accessibility issues, but including the ability to register, access, download, and use from different app stores in different countries and for different end-users. From this large-scale analysis, we developed a new advisory tool for software developers of emerging apps to avoid many of the wide accessibility issues presented in these COVID-19 apps. A user evaluation of our prototype tool with 13 real-world app developers indicates it will assist developers to address many of these issues prior to initial emerging app deployment.
ABSTRACT
Aim: The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has interrupted surgical treatment of colorectal cancer (CRC). This systematic review will assess literature concerning the risk of delay of elective surgery for CRC patients, focusing on overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS). Methods: A systematic review was performed as per PRISMA guidelines (PROSPERO ID: CRD42020189158). Medline, EMBASE and Scopus were searched. Patients over 18 with a diagnosis of colon or rectal cancer who received elective surgery as primary treatment were included. Delay was defined as the period between CRC diagnosis and day of surgery. Metanalyses of the outcomes OS and DFS were conducted. Forest plots, funnel plots, tests of heterogeneity, and estimated Number Needed to Harm (NNHs) were produced. Results: Of 3753 articles identified, seven met the inclusion criteria. Encompassing 314560 patients, three of the seven studies showed a delay to elective resection was associated with poorer OS or DFS. OS was assessed at a one-month delay, the HR for six datasets was 1.13 (95%CI 1.02-1.26, p=0.020) and at three months the HR for three datasets was 1.57 (95%CI 1.16-2.12, p=0.004). Estimated NNHs for a delay at one month and three months were 35 and 10 respectively. Delay was nonsignificantly negatively associated with DFS on metanalysis. Conclusions: This review recommends elective surgery for CRC patients is not postponed longer than four weeks, as evidence suggests extended delays from diagnosis are associated with poorer outcomes. Focused research is essential so patient groups can be prioritized based on risk-factors for future pandemics.
ABSTRACT
Many people around the world are worried about using or even downloading COVID-19 contact tracing mobile apps. The main reported concerns are centered around privacy and ethical issues. At the same time, people are voluntarily using Social Media apps at a significantly higher rate during the pandemic without similar privacy concerns compared with COVID-19 apps. To better understand these seemingly anomalous behaviours, we analysed the privacy policies, terms & conditions and data use agreements of the most commonly used COVID-19, Social Media & Productivity apps. We also developed a tool to extract and analyse nearly 2 million user reviews for these apps. Our results show that Social Media & Productivity apps actually have substantially higher privacy and ethical issues compared with the majority of COVID-19 apps. Surprisingly, lots of people indicated in their user reviews that they feel more secure as their privacy are better handled in COVID-19 apps than in Social Media apps. On the other hand, most of the COVID-19 apps are less accessible and stable compared to most Social Media apps, which negatively impacted their store ratings and led users to uninstall COVID-19 apps more frequently. Our findings suggest that in order to effectively fight this pandemic, health officials and technologists will need to better raise awareness among people about COVID-19 app behaviour and trustworthiness. This will allow people to better understand COVID-19 apps and encourage them to download and use these apps. Moreover, COVID-19 apps need many accessibility enhancements to allow a wider range of users from different societies and cultures to access to these apps.
ABSTRACT
Background: The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has interrupted the surgical treatment of colorectal cancer (CRC). This systematic review will assess literature concerning the risk of delay of elective surgery for CRC patients, focusing on overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS). Methods: A systematic review was performed as per PRISMA guidelines (PROSPERO ID: CRD42020189158). Medline, EMBASE and Scopus were searched. Delay to elective surgery was defined as the period between CRC diagnosis and the day of surgery. Metanalyses of the outcomes OS and DFS were conducted. Forest plots, funnel plots, and tests of heterogeneity were produced. An estimated Number Needed to Harm (NNH) was calculated for statistically significant pooled Hazard Ratios (HRs). Results: Of 3753 articles identified, seven met the inclusion criteria. Encompassing 314560 patients, three of the seven studies showed that a delay to elective resection is associated with poorer OS or DFS. OS was assessed at a one-month delay, the HR for six datasets was 1.13 (95% CI: 1.02-1.26, P = 0.020) and at three months the pooled HR for three datasets was 1.57 (95% CI: 1.16-2.12, P = 0.004). Estimated NNHs for a delay at one month and three months were 35 and 10 respectively. Delay was non-significantly negatively associated with DFS on meta-analysis. Conclusions: This review recommends that elective surgery for CRC patients is not postponed, as evidence suggests delays from diagnosis are associated with poorer outcomes. Focused research is essential so that patient groups can be prioritized based on risk factors for future pandemics.