Network embedding aided vaccine skepticism detection.

We investigate automatic methods to assess COVID vaccination views in Twitter content. Vaccine skepticism has been a controversial topic of long history that has become more important than ever with the COVID-19 pandemic. Our main goal is to demonstrate the importance of network effects in detecting vaccination skeptic content. Towards this end, we collected and manually labeled vaccination-related Twitter content in the first half of 2021. Our experiments confirm that the network carries information that can be exploited to improve the accuracy of classifying attitudes towards vaccination over content classification as baseline. We evaluate a variety of network embedding algorithms, which we combine with text embedding to obtain classifiers for vaccination skeptic content. In our experiments, by using Walklets, we improve the AUC of the best classifier with no network information by. We publicly release our labels, Tweet IDs and source codes on GitHub.

Challenges and opportunities of remote public involvement and community engagement during a pandemic: refining the MapMe childhood healthy weight intervention.

AIMS: Including parents and other stakeholders in the development of interventions to address the sensitive public health issues such as childhood obesity, through public involvement is critical. However, the Covid-19 pandemic has created a challenge for public involvement and engagement activities (PICE). The aim of this paper is to describe the process and challenges of setting up, maintaining, evaluating, and recording impact of three public and stakeholder groups via remote methods in the context of the MapMe2 study during the Covid-19 pandemic. Parental reaction to result letters received as part of the National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) informing parents of their child's overweight status is often one of hostility or disbelief. As a result, parents often do not act on these letters to address child overweight. The MapMe2 study is working in collaboration with the NCMP and local authorities, building on previous work (MapMe) and aims to support parents of primary school-aged children to recognise and maintain a healthy weight in their child. The existing MapMe Intervention includes an enhanced NCMP child weight result letter, supplemented with Body Image Scales (BIS), and an intervention website with material to support healthy eating, physical activity, and signposting supporting information. The intervention was to be refined and the evaluation informed with PICE input. METHODS: Covid-19 restrictions meant that planned face-to-face PICE methods had to be altered with all recruitment, all correspondence, and activities taking place remotely. A Parent Involvement Panel (PIP), a child panel, and an expert panel were established. Several adaptations were made to accommodate a new way of involving the public in research. RESULTS/CONCLUSIONS: Working remotely created many challenges and was a learning experience for all involved. However, an active group was successfully established. Using continuous assessment and evaluation methods, we were able to demonstrate successful involvement and engagement in the refinement of the MapMe2 study. Through the sharing of PICE methods practice, this paper adds to the literature, the value of partnership working.

Exploring the Impact of the First Wave of COVID-19 on Social Work Practice: A Qualitative Study in England, UK

The COVID-19 pandemic signalled a radical shift in health and social care services globally. In UK, many of the people with existing social care needs were identified as 'clinically vulnerable' to COVID-19. Those at greatest risk were encouraged to adhere to additional public health measures that inadvertently exacerbated social disadvantages. Social workers were challenged to 'dig deep' to continue to provide services as usual. However, problems implementing new ways of working were reported but not examined in-depth through research. Our study explored experiences and perceptions of social workers responding to the first wave (April-July 2020) of COVID-19, in England, UK. Interviews with thirteen social workers, all working in the West Midlands region, were conducted via telephone or online video. Transcripts were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. We use 'managing uncertainty' as a central concept underpinning the four themes identified after analysis: (1) providing social care at a physical distance, (2) negotiating home/work boundaries, (3) managing emerging risks and (4) long-term implications for social work. We discuss our findings in the context of resilience and organisational adaptation. Social workers in our study demonstrated resilience in action and rapid adaptation to new practices, but equally expressed concern about short-term efficiencies being prioritised over individual service user needs. The COVID-19 pandemic signalled a dramatic shift in how health and social care services were delivered to members of the public. Social workers reported challenges implementing new ways of working during the first wave of COVID-19. However, such challenges received little coverage in the media or in research. This article explores the views and experiences of social workers responding to the first COVID-19 wave in England, UK (April-July 2020). Telephone and online interviews were carried out with thirteen social workers active in the West Midlands region. Social workers shared experiences of how they managed uncertainty-a core theme in the study. Interviewees described managing the uncertainty of: (1) providing social care at a physical distance, (2) negotiating home/work boundaries, (3) managing emerging risks and (4) contemplating the future of social work practice. Our study demonstrates how social work professionals adapted rapidly to new practices during the first wave. However, social workers raised concerns about the impact of short-term solutions on long-term needs of service users. Implications for research and practice are discussed with reference to key literature.

[Can we influence the negative drug attitude? Interpretation of the rejection of COVID-19 vaccine in the light of results of a pilot study]. / Befolyásolható-e a negatív gyógyszerszedési attitud? A Covid-19-vakcinát elutasító magatartás interpretációja egy elokészíto vizsgálat eredményeinek tükrében.

Background and purpose: Vaccination refusal is a serious obstacle to minimizing the spread of COVID-19. Nevertheless, the rejection of vaccine can be considered the result of a negative attitude towards medical treatment, and according to our previously published data, it can be influenced by the underlying affective state. Increased incidence of affective disorders and anxiety could be observed globally during the pandemic, which may have a significant impact on vaccination acceptance. The aim of our pilot study was to determine the association between clinical improvement of affective and neurocognitive symptoms and change of drug attitude and health control beliefs in a sample of psychiatric patients. Methods: A data set of 85 patients with psychiatric disorder has been analysed with the use of Patient's Health Belief Questionnaire on Psychiatric Treatment (PHBQPT) with 5 subscales (Negative Aspect of Medication - NA; Positive Aspect of Medication - PA; Doctor health locus of control- Doctor HLOC; Internal HLOC; Psychological Reactance - PR); Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale (HADS-Anx; HADS-Dep) and neurocognitive tests, such as the Stroop test and the Trail Making Tests. All the tests were performed before and after a 14 days treatment. Paired t-tests and generalized linear models were performed to assess the associations between the variables. Results: The baseline scores of NA and HADS-Anx correlated significantly (p=0.001) and after two weeks of treatment NA decreased (p=0.001), while Doctor HLOC and Internal HLOC increased (p=0.001 and p=0.006). The patients performance of the neurocognitive tests improved (all p<0.05). The reduction of HADS-Anx (p=0.002) and HADS-Dep (p=0.006) scores showed significant associations with the decrease of NA. Increase of the PA score was associated with reduction of HADS-Dep (p=0.028). Improvement of neurocognitive functions had no effect on PHBQPT scores. Conclusion: Important conclusions can be drawn regarding the rejection of the COVID-19 vaccine based on the associations found between the intensity of affective and anxiety symptoms and the attitude towards treatment. Our findings suggest that affective symptoms have a negative influence on the attitude towards treatment and that the improvement of these symptoms can facilitate the acceptance of the therapy, regardless of diagnosis. The modest effect of the improvement of neurocognitive functioning on the attitude towards drugs and the significant role of affective-emotional factors suggest that the accep-tance of vaccination probably cannot be facilitated solely with the aid of educational programs. Considering the increasing incidence of affective disorders during the COVID-19 pandemic, the screening of affective and anxiety symptoms and treatment of these disorders could be an important step towards the acceptance of the vaccine. Although psychiatry is not considered as a frontline care unit of the COVID cases, more attention is needed to pay on the availability of mental health services because refuse of vaccine can develop due to affective disorders too.

Vaccine skepticism detection by network embedding (preprint)

We demonstrate the applicability of network embedding to vaccine skepticism, a controversial topic of long-past history. With the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak at the end of 2019, the topic is more important than ever. Only a year after the first international cases were registered, multiple vaccines were developed and passed clinical testing. Besides the challenges of development, testing, and logistics, another factor that might play a significant role in the fight against the pandemic are people who are hesitant to get vaccinated, or even state that they will refuse any vaccine offered to them. Two groups of people commonly referred to as a) pro-vaxxer, those who support vaccinating people b) vax-skeptic, those who question vaccine efficacy or the need for general vaccination against Covid-19. It is very difficult to tell exactly how many people share each of these views. It is even more difficult to understand all the reasoning why vax-skeptic opinions are getting more popular. In this work, our intention was to develop techniques that are able to efficiently differentiate between pro-vaxxer and vax-skeptic content. After multiple data preprocessing steps, we analyzed the tweet text as well as the structure of user interactions on Twitter. We deployed several node embedding and community detection models that scale well for graphs with millions of edges.

Liver transplant in a recently COVID-19 positive child with hepatoblastoma.

We describe the successful pediatric liver transplant for unresectable hepatoblastoma in a 4-year-old male with COVID-19 prior to transplant. The first negative NP swab was documented 1 month after initial diagnosis, when SARS-CoV-2 antibodies were also detected. The patient was actively listed for liver transplant after completing four blocks of a SIOPEL-4 based regimen due to his PRETEXT IV disease which remained unresectable. Following three additional negative NP swabs and resolution of symptoms for 4 weeks, he underwent a whole-organ pediatric liver transplant. COVID-19 positivity determined via NP swab SARS-CoV-2 real-time RT-PCR (Hologic Aptima SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR assay). IgG and IgM total SARS- CoV-2 antibodies detected by Ortho Clinical Diagnostics VITROS® Immunodiagnostics Products Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Test. Patient received standard prednisone and tacrolimus-based immunosuppression without induction therapy following transplant. Post-transplant course was remarkable for neutropenia and thrombocytopenia, with discharge home on post-transplant day #11. Surveillance tests have remained negative with persistent SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies at 6 weeks after transplant. We describe one of the earliest, if not the first case of liver transplant following recent recovery from COVID-19 in a pediatric patient with a lethal malignant liver tumor. A better understanding of how to balance the risk profile of transplant in the setting of COVID-19 with disease progression if transplant is not performed is needed. We followed existing ASTS guidelines to document clearance of the viral infection and resolution of symptoms before transplant. This case highlights that pediatric liver transplantation can be safely performed upon clearance of COVID-19.