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Background: Beginning in March 2020, health care systems in the United States restricted the number of support people who could be present during pregnancy-related care to reduce the spread of COVID-19. We aimed to describe how SisterWeb, a community-based doula organization that employs Black, Pacific Islander, and Latinx doulas in San Francisco, California, adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: As part of process and outcome evaluations conducted through an academic-community partnership, we interviewed SisterWeb doulas, mentors, and leaders in 2020, 2021, and 2022 (n=26 interviews). We identified preliminary themes using the Rapid Assessment Process and then conducted thematic analysis of data related to COVID-19. Results: SisterWeb leadership remained committed to safeguarding doulas by shifting to virtual support until doulas were onboarded as benefitted employees. Doulas reported hospital policies impacted clients' pregnancy-related care. Initially, doulas adapted to virtual support by connecting with clients more frequently through phone and text. When permitted to meet in person, doulas adjusted to client preference. Finally, as the pandemic impacted doulas' well-being, they turned to mentors for emotional support. Discussion and Health Equity Implications: This analysis contributes to a growing body of literature describing doulas' experiences during the pandemic. By shifting to virtual support, SisterWeb leaders prioritized the health, safety, and financial stability of doulas, who were members of communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. Our findings suggest that public health guidance, organizational COVID-19 precautions, and hospital policies hindered SisterWeb's goal of ensuring clients receive equitable medical care. In addition, we found that emotional support for doulas is vital to their work.
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PURPOSE: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic facilitated the rapid development of digital detection surveillance (DDS) for outbreaks. This qualitative study examined how DDS for infectious diseases (ID) was perceived and experienced by primary care physicians and patients in order to highlight ethical considerations for promoting patients' autonomy and health care rights. METHODS: In-depth interviews were conducted with a purposefully selected group of 16 primary care physicians and 24 of their patients. The group was reflective of a range of ages, educational attainment, and clinical experiences from urban areas in northern and southern China. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, and translated. Two researchers coded data and organized it into themes. A third researcher reviewed 15% of the data and discussed findings with the other researchers to assure accuracy. RESULTS: Five themes were identified: ambiguity around the need for informed consent with usage of DDS; importance of autonomous decision making; potential for discrimination against vulnerable users of DDS for ID; risk of social inequity and disparate care outcomes; and authoritarian institutions' responsibility for maintaining health data security. The adoption of DDS meant some patients would be reluctant to go to the hospital for fear of either being discriminated against or forced into quarantine. Certain groups (older people and children) were thought to be vulnerable to DDS misappropriation. CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate the paramount importance of establishing national and international ethical frameworks for DDS implementation. Frameworks should guide all aspects of ID surveillance, addressing privacy protection and health security, and underscored by principles of social equity and accountability.Annals "Online First" article.
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COVID-19 , Communicable Diseases , Physicians, Primary Care , Child , Humans , Aged , Informed Consent , Qualitative ResearchABSTRACT
The Critical Design Workshop series aimed to give students experience of designing for social emancipation and cohesion. In times where extreme circumstances and polarization are hardening the social debate, transferring this power to design students can enable them to identify various ethical issues, such as guilt, fear, stigma or social gaps, early in the design process. Through four, five-day interdisciplinary workshops - conducted from 2018 to 2021 - approximately 60 students from disciplines including design, architecture and engineering were encouraged to generate critical design examples shedding light on assistive technology, product-related stigma, empathy and human augmentation, respectively. By first making the students believe they were approaching the design challenge using a traditional problem-solving approach, they gained hands-on knowledge about the fundamental difference between affirmative and critical design. The first three workshops were conducted face-to-face, but due to COVID-19, the fourth workshop was held online. Despite the different format, the hybrid version managed to maintain both the pedagogical content and the spirit of the earlier workshops and, furthermore, the students reported that the 'upside-down' methodology was liberating, engaging and effective no matter what format. This paper presents the structure, content and results of the four workshops, and discusses the inevitable transition from a physical to a hybrid-learning environment. © Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education: Disrupt, Innovate, Regenerate and Transform, E and PDE 2022. All rights reserved.
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As a tool for public health, the vaccination policy is based on the analysis of benefits and risks. Thus, the National Consultative Ethics Committee has been at the heart of the orientations taken in terms of the deployment of the vaccination against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, by contributing its reflections on the associated ethical issues.
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COVID-19 , SARS-CoV-2 , COVID-19/prevention & control , Humans , VaccinationABSTRACT
Summary The incidence, severity, and mortality of COVID-19 infection appear to impact the elderly more negatively, especially in those who are frail and have multiple comorbidities. This chapter reviews the epidemiology of the COVID-19 pandemic with a focus on the older age group. The transmission of the virus to humans likely occurs through the consumption of an infected animal as a source of food, followed by human-to-human transmission through close contact. The epidemiology of COVID-19 incidence, severity of illness, and mortality appear to have unfavourable outcomes for older people. Managing older people with COVID-19 infection includes symptomatic therapy that focuses on the direct relief of the typical symptoms of COVID-19, drug therapy that focuses on agents directly treating the viral infection load, and general supportive care, which focuses on the relief of atypical symptoms in the acute setting. Ethical issue is the participation of older people in clinical trials.;Objective While endothelial dysfunction has been implicated in the widespread thrombo-inflammatory complications of coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19), the upstream mediators of endotheliopathy remain for the most part cryptic. Our aim was to identify circulating factors contributing to endothelial cell activation and dysfunction in COVID-19. Methods Human endothelial cells were cultured in the presence of serum or plasma from 244 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and plasma from 100 patients with non-COVID sepsis. Cell adhesion molecules (E-selectin, VCAM-1, and ICAM-1) were quantified by in-cell ELISA. Results Serum and plasma from patients with COVID-19 increased surface expression of cell adhesion molecules. Furthermore, levels of soluble ICAM-1 and E-selectin were elevated in patient serum and tracked with disease severity. The presence of circulating antiphospholipid antibodies was a strong marker of the ability of COVID-19 serum to activate endothelium. Depletion of total IgG from antiphospholipid antibody-positive serum markedly restrained upregulation of cell adhesion molecules. Conversely, supplementation of control serum with patient IgG was sufficient to trigger endothelial activation. Conclusion These data are the first to suggest that some patients with COVID-19 have potentially diverse antibodies that drive endotheliopathy, adding important context regarding thrombo-inflammatory effects of autoantibodies in severe COVID-19.