Multi-disciplinary Leadership to Mitigate COVID-19 in an Austere West African Military Environment.

INTRODUCTION: The COVID-19 pandemic created challenges for forward-deployed military units to Western Africa. Austere military environments afford multiple avenues to transmit COVID-19 amongst service members. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A COVID-19 outbreak on a military base in Western Africa spanning over 100 days is statistically analyzed using a Pearson's correlation coefficient. Furthermore, a COVID-19 reproductive number (R0) is evaluated to examine the relationship between specific command-directed policies to mitigate COVID-19 transmission. RESULTS: The multidisciplinary partnership of military command, medical, and public health leadership implemented evidence-based and epidemiologically informed COVID-19 preventive base-wide policies, including appropriate isolation/quarantine policies. The R0 for the outbreak was 0.03 and remained <1 for the outbreak duration. This base remained COVID-19 free for multiple weeks after policy implementation. CONCLUSIONS: The implementation of practical mitigating base-wide policies through seamless communication between military command/medical/public health leadership resolved the COVID-19 outbreak while maintaining mission readiness. Weekly COVID-19 testing epidemiological data may be utilized by commanders to direct further decision-making on tightening/loosening base-wide policy restrictions for continued mission-essential operations, e.g., security, food service, or airfield operations.

Health Complaints Associated With Poor Rental Housing Conditions in Arkansas: The Only State Without a Landlord's Implied Warranty of Habitability.

This is a review of an existing article that surveyed the perceived health of renters' in Arkansas. As a first in the field of public health it was able to provide ground-level insight through tenant interviews about housing and health in the state. This review illuminates how the state's sociopolitical characteristics may affect marginalized Arkansas renters. Marginalized renters may include persons living below the poverty line, people of color, and women who are the head of household. This article seeks to elucidate how the upstream factor, habitability law, may impact tenant health in the state. With a novel public health approach, the article contributes to the existing housing and health literature with its invaluable insight of stakeholders' perspectives relating to how habitability law may impact their health outcomes. Now is an opportune time for public health practitioners, researchers, and policymakers to facilitate incremental change to include landlords in their state public health system. Such inclusion may improve housing while promoting, improving, and protecting health outcomes for Arkansas renters.