Group A (GAS) causes an estimated 5.2 million outpatient visits for pharyngitis annually in the United States (U.S.) with incidence peaking in winter, but the annual spatiotemporal pattern of GAS pharyngitis across the U.S. is poorly characterized.

To effectively combat the rising incidence of syphilis, the Brazilian Ministry of Health (MoH) created a National Rapid Response to Syphilis with actions aimed at bolstering epidemiological surveillance of acquired, congenital syphilis, and syphilis during pregnancy complemented with communication activities to raise population awareness and to increase uptake of testing that targeted mass media outlets from November 2018 to March 2019 throughout Brazil, and mainly areas with high rates of syphilis. This study analyzes the volume and quality of online news content on syphilis in Brazil between 2015 and 2019 and examines its effect on testing.

Conversational agents (CAs), or chatbots, are computer programs that simulate conversations with humans. The use of CAs in health care settings is recent and rapidly increasing, which often translates to poor reporting of the CA development and evaluation processes and unreliable research findings. We developed and published a conceptual framework, designing, developing, evaluating, and implementing a smartphone-delivered, rule-based conversational agent (DISCOVER), consisting of 3 iterative stages of CA design, development, and evaluation and implementation, complemented by 2 cross-cutting themes (user-centered design and data privacy and security).

Mathematical models have suggested that spatially-targeted screening interventions for tuberculosis may efficiently accelerate disease control, but empirical data supporting these findings are limited. Previous models demonstrating substantial impacts of these interventions have typically simulated large-scale screening efforts and have not attempted to capture the spatial distribution of tuberculosis in households and communities at a high resolution. Here, we calibrate an individual-based model to the locations of case notifications in one district of Lima, Peru. We estimate the incremental efficiency and impact of a spatially-targeted interventions used in combination with household contact tracing (HHCT). Our analysis reveals that HHCT is relatively efficient with a median of 40 (Interquartile Range: 31.7 to 49.9) household contacts required to be screened to detect a single case of active tuberculosis. However, HHCT has limited population impact, producing a median incidence reduction of only 3.7% (Interquartile Range: 5.8% to 1.9%) over 5 years. In comparison, spatially targeted screening (which we modeled as active case finding within high tuberculosis prevalence areas 100 m2 grid cell) is far less efficient, requiring evaluation of ≈12 times the number of individuals as HHCT to find a single individual with active tuberculosis. Furthermore, the addition of the spatially targeted screening effort produced only modest additional reductions in tuberculosis incidence over the 5 year period (≈1.3%) in tuberculosis incidence. In summary, we found that HHCT is an efficient approach for tuberculosis case finding, but has limited population impact. Other screening approaches which target areas of high tuberculosis prevalence are less efficient, and may have limited impact unless very large numbers of individuals can be screened.