Health Sciences In The Media

Vaccination against COVID-19 provides stronger protection than immunity from a previous infection with the coronavirus, according to a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published Friday. Deepta Bhattacharya, PhD, a professor of immunobiology at the College of Medicine – Tucson, cautioned that it can be very difficult to compare vaccine-induced immunity to infection-induced immunity. “What I would say is that these are maybe not the right terms of the debate,” he said. “The reason to prefer vaccine-induced immunity is that infections can make you really sick, not that they don’t leave you immune,” Dr. Bhattacharya said.

A proposed joint venture between Yuma Regional Medical Center and hospital management company LifePoint Health, a holding of the private equity firm Apollo Management Group, would change the hospitals' not-for-profit status to a for-profit model. Daniel Derksen, MD, professor of public health at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health and director of the UArizona Center for Rural Health, discusses various hospital ownership and management models, including the fairly recent introduction of private equity firms into the ownership landscape.

Psychologists and sleep doctors who study dreaming aren’t surprised if the hit Netflix series Squid Game is seeping into your non-waking hours. When you watch something that resonates with you, it’s going to stick with you, particularly if you watched a lot of the show in a short amount of time – and particularly if you’ve done so just before bed, says Michael Grandner, PhD, an associate professor and director of the sleep and health research program at the College of Medicine – Tucson. Dr. Grandner and other dream experts discuss why we dream and, more specifically, why we have nightmares.

A study by researchers at the University of Arizona Health Sciences found that patients undergoing active chemotherapy had a lower immune response to two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. A third dose increased patients’ response. “We wanted to make sure we understand the level of protection the COVID-19 vaccines are offering our cancer patients, especially as restrictions were being eased and more contagious variants were starting to spread,” said Rachna Shroff, MD, MS, chief of gastrointestinal medical oncology at the UArizona Cancer Center.

Researchers at the University of Arizona have successfully tested a Valley fever vaccine for dogs. It's a two-dose vaccine designed to help them fight the disease, which is caused by a fungus called Coccidioides posadasii. "The idea of a vaccine to prevent Valley fever has been the holy grail since the 1950s," said John Galgiani, MD, director of the UArizona Valley Fever Center for Excellence and a professor of medicine. "We created a vaccine that worked. The dogs had all sorts of laboratory evidence of active, very widespread disease, and the vaccine prevented it."

Women with endometriosis appear to have a greater risk of stroke, even after taking into account known risk factors for stroke, according to a study presented at the 2021 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. Leslie Farland, ScD, MSc, an assistant professor at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health and colleagues, examined data from the Nurses’ Health Study II, where women were followed from 1989 until 2017 for development of incident stroke.

In one week, vaccine mandates may force some healthcare workers out of their jobs. Some still don't want the COVID-19 shot, but several hospital systems require all employees to be vaccinated by November 1. "I think there's going to be somewhat of an exodus of people who are reluctant to get it," said Shad Marvasti, MD, associate professor and director of Public Health, Prevention and Health Promotion Curriculum at the College of Medicine – Phoenix.

Arizona accounted for about 10,000 out of 18,000 reported Valley fever cases in 2019, according to the latest statistics from the CDC. Coccidioidomycosis is frequently mistaken not only for cancer, but also for rheumatic conditions and bacterial infections, according to Valley fever specialist John Galgiani, MD, director of the Valley Fever Center for Excellence at the University of Arizona in Tucson. "Where Valley fever is common, it should very frequently be in the differential for masses that are thought to be cancer," Galgiani said in an interview.

During the summer of 2020, Arizona’s health authorities activated crisis standards of care, and hospitals began rationing medical supplies. The situation has improved, but the persistently high levels of cases and deaths following a long period of low community transmission are concerning, according to a recent report written by Joe K. Gerald, MD, PhD, associate professor at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, and Patrick Wightman, PhD, MPP, a researcher at the Center for Population Science and Discovery.

Data from an ongoing research study at the University of Arizona Health Sciences show that first responders – including firefighters, law enforcement, correctional officers and emergency medical service providers – are at elevated risk of COVID-19 infection compared with other essential workers and frontline health care personnel.