State health leaders are reporting the highest percentage of positive COVID antibody tests since the pandemic began. About 40% of serology tests have come back positive for the week of Jan. 17, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services. Joe Gerald, an associate professor at the University of Arizona's Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, is interviewed.

A $1.5 million grant fuels a study to understand the occupational risks unique to female firefighters, including those at the Tucson Fire Department.

A cross-campus collaboration spearheaded by the College of Public Health seeks to understand ‘long COVID’ and other coronavirus mysteries.

Outbreak investigations are where Dr. Kristen Pogreba-Brown thrives.

A new survey has found that interactions between U.S. family medicine residencies and the pharma industry in 2019 continued a decade-long downward trend. The survey by researchers at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, questioned the program directors of 628 family medicine residencies and compared the results to surveys conducted in 2008 and 2013.

Personalized cancer vaccines, where a person’s own cancer cells are deployed to train their immune system to recognize and kill their cancer, appear to be on the cusp of arriving, and academic institutions like the University of Arizona College of Medicine are trying to expedite that.

Spanish-speakers and migrant workers who speak Indigenous languages can be more at risk because they don’t have access to information about the signs of heat illness, said Nicolas Lopez-Galvez, who received his doctorate in environmental science from the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. His dissertation focused on the effects of extreme heat on farmworkers’ kidney function in Hermosillo, Mexico.

As vaccinations for COVID-19 continue nationwide, blood donation agencies are stepping up efforts to encourage those who have had the disease and recovered to donate their plasma to help treat the sick. Clinical trials, including one overseen by researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, are continuing to determine whether plasma transfusions have real benefits. Dr. Marilyn Glassberg Csete, chief of pulmonary medicine at the University of Arizona’s College of Medicine, said more proof is still needed. “They can’t say there is evidence unless there’s a randomized, double-blind, robustly constructed and conducted trial.”

The next free COVID-19 Coalition webinar focusing on what you need to know about the emerging coronavirus variants will be Jan. 26 at 6 p.m. ET. Saskia Popescu, an infectious disease epidemiologist and adjunct professor at the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, is a panelist.

Even people who have recovered from the coronavirus or already gotten a vaccine should keep taking precautions, according to Dr. Shad Marvasti, director of public health, prevention and health promotion at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix. “While it gives peace of mind, based on the research that's been done to show how efficacious it is in terms of preventing severe illness, it doesn't necessarily keep you from being a source of infection to other people,” Marvasti said.