Stock investments by politicians have long drawn public scrutiny. Under a 2012 law, members of the U.S. Congress must disclose transactions over a $1,000 threshold. Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were criticized for trading in everything from remote work technologies to telemedicine.

But less attention has been paid to what companies might gain from having politicians as shareholders. New research from Texas McCombs finds one indirect benefit: It might insulate companies from activist investors such as Carl Icahn or Nelson Peltz, who press for changes in their operations to drive up stock prices.

A new study uncovers how the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped emergency care for acute coronary syndrome, with a sharp decline in hospital visits nationwide. Analyzing over 61,000 cases, the research reveals that older adults, particularly women, were disproportionately affected, avoiding critical care during periods of high virus transmission. These findings shine a light on the unseen toll of public health crises, underscoring the urgent need to build trust and ensure access to life-saving care for vulnerable populations in future emergencies.

Half a decade on from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a study by the University of Surrey highlights the significant impact of combined public health measures in reducing airborne viral transmission. High-quality face masks were shown to reduce transmission risk by ninefold, while doubling indoor air ventilation cut the risk by nearly a third, providing valuable insights to support future prevention strategies for respiratory diseases. 

Research from Radboud university medical center shows that the lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on people's immune response to microorganisms. During the lockdown, inflammation level in the body was low, but afterwards, the immune system reacted more intensely to viruses and bacteria. The results are now published in Frontiers of Immunology.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous studies had shown that COVID-19 patients with high levels of neutrophils, a key immune cell, presented with more severe disease and poor clinical outcomes. It was not clearly understood though how or why this was happening. A recently published study from Trinity researchers now sheds light on the role of neutrophils in COVID-19 and its contribution to the disease's progression. Their findings uncover potential mechanisms that could guide more effective treatments for severe COVID-19.  The study has been published in the journal JCI Insight.

The 2024 long COVID research index for adults builds on the 2023 index with additional data and symptoms to help researchers classify symptomatic long COVID and its symptom subtypes. Continued future refinement of the index will be needed as the understanding of long COVID evolves. 

Behind closed doors during Canada's COVID-19 lockdowns, a devastating crisis unfolded. While the world focused on mask mandates and social distancing, immigrant women across Canada faced an equally dangerous threat: a surge in intimate partner violence (IPV).

Research published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology indicates that the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown had largely positive impacts on gender identity development in trans and gender diverse youth.

After declining significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, substance use among adolescents has continued to hold steady at lowered levels for the fourth year in a row, according to the latest results from the Monitoring the Future Survey, which is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). These recent data continue to document stable and declining trends in the use of most drugs among young people.

Researchers at Michigan State University’s College of Education published a new study exploring learning gaps for students with disabilities and especially for those who are Black, Asian, and economically disadvantaged students — with the 2019-21 school years showing staggering declines in identifying students who could benefit from special education.

Though research has shown that people with long COVID are more likely to be unemployed, the statistics don’t reveal what patients go through before they cut their hours, stop working or lose their jobs. In a new study involving interviews of people with long COVID, researchers describe how the prolonged illness has affected not only patients’ job status, but also their overall well-being.

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic not only threatened individuals’ physical health but also seriously strained mental health and access to care. A new study analyzed police data from one U.S. city before and after the start of the pandemic to examine whether the frequency of mental health calls for service and police-initiated stops for mental health reasons changed. Police involvement in responding to mental health situations changed slightly after COVID-19 began, with the greatest impact related to dispatched calls in early 2020.

About The Study: The findings of this study suggest that body mass index and obesity prevalence in the U.S. decreased in 2023 for the first time in more than a decade. The most notable decrease was in the South, which had the highest observed per capita glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonist (GLP-1RA) dispensing rate. However, dispensing does not necessarily mean uptake, and the South also experienced disproportionately high COVID-19 mortality among individuals with obesity.