The use of monoclonal antibodies and oral antiviral drugs is unexpectedly low in nursing homes, report researchers.

For the study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Brian McGarry of the Medical Center and collaborators at Harvard examined data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Healthcare Safety Network.

The authors note that all nursing home residents are at high risk of adverse outcomes due to COVID and may benefit from antiviral COVID treatments. However, the use of these drugs in nursing homes was low, a finding the researchers found particularly alarming as almost all nursing home residents meet clinical guidelines to be considered for treatment. Specifically, the researchers found that just 18 percent of COVID cases in nursing homes received an antiviral treatment during the study period.

Read about the rest of their findings.

(Getty Images)

Collaboration between families and their local pediatrician’s office could be a straightforward way to address the rise of pediatric obesity, say researchers.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, took place in three states with children ages 6 to 12. Master’s-level specialists with backgrounds in social work and behavioral health were recruited to work in pediatricians’ offices and lead family-based treatment programs for obesity. The programs focused on getting the whole family—not just the child—to participate in lifestyle changes.

The program improved weight-loss outcomes for the treated child and parent, and even extended to untreated siblings.

“It’s no surprise that the family therapy approach benefits many patients, because if it’s in the family it will likely model sustained behaviors,” says Stephen Cook, an associate professor of pediatrics at the Medical Center and a provider at UR Medicine’s Golisano Children’s Hospital. “If you get buy-in and commitment from the family you’ll see success, and this has been verified repeatedly in research.”

Learn more about this family-based approach.

(Unsplash photo by reeet_jank)

News stories about domestic politics and social issues are becoming increasingly polarized along ideological lines, according to a study of 1.8 million news headlines from major US news outlets from 2014 to 2022.

A Rochester team led by Jiebo Luo, a professor of computer science and the Albert Arendt Hopeman Professor of Engineering, used machine learning to analyze headlines. They presented their findings at the MEDIATE workshop of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media.

The researchers say that while there is broad consensus that news media outlets adopt ideological perspectives in their articles, previous studies dissecting the differences among outlets were limited in scope and used small sample sizes. Machine-learning techniques allowed the researchers to study a vast sample of headlines over an eight-year period across nine representative media outlets including the New York Times, Bloomberg, CNN, NBC, the Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, the Federalist, Reason, and the Washington Times.

Headlines about domestic politics and social issues showed important differences.

Monday, July 31, 3–4 p.m. EDT
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BioRender software helps researchers create and share professional life science figures in minutes through a customizable library of icons and templates. Users can choose from thousands of scientifically accurate, high-resolution icons and combine them to create new figures for publications, posters, and presentations. BioRender is available to Rochester faculty, staff, and students at a discounted price. Learn more by registering for the information session presented by the University of Rochester Libraries, University IT, and AS&E Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Affairs.