College of Public Health & Health Professions

Small, single-vaccine clinical trials may not provide sufficient evidence that a COVID-19 vaccine is effective enough to offer significant protection. The Solidarity Trial simultaneously tests several COVID-19 vaccine candidates at multiple sites with sustained COVID-19 transmission, with more added as different disease hotspots are identified.

Buying prescription drugs from other countries is one way some Americans have coped with rising drug prices. A study published in JAMA Network Open finds that more than 2 million Americans purchase their prescription drugs from outside the U.S. Researchers caution that with the growth in unemployment related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the number is likely to rise.

UF leads nationwide efforts to identify emerging drug abuse trends as the coordinating center for the National Drug Early Warning System, or NDEWS. Funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, NDEWS informs health experts, researchers and the community about drug use patterns throughout the country, hot spots with high rates of drug use or drug-related morbidity and new methods of drug use.

A study published in JAMA Network Open found that rural residents who received individual telephone counseling for a year after participating in a weight loss program were able to maintain 100% of their weight loss. The key is approaching obesity as a chronic condition requiring ongoing care.

Researchers are on a mission to improve personal protective equipment to better protect health care workers and the broader community from COVID-19 infection. They are wrapping nanomaterials — very small synthetic particles —in soap molecules designed to kill the virus once it is filtered by a face mask.

Unpredictability in size, geographic location and the duration of an outbreak can make it difficult for scientists to determine if a drug actually works. An international team proposed a core protocol for such trials in a commentary published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

NFL retirees who worry excessively about their pain or believe it will never get better, also known as pain catastrophizing, are more likely to have moderate to severe depressive symptoms and poor physical and mental health-related quality of life.

A new assessment tool can predict users’ 10-year risk of heart attack or stroke with just a few patient-inputted responses, no lab tests required. The team described the development and validation of the tool in a paper published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.