It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, January 05, 2026
Estimated burden of COVID-19 illnesses, medical visits, hospitalizations, and deaths in the US from October 2022 to September 2024
In this cross-sectional study, despite declining from the first (October 2022 to September 2023) to the second (October 2023 to September 2024) surveillance period, the COVID-19 burden continued to have a large impact in the U.S., particularly among adults 65 years and older, underscoring the ongoing importance of prevention measures.
Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Emilia H. A. Koumans, MD, email ekoumans@cdc.gov.
Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.
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This study found that U.S. adolescents, on average, spent more than an hour using smartphones during school, with social media use accounting for most of that time. These objective findings from a large sample extend those of a prior smaller study based on self-report, which similarly demonstrated 1 hour of smartphone usage per school day.
Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Jason M. Nagata, MD, MSc, email jason.nagata@ucsf.edu.
Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.
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Food insecurity and adverse social conditions tied to increased risk of long COVID in children
Results identified social risk factors associated with greater odds of prolonged SARS-CoV-2 symptoms
Brigham and Women's Hospital
Mass General Brigham researchers looked at data on 4,584 participants across 52 U.S. sites from the federally funded RECOVER-Pediatrics study
Results identified social risk factors associated with greater odds of prolonged SARS-CoV-2 symptoms
New research led by Mass General Brigham investigators suggests that long COVID is more prevalent in school-aged children and adolescents who experience economic instability and adverse social conditions. The multi-center, observational study found that the risk of long COVID was significantly higher in households that faced food insecurity and challenges such as low social support and high levels of discrimination. Results are published in JAMA Pediatrics.
“Long COVID in children is especially concerning because of the potential for long-term health effects that could persist into adulthood,” said co-first author Tanayott Thaweethai, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital Biostatistics. "Public health interventions that target social risk factors—such as food insecurity and lack of social support—are critical to reduce the burden of long COVID and safeguard the overall health of children as they continue to acquire COVID-19."
Social determinants of health (SDOH) are non-medical factors that stem from the environment in which a person lives and interacts with others. Prior research has either been conducted in adults or focused largely on how adverse SDOH can impact the risk of getting sick with COVID-19. However, experts estimate that millions of children around the world experience prolonged COVID symptoms, highlighting the need to examine the link between adverse SDOH and pediatric long COVID.
Seeking answers, the research team analyzed data from a subset of the federally funded RECOVER (Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery) Initiative. The cohort included 903 school-aged children and 3,681 adolescents with history of SARS-CoV-2 infection, who were recruited at 52 sites across the U.S. The study examined associations between long COVID and 24 social risk factors, grouped into five main domains: economic stability (e.g., food insecurity, poverty), social and community context (e.g., caregiver marital status, discrimination), caregiver education access and quality, neighborhood and built environment, and healthcare access and quality.
The researchers found that economic instability and poor social context, like difficulty covering expenses or facing discrimination, mattered most and had the greatest impact on risk of long COVID. By contrast, food security was protective, even for families with other economic challenges.
The authors speculate that healthy diets may decrease inflammation and thus protect against risk of long COVID. Further research is needed to investigate whether addressing these adverse social factors can mitigate future disease risk.
Authorship: In addition to Thaweethai, Mass General Brigham authors include Deepti B. Pant, Elizabeth W. Karlson, Zihan Qian, and Andrea S. Foulkes. Additional authors include Kyung E Rhee, Cheryl R. Stein, Amy L. Salisbury, Patricia A. Kinser, Lawrence C. Kleinman, Richard Gallagher, David Warburton, Sindhu Mohandas, Jessica N. Snowden, Melissa S. Stockwell, Kelan G. Tantisira, Valerie J. Flaherman, Ronald J. Teufel, Leah Castro, Alicia Chung, Christine W Hockett, Maria Isidoro-Chino, Anita Krishnan, Lacey A. McCormack, Aleisha M Nabower, Erica R. Nahin, Johana M. Rosas, Sarwat Siddiqui, Jacqueline R. Szmuszkovicz, Nita Vangeepuram, Emily Zimmerman, Heather Elizabeth Brown, Megan Carmilani, K. Coombs, Liza Fisher, Margot Gage Witvliet, John C. Wood, Joshua D. Milner, Erika B. Rosenzweig, Katherine Irby, Michelle F. Lamendola-Essel, Denise C. Hasson, Stuart D. Katz, H. Shonna Yin, Rachel S. Gross and the RECOVER-Pediatrics Group Authors; for the RECOVER-Pediatrics Consortium.
Funding: This research was funded by NIH agreements OT2HL161841, OT2HL161847, and OT2HL156812. Additional support came from grant R01 HL162373. The funder had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; or decision to submit the manuscript for publication. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the RECOVER Program, the National Institutes of Health, or other funders.
Paper cited: Rhee K et al. “Social Determinants of Health and Pediatric Long COVID in the United States” JAMA Pediatrics DOI: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2025.5485
Mass General Brigham is an integrated academic health care system, uniting great minds to solve the hardest problems in medicine for our communities and the world. Mass General Brigham connects a full continuum of care across a system of academic medical centers, community and specialty hospitals, a health insurance plan, physician networks, community health centers, home care, and long-term care services. Mass General Brigham is a nonprofit organization committed to patient care, research, teaching, and service to the community. In addition, Mass General Brigham is one of the nation’s leading biomedical research organizations with several Harvard Medical School teaching hospitals. For more information, please visit massgeneralbrigham.org.
GreenDrill team members at Prudhoe Dome, a key ice cap part of the Greenland Ice Sheet. The project's first study shows this ice cap was gone 7,000 years ago.
BUFFALO, N.Y. — The first study from GreenDrill — a project co-led by the University at Buffalo to collect rocks and sediment buried beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet — has found that the Prudhoe Dome ice cap was completely gone approximately 7,000 years ago, much more recently than previously known.
Published today (Jan. 5) in Nature Geoscience, the findings suggest that this high point on the northwest section of the ice sheet is highly sensitive to the relatively mild temperatures of the Holocene, the interglacial period that began 11,000 years ago and continues today.
“This is a time known for climate stability, when humans first began developing farming practices and taking steps toward civilization. So for natural, mild climate change of that era to have melted Prudhoe Dome and kept it retreated for potentially thousands of years, it may only be a matter of time before it begins peeling back again from today’s human-induced climate change,” says Jason Briner, PhD, professor and associate chair of the Department of Earth Sciences in the UB College of Arts and Sciences, who co-led GreenDrill with Joerg Schaefer PhD, research professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
GreenDrill is a first-of-its-kind endeavor funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation to drill down into the Greenland Ice Sheet and retrieve the frozen, ancient bedrock and sediment underneath. The scientific community has less rock and soil material from below Greenland’s ice than it does from the moon, yet it is invaluable: Chemical signatures can tell us when the material was last exposed to open sky, pinpointing when the ice sheet has melted in the past.
This first GreenDrill study analyzes core samples pulled from 1,669 feet below the surface during the team’s weeks-long encampment at the summit of Prudhoe Dome in 2023.
They then used a technique called luminescence dating on the sediment. When sediment is buried, electrons can become trapped inside its tiny mineral grains due to natural radiation and remain there until the sediment is exposed to light again, at which point they produce a measurable glow.
The intensity of that glow revealed that the Prudhoe Dome sediment was last exposed to daylight sometime between 6,000 and 8,200 years ago.
“This means Prudhoe Dome melted sometime before this period, likely during the early Holocene, when temperatures were around 3 to 5 degrees Celsius warmer than they are today. Some projections indicate we could reach those levels of warming at Prudhoe Dome by the year 2100,” says the study’s lead author, Caleb Walcott-George, PhD, a former UB graduate student and now assistant professor at the University of Kentucky.
The results also have large implications for sea level rise. Analyzing vulnerable areas along the edge of the ice sheet like Prudhoe Dome can give scientists an idea of where the ice sheet will melt first and, thus, which coastal communities are at the most immediate risk.
“Rock and sediment from below the ice sheet tell us directly which of the ice sheet’s margins are the most vulnerable, which is critical for accurate local sea level predictions. This new science field delivers this information via direct observations and is a game-changer in terms of predicting ice-melt,” Schaefer says.
On the ice
GreenDrill set up two drill sites on Prudhoe Dome — one on the summit and another near the edge where the ice is much thinner. (This study analyzed the sample collected from the summit.)
The GreenDrill sites where Briner, Schaefer and Walcott-George and colleagues all spent time in the spring of 2023 were a collection of yellow tents and pathways marked by red, black and green flags. Their days consisted of collecting ice chips pushed up by drilling fluid and shoveling out the camp from windblown snow, while ice drillers from the NSF Ice Drilling Program worked on pushing through hundreds of feet of ice.
There was plenty of drama, too — a fracture in the ice at the summit site nearly doomed the project at its final stage. A last-minute solution, using a drill bit normally reserved for rocks, allowed them to finish drilling the last 390 feet of ice and sample the bed just before planes arrived to remove their equipment.
“It was like watching a Buffalo Bills game,” Briner says. “Just stressful until the final minute.”
He credits the teamwork and camaraderie of the scientists and drillers on the ice, as well as the support crew behind the scenes handling logistics. Collaborators on the project included Nicolás Young, PhD, associate research professor at Lamont and GreenDrill co-principal investigator; Allie Balter-Kennedy, PhD, a former postdoc at Lamont and now assistant professor at Tufts University; and Nathan Brown, PhD, assistant professor at the University of Texas at Arlington.
“This project involved more complicated logistics than any I've been involved with in my career. So many moving parts, and so much talent among the scientists, drillers and support staff,” Briner says.
Walcott-George, who took a leading role setting up the camps and ultimately based his dissertation on the project, called his time on the ice “humbling.”
“When all you see is ice in all directions, to think of that ice being gone in the recent geological past and again in the future is just really humbling,” he says.
Project’s future
The GreenDrill team says this is the first of many studies they expect to produce. The other core drilled from near the edge of Prudhoe Dome promises to give insight into the ice cap’s most vulnerable point. Traces of plants in the samples could also shed light on Greenland’s ancient environment.
“We have a treasure chest in our hands now that we can pick apart and explore,” Briner says.
They also hope to possibly drill again and inspire other groups to do the same. The Camp Century team, as well as the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 in the 1990s, collected material below their ice cores, but GreenDrill is the first time that researchers selected drill sites based on collecting material from below the ice sheet.
“GreenDrill really demonstrated that, if you can logistically pull it off, there is the technology available to drill down to the bedrock and there's an analytical toolkit to then analyze it,” Briner says. “We have very reliable, numerical models that can predict the rate of melting, but we also want real, observational data points that can tell us indisputably that X amount of warming in the past led to X amount of ice being gone.”
A core of bedrock and sediment pulled up from 300 feet below the Greenland Ice Sheet near the edge of Prudhoe Dome. This study analyzed another core pulled from 1,600 feet before the ice sheet.
