The rise in remote work caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has substantially increased time spent alone and worsened workers’ mental health, according to a new study based on survey data from more than 500,000 Americans. In evaluating remote employees’ mental health, the analysis moves beyond the main consequence of remote work more typically evaluated in studies to date: worker productivity. The study’s results suggest that “the shift in work location to the home carries measurable costs at the population level,” Emma Zhang and Rourke O’Brien write in a related Perspective. After the pandemic led to many people working from home, the results of studies evaluating the mental health impacts on employees were mixed. To understand remote work’s effect on human well-being better, Natalia Emanuel and colleagues analyzed data from five nationally representative US-based surveys that together spanned more than a decade and included 568,000 respondents. They compared workers’ experiences before the pandemic (2011 to 2019) with experiences from the post-peak period (2022 to 2024), excluding the acute pandemic years of 2020 to 2021. The authors found that workers in jobs amenable to remote work experienced substantially larger post-pandemic increases in time spent alone, worsened mental well-being across multiple measures, and increases in the use of mental health services and prescriptions. These effects were particularly pronounced among individuals living alone. Noting a limitation of their study, the authors said, “Given that our data end in 2024, we cannot fully capture long- term adaptations among remotable workers.” If workers made changes, such as cultivating social networks outside of work, they may not yet have reaped the full benefits by the time of the study, they added. “Across a range of remote work arrangements, both individuals and organizations may want to prioritize making remote work less isolating by, for example, coordinating in-office days for hybrid workers or encouraging informal interaction, even online,” Emanuel et al. conclude.

 

Data is available for the creation of data visualization images. For more information, please contact Natalia Emanuel at natalia@nataliaemanuel.com

Fewer than one in five adults older than 65 report discussing their cannabis use with clinicians, according to Rutgers Health researchers.

 

Their study, published online ahead of print in the August 2026 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, explored the prevalence of conversations between patients and clinicians about cannabis use and its potential harms.

Concordia University researchers have developed an AI-powered operating room scheduling tool that plans surgeries, manages last-minute emergencies, and minimizes patient disruptions within a single framework. Tested on real hospital data, the model reduces variables compared to existing approaches, cutting wait times and day-of-surgery cancellations. The study appears in the International Journal of Production Research.

AI-powered atlas uncovered tertiary lymphoid structures as prognostic biomarkers

Research reveals drivers of treatment resistance in KRAS-mutant colorectal cancer and insights on which patients may benefit most from immunotherapy for various cancers

Scientists uncover the molecular pathways involved in blood vessel plaques

Immunotherapy could help treat potentially fatal fungal pneumonias  

Direct-to-consumer pharmacies may lower costs for generic prescriptions

A new technology allows scientists to map, in single cells, the DNA binding sites of transcription factors and other regulatory proteins that control gene activity, according to a study led by investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine and the New York Genome Center. With key advantages over methods currently in use, the technology is expected to be a powerful addition to biologists’ toolkit for studying cells in health and disease.

About The Study: In this cross-sectional study, early age–onset colorectal cancer (EOCRC) was associated with improved overall survival compared with average age–onset colorectal cancer; however, treatment delays were independently associated with worse survival among patients with EOCRC. Language barriers could be a potentially modifiable risk factor associated with delayed treatment and may provide an opportunity to improve timely care and outcomes in EOCRC. 

More people are surviving the wait for an organ and organ transplantation surgery, but the gap between the number of patients who need transplants and those who receive them remains large.