EurekAlert! News by Subject: Medicine & Health - Home

Medicine & Health

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 3-Jun-2026 20:16 ET (4-Jun-2026 00:16 GMT/UTC)

Trends in county-level childhood vaccination exemptions in the US

JAMA Network
Peer-Reviewed Publication

About The Study: This study identified an increase in nonmedical exemptions to childhood vaccination requirements from 2010 to 2024, with wide variation among counties and states and an increase following the COVID-19 pandemic, which may contribute to resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases. This county-level analysis reveals geographically focused areas of high vaccine exemptions that are less evident at the state level.

Journal: JAMA

Work hours, stress, and burnout among resident physicians

JAMA Network
Peer-Reviewed Publication

About The Study: In this cross-sectional nationwide study of resident physicians in high-burnout specialties, longer work hours were associated with higher stress and self-perceived competency, but not with burnout. This suggests that work hours alone may not explain high burnout levels in residency; a more comprehensive approach beyond work hour restrictions is needed to support resident well-being in training.

Journal: JAMA Network Open

Quality of life of parents of premature infants

JAMA Network
Peer-Reviewed Publication

About The Study: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, parental quality of life was lowest during the premature infant’s hospitalization. A family-centered approach, with timely and tailored support from the neonatal intensive care unit through the postdischarge period, is essential to protect and promote parental well-being.

Journal: JAMA Network Open

Should younger and older people receive different treatments for the same infection?

Salk Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Salk scientists discover the immune system handles infection differently in young and aged mice with sepsis, with the same immune responses that are advantageous in youth being disadvantageous in older age. The findings suggest therapies should be tailored to age-specific responses, with young and old patients receiving different optimized treatment plans, and also may help inform alternative treatment strategies as we enter a post-antibiotic era.

Journal: Nature

Novel liquid biopsy technology lowers barriers for more efficient cancer diagnostics

Elsevier
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A novel liquid biopsy technology is set to advance cancer diagnostics and monitoring by overcoming the long-standing challenge of simultaneously achieving high sensitivity, broad coverage, and simple workflow. A team of researchers from Genomill Health Inc., the University of Turku, and the TYKS Turku University Hospital, Finland, benchmarked this new method, Bridge Capture, against two market-leading tools Their analysis, appearing in The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics, published by Elsevier, highlights the method’s simplicity, cost-efficiency, reproducibility, and scalability, making it well suited for routine clinical testing, disease monitoring, and treatment selection.

Journal: Journal of Molecular Diagnostics

Weight management process designed by CU Anschutz faculty show population weight gain reversal

University of Colorado School of Medicine
Peer-Reviewed Publication

New research published in Nature Medicine found that PATHWEIGH mitigated population weight gain by 0.58 kg over 18 months and changed the trajectory from weight gain to weight loss — a meaningful metric for public health.

Journal: Nature Medicine

How psoriasis affects joints

Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Approximately 20 to 30 percent of all people who suffer from psoriasis also develop painful inflammation in their joints over time. If left untreated, this condition known as psoriatic arthritis can lead to permanent damage to bones and joints. Until now, it was a mystery why the disease progressed this way in some patients and not in others. A team of researchers from the Department of Medicine 3 – Rheumatology and Immunology at Uniklinikum Erlangen, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), have now discovered which cells migrate from the skin of psoriasis patients to the joints and how they trigger inflammation there. These findings pave the way for new approaches for preventing psoriatic arthritis before it takes hold. The team has now published their findings in Nature Immunology.*

Journal: Nature Immunology

Blood test predicts which patients with lung cancer will benefit from newly approved immunotherapy drug

Mass General Brigham
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A team led by investigators at the Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute has discovered that a particular marker on tumor cells circulating in the blood indicates whether a patient with lung cancer will experience a lasting response to a newly approved immunotherapy called tarlatamab. The findings, which are published in Cancer Discovery, could allow clinicians to easily and noninvasively determine which patients should receive the drug.

Journal: Cancer Discovery
Funder: Novartis-MGH Research Alliance, Conquer Cancer Foundation of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, National Foundation for Cancer Research

Common: being wrong. Less common: admitting it

University of Houston
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Truth science: Researchers find that scientists who admit that they were wrong are perceived as more trustworthy and when college professors admitted they were wrong, students rated them higher in warmth and competence.

Journal: Public Understanding of Science