The first paper from a multi-year clinical research study has been published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases: Dynamics of Endemic Virus Re-emergence in Children in the USA Following the COVID-19 Pandemic (2022-2023): A Longitudinal Immunoepidemiologic Surveillance Study and demonstrates how the approach can improve modeling to better predict future outbreaks.

The paper shares findings from a multicenter clinical research study, one of many studies that are part of the recently launched PREMISE (Pandemic Response Repository through Microbial and Immune Surveillance and Epidemiology) program, led by Dr. Daniel Douek at the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Vaccine Research Center (VRC). Data collected during the first year of the PREMISE study, 2022-2023, shows for the first time how non-pharmaceutical interventions such as masking and distancing targeted towards SARS-CoV-2 during the pandemic also decreased circulation rates of and population immunity to common respiratory pathogens in children. The study provides new evidence-based insight into what was driving the large post-pandemic rebound in these diseases and enables more accurate predictions for the future.

Large language models such as ChatGPT recognise widespread myths about the human brain better than many educators. However, if false assumptions are embedded into a lesson scenario, artificial intelligence (AI) does not reliably correct them. These were the findings of an international study that included psychologists from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU). The researchers attribute this behaviour to the fundamental nature of AI models: they act as people pleasers. However, this problem can be solved by a simple trick. The study was published in the journal “Trends in Neuroscience and Education”.

Researchers from the HSE Laboratory for Cognitive Psychology of Digital Interface Users have discovered how social cues in the design of news websites—such as reader comments, the number of reposts, or the author’s name—can help build user trust. An experiment with 137 volunteers showed that such interface elements make a website appear more trustworthy and persuasive to users, with the strongest cue being links to social media pages. The study's findings have been published in Human-Computer Interaction.

Deaths by suicide and drug overdose significantly increased in the aftermath of the August 2023 Maui wildfire, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The study, led by Alex Ortega, dean of the Thompson School of Social Work and Public Health, and Keawe‘aimoku Kaholokula, chair of the Department of Native Hawaiian Health, in the John A. Burns School of Medicine, both at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, along with Jonathan Purtle, associate professor at New York University’s School of Global Public Health, is one of the first to show that wildfires can lead to immediate deaths from suicide and drug overdose.