public and global health papers

Public and global health examines how we protect communities from disease, manage outbreaks, and improve well-being across the world. This vital field connects diverse research on everything from infectious disease control and vaccination strategies to the social factors that shape our collective health. Because these studies often impact policy and daily life, understanding them quickly is more important than ever.

At Gist.Science, we track every new preprint published in this category on medRxiv to ensure you never miss a breakthrough. We process each submission to provide both plain-language explanations for general readers and detailed technical summaries for experts, making complex findings accessible to everyone.

Below are the latest papers in public and global health, freshly summarized from the most recent medRxiv releases.

Preventive psychosocial services and collaboration for children and families: protocol for a mixed-methods intersectoral mapping study at community level

This mixed-methods intersectoral mapping study protocol aims to comprehensively analyze and visualize the preventive psychosocial support system and collaboration networks across health, education, and social sectors for children aged 4 to 10 in two socioeconomically disadvantaged German city districts, with the goal of identifying service gaps and informing targeted interventions to improve child mental health prevention.

Reinhart, A., Beierle, S., Popp, L., Voigt, B., Schneider, S., Reissig, B., Walper, S., Kuger, S., Alayli, A., De Bock, F.2026-05-28📄 public and global health

Short-term Air Pollution Exposure and Risk of Airway Inflammatory Response in Children (CHERISH): Protocol for a Randomised Mixed Factorial Study

The CHERISH study is a randomized mixed factorial protocol designed to assess the acute effects of short-term air pollution exposure on lung function and airway inflammation in 330 primary school-aged children exercising in London school playgrounds.

Moloney, S., Hajmohammadi, H., Wood, H. E., Mead, M. I., Mudway, I. S., Mosler, G., Thomson, A. C., Gonzalez Calvo, I., Scales, J., Whitehouse, A.2026-05-28📄 public and global health

Accounting for place: confounding via geography obscures polygenic evidence on mental health and environmental exposures in the UK Biobank

This study demonstrates that explicitly accounting for local geographic context using multilevel models is crucial in UK Biobank analyses, as it reveals that traditional single-level models adjusted only for genetic principal components can produce biased associations between polygenic scores for mental health and environmental exposures like greenspace due to unaddressed geographic confounding.

Reed, Z. E., Morris, T. T., Davis, O. S. P., Davey Smith, G., Munafo, M. R., Griffith, G. J.2026-05-27📄 public and global health

Dynamic Topic Alignment and Sentiment between Official Health Communication and General Public Discourse during COVID-19: A Comprehensive Infoveillance Framework

This study introduces a comprehensive infoveillance framework to analyze the dynamic alignment and sentiment between CDC communications and public discourse on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic, revealing that increased topic alignment correlates with heightened negative emotional responses rather than public agreement.

Yin, S., Xin, W., Chen, S., Ge, Y.2026-05-27📄 public and global health

Using Bayesian Evidence Synthesis to estimate the number of sex workers in the United Kingdom

This study employs Bayesian Evidence Synthesis to integrate historical data with recent UK population and clinic attendance records, producing a robust estimate of approximately 84,000 sex workers in the United Kingdom (95% credible interval: 49,000–130,000) to address critical data gaps for targeted public health support.

Long, H., Gada, L., Murray, L., Laurence, T., Hayward, A., Finnie, T.2026-05-26📄 public and global health

Intervention and evaluation protocol of fit4future Kids: A multi-component health promotion programme in German primary schools

This paper outlines the intervention and mixed-methods evaluation protocol for the nationwide fit4future Kids programme, a multi-component health promotion initiative in German primary schools designed to enhance children's physical activity, nutrition, mental health, and digital media use while strengthening schools' capacity for sustainable implementation through evidence-based frameworks.

Sterr, K., Blaschke, S., Hess, D., Lux, L., Brandmeier, A., Mess, F.2026-05-26📄 public and global health

Random Forest Model for Predicting Post-Lockdown Antenatal Depression Risk: A Cross-Sectional Study of Pregnant Women in China

This cross-sectional study in China found that post-lockdown antenatal depression is prevalent and strongly associated with sleep disorders, family support, and COVID-19 symptom severity, with a Random Forest machine learning model demonstrating superior predictive performance compared to other algorithms.

Pan, Y., Lin, H., HIRONO, T., Yang, Y., Liu, Y., Zhang, Y.2026-05-26📄 public and global health

DETERMINANTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF PATIENT AND HEALTH SYSTEM DELAYS IN TUBERCULOSIS DIAGNOSTICS AND TREATMENT AMONG INDIVIDUALS AGED 15 YEARS AND ABOVE AT KENYATTA NATIONAL HOSPITAL, NAIROBI COUNTY, KENYA

This facility-based observational study at Kenyatta National Hospital in Kenya identifies patient-related barriers (such as low awareness, financial constraints, and stigma) and health system inefficiencies as key determinants of delays in tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment, which consequently lead to increased disease severity and continued transmission.

Arnold, M. R., MOGERE, D. M., MAGU, D. M., OWANG, M. M.2026-05-25📄 public and global health

Food insecurity as a determinant of adolescent mental health in Francophone and Anglophone Africa: A multilevel analysis

Using Gallup World Poll data from 2014 to 2019, this multilevel analysis reveals that food insecurity is a significant, dose-dependent determinant of poor mental health among adolescents in both Francophone and Anglophone sub-Saharan Africa, with severity of insecurity directly correlating to increased odds of negative mental health experiences.

Fonta, C. L., Elgar, F., Gordon, D., Toumpakari, Z.2026-05-25📄 public and global health

Cumulative In-Context Learning versus Simple Historical Weighting for Real-Time Geographic Origin Identification of Ongoing Epidemic Waves: A Comparative Evaluation Using Eight COVID-19 Waves in Japan

This study demonstrates that a transparent, spreadsheet-implementable statistical method using cumulative historical weighting performs comparably to a large language model in identifying the geographic origins of Japan's COVID-19 waves, revealing that the performance gain stems from the accumulation of historical data rather than the AI's reasoning capabilities, though the model still exhibits significant intrinsic geographic reasoning without such context.

Nakagawa, S., Yamamoto, A.2026-05-25📄 public and global health