312 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.
This study analyzes 2022 BDHS data to reveal that while cesarean section use is high in Bangladesh, it is significantly concentrated among the wealthy, with pro-rich inequality being substantially greater in public facilities and driven primarily by household wealth in both public and private sectors.
This paper details the design, technical implementation, and operational performance of ADRES's new Azure/Databricks-based analytical platform, which successfully centralized and standardized Colombia's fragmented health data from over 55,000 providers to process trillions of records, offering transferable lessons for similar middle-income health systems facing large-scale digitalization mandates.
This paper presents a reproducible framework using effective-distance analysis and airline network data to project that major international hubs in Belgium, France, South Africa, Kenya, and the UAE represent the highest-risk gateways for the importation of Bundibugyo virus during the 2026 DRC-Uganda outbreak, while clarifying that importation risk does not equate to local transmission risk.
Using nationally representative data from HINTS 6 and 7, this study reveals that medical discrimination selectively erodes trust in clinical institutions while prompting affected patients to compensate by increasing their engagement with digital health channels, thereby creating a population of "engaged but institutionally alienated" individuals.
This study successfully culturally adapted and validated the leprosy case detection delay questionnaire for Igbo-speaking populations in Southeast Nigeria, demonstrating that the translated instrument possesses excellent content validity, internal consistency, and reliability for assessing delays among persons affected by leprosy.
Using data from the 2024 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey, this study reveals that the prevalence of prolonged amenorrhea or possible menopausal transition among Nigerian women aged 30–49 is 7.6%, with significantly higher odds associated with older age, lower education, poorer wealth status, and non-Muslim or non-traditional contraceptive use, highlighting the need for improved midlife menstrual health services while noting the limitation of self-reported data.
This cross-sectional study of 388 women in a Kathmandu urban slum reveals a paradox of high positive attitudes toward cardiovascular disease prevention but low knowledge and poor management of risk factors, evidenced by high rates of obesity and hypertension alongside low blood pressure control.
This mixed-methods study in Kampala identifies that safe riding behaviors among boda-boda operators and their passengers are significantly influenced by a combination of individual factors (such as education, marital status, religion, and willingness to obey regulations), social support (family encouragement and union advocacy), and environmental conditions (road maintenance), highlighting the need for integrated interventions to reduce traffic-related injuries.
This individual participant meta-analysis of 16 low- and middle-income birth cohorts reveals that large-for-gestational-age infants, particularly those above the 97th percentile, face significantly elevated neonatal mortality risks compared to appropriate-for-gestational-age infants, whereas absolute macrosomia shows a weaker association, underscoring the urgent need for enhanced surveillance and delivery planning as these conditions are projected to rise with ongoing nutritional transitions.
This systematic review and meta-analysis of ten randomized controlled trials suggests that ultra-processed foods may increase energy intake and body weight, though these effects appear to be largely driven by differences in energy density rather than the level of food processing itself.