433 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 utilized a systematic adaptation process involving intercept interviews and stakeholder prioritization to identify and address key barriers—such as rigid response formats, message length, and cost concerns—thereby optimizing the US-based Text2Quit mHealth intervention for effective tobacco cessation among men in Nairobi, Kenya.
A six-month quality improvement initiative at a public district hospital in southwestern Uganda significantly increased guideline-concordant prescribing and generic medicine use while reducing antibiotic overuse and the average number of medicines per encounter, though high antibiotic rates indicate a need for continued stewardship efforts.
This multi-country study of 93 minoritised adolescents reveals how racism manifests through context-specific social markers to harm mental and physical health, while highlighting the urgent need for a health justice approach that addresses structural inequities and incorporates youth voices into policy.
This study characterizes the link between duodenal microbiota and environmental enteric dysfunction in undernourished Bangladeshi women, demonstrating that transplanting their gut bacteria into germ-free mice recapitulates key features of the disease, thereby offering new diagnostic and therapeutic insights.
This qualitative study involving 56 Hehe pregnant women in rural Tanzania demonstrates that achieving cultural and linguistic equivalence in translated Birth Preparedness and Complication Readiness (BPCR) education materials requires community-driven adaptation of terminology to align with local expressions and sociolinguistic norms, rather than relying solely on literal translation.
This cluster-randomised controlled trial in Mashonaland West, Zimbabwe, demonstrates that institutionalising a community health system package comprising trained village health workers, functional governance structures, and sustained participatory learning groups significantly reduced preventable neonatal mortality by 57% compared to standard services, highlighting that structural community strengthening is a critical driver of neonatal survival in high-coverage settings.
This cross-sectional survey of digitally reachable adults in Ghana reveals that while digital reachability and general willingness to donate are high, actual mobilisability for urgent blood requests is significantly lower and is primarily driven by trust in the health system, digital readiness, and prior donation experience, while being hindered by gender, work schedules, and travel barriers.
This study evaluated the longitudinal tracking and construct validity of a single-item recreational physical activity frequency measure in the Women's Healthy Ageing Project, finding it demonstrates fair-to-moderate longitudinal stability and acceptable cross-sectional validity against established physical activity and function measures, suggesting its utility as a pragmatic tool for women's cohort studies.
This cross-sectional study of 110 male employees in Dubai reveals that poor sleep quality, particularly driven by shift work and pre-bedtime mobile phone use, is significantly associated with lower life satisfaction, suggesting a need for workplace interventions to promote sleep hygiene.
A 2025 cross-sectional study in southeastern Madagascar reveals that Schistosoma mansoni prevalence in a rice-farming community is significantly higher than national surveillance estimates and is primarily driven by household water catchment geography rather than individual demographic or behavioral factors, suggesting a need to target control efforts at the catchment level.