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We examined initial newspaper coverage of the COVID-19 outbreak (January–May 2020) in the United States and China, countries with contrasting media systems and pandemic experiences. We join the context-rich media systems literature and the longitudinal nature of the issue-attention literature to expand each by providing more system-level context for explaining how media cover an issue over time. U.S. coverage peaked later and stayed consistently high, while Chinese coverage was more variable. The most prominent topics in Chinese coverage were related to domestic outbreak response, while U.S. coverage focused on politics, highlighting how issue-attention cycles differ across countries.

The CD200–CD200R immunoregulatory signaling axis plays an etiologic role in the survival and spread of numerous cancers, primarily through suppression of antitumor immune surveillance. Our previous work outlined a prometastatic role for the CD200–CD200R axis in cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) that is independent of direct T-cell suppression but modulates the function of infiltrating myeloid cells. To identify effectors of the CD200–CD200R axis important for cSCC metastasis, we conducted RNA sequencing profiling of infiltrating CD11B+Cd200R+ cells isolated from CD200+ versus CD200-null cSCCs and identified the cysteine protease cathepsin K (Ctsk) to be highly upregulated in CD200+ cSCCs. CD11B+Cd200R+ cells expressed phenotypic markers associated with myeloid-derived suppressor cell–like cells and tumor-associated macrophages and were the primary source of Ctsk expression in cSCC. A Cd200R+ myeloid cell–cSCC coculture system showed that induction of Ctsk was dependent on engagement of the CD200–CD200R axis, indicating that Ctsk is a target gene of this pathway in the cSCC tumor microenvironment. Inhibition of Ctsk, but not matrix metalloproteinases, significantly blocked cSCC cell migration in vitro. Finally, targeted CD200 disruption in tumor cells and Ctsk pharmacologic inhibition significantly reduced cSCC metastasis in vivo. Collectively, these findings support the conclusion that CD200 stimulates cSCC invasion and metastasis via induction of Ctsk in CD200R+ infiltrating myeloid cells. Significance: These findings highlight the relationship between CD200–CD200R and cathepsin K in cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma metastasis and suggest that either of these components may serve as a viable therapeutic target in this disease.

In a rapidly changing public health crisis such as COVID-19, researchers need innovative approaches that can effectively link qualitative approaches and computational methods. In this article, computational and qualitative methods are used to analyze survey data collected in March 2020 ( n = 2,270) to explore the content of persuasive messages and their relationship with self-reported health behavior—that is, social distancing. Results suggest that persuasive messages, based on participants’ perspectives, vary by gender and race and are associated with self-reported health behavior. This article illustrates how qualitative analysis and structural topic modeling can be used in synergy in a public health study to understand the public’s perception and behavior related to science issues. Implications for health communication and future research are discussed.