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This study examined whether killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor by current or former law enforcement officers in 2020 were followed by shifts in public sentiment toward Black people. Methods: Google searches for the names "Ahmaud Arbery," "Breonna Taylor," and "George Floyd" were obtained from the Google Health Application Programming Interface (API). Using the Twitter API, we collected a 1% random sample of publicly available U.S. race-related tweets from November 2019-September 2020 (N = 3,380,616). Sentiment analysis was performed using Support Vector Machines, a supervised machine learning model. A qualitative content analysis was conducted on a random sample of 3,000 tweets to understand themes in discussions of race and racism and inform interpretation of the quantitative trends. Results: The highest rate of Google searches for any of the three names was for George Floyd during the week of May 31 to June 6, the week after his murder. The percent of tweets referencing Black people that were negative decreased by 32% (from 49.33% in November 4-9 to 33.66% in June 1-7) (p

Background: Anecdotal reports suggest a rise in anti-Asian racial attitudes and discrimination in response to COVID-19. Racism can have significant social, economic, and health impacts, but there has been little systematic investigation of increases in anti-Asian prejudice. Methods: We utilized Twitter's Streaming Application Programming Interface (API) to collect 3,377,295 U.S. race-related tweets from November 2019-June 2020. Sentiment analysis was performed using support vector machine (SVM), a supervised machine learning model. Accuracy for identifying negative sentiments, comparing the machine learning model to manually labeled tweets was 91%. We investigated changes in racial sentiment before and following the emergence of COVID-19. Results: The proportion of negative tweets referencing Asians increased by 68.4% (from 9.79% in November to 16.49% in March). In contrast, the proportion of negative tweets referencing other racial/ethnic minorities (Blacks and Latinx) remained relatively stable during this time period, declining less than 1% for tweets referencing Blacks and increasing by 2% for tweets referencing Latinx. Common themes that emerged during the content analysis of a random subsample of 3300 tweets included: racism and blame (20%), anti-racism (20%), and daily life impact (27%). Conclusion: Social media data can be used to provide timely information to investigate shifts in area-level racial sentiment.

Introduction: Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination protects against HPV-associated cancers and genital warts. Healthy People 2030 goal for HPV vaccine uptake is 80%, but as of 2021, only 58.5% of adolescents are up to date in Georgia. The purpose of the study is to assess the attitudes, vaccine practices, facilitators, and barriers to receiving the HPV vaccine in southwest Georgia., Methods: We conducted 40 semi-structured interviews with three different audiences (young adults, parents, and providers and public health professionals) guided by the P3 (patient-, provider-, practice-levels) model and used deductive coding approach. Young adults and parents were interviewed to assess their perceived benefits, barriers, and susceptibility of the HPV vaccine. Providers and public health professionals were interviewed about facilitators and barriers of patients receiving the HPV vaccine in their communities., Results: Out of the 40 interviews: 10 young adults, 20 parents, and 10 providers and public health professionals were interviewed. Emerging facilitator themes to increase the uptake of the HPV vaccine included existing knowledge (patient level), providers' approach to the HPV vaccine recommendations (provider level) and immunization reminders (practice level). Barrier themes were lack of knowledge around HPV and the HPV vaccine (patient level), need for strong provider recommendation and discussing the vaccine with patients (provider level), and limited patient reminders and information (practice level)., Conclusions: These interviews revealed key themes around education, knowledge, importance of immunization reminders, and approaches to increasing the HPV vaccination in rural Georgia. This data can inform future interventions across all levels (patient, provider, practice, policy, etc.) to increase HPV vaccination rates in rural communities., Competing Interests: Competing interests: The authors declare that they have no relevant financial or non-financial competing interests to disclose.

Aim: Current treatment for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) involves the use of various disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) and biologic response agents which require ongoing medical supervision. An audit was undertaken to assess the adequacy of outpatient specialist follow-up for supervision of treatment in patients with RA in the Otago region., Methods: The Rheumatology Service database was used to assess time between follow-up for the penultimate and last visit to rheumatology outpatient clinic for all patients who made at least two visits between 1 October 2001 and 30 September 2006. Other recorded data included demographic information and clinician expectations for the timing of the next outpatient visit. Comparisons were made between actual follow-up intervals, those indicated by specialists and the follow-up intervals recommended by the New Zealand Rheumatology Association Guidelines. Patients were characterised according to four groups specified in the guidelines: Group A: patients newly started on DMARDs; Group B: patients with some change in disease management: Group C: patient stable on potent medications: Group D: patients stable on less severe medication., Results: According to the guidelines only 40% of patients were followed up within the recommended intervals. Groups A and B (76.9% and 70.6% respectively) had a significantly greater proportion of patients with follow-up at variance to guideline recommendations compared to groups C and D (50% and 45.3% respectively) (p<0.001). There were marked discrepancies between the guideline recommended follow-up intervals and those suggested by the clinicians. Compared with guideline recommendations clinicians advised less frequent follow-up for groups A and B but more frequent for patients in Groups C and D. However, an assessment of the quality of life scores amongst the patients suggested that follow-up was still appropriately targeted to those patients with lower quality of life., Conclusion: Discrepancies in follow-up were most marked in the patient groups potentially most at risk of medication-related problems in whom guidelines suggested more intensive monitoring. Additional strategies to promote guideline-based follow-up arrangements may be indicated. Further work should examine the relationships between guideline recommended, physician intended and actual follow-up among rheumatology patients in other regions in order to assess whether modifications should occur to clinician behaviour or guideline content.