Epidemiology articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    China maintained a ‘zero-COVID’ policy from early in the pandemic until late 2022 that employed various public health interventions with the aim of COVID-19 containment. Here, the authors use data from 131 outbreaks in China to estimate the effects of a range of interventions against different SARS-CoV-2 variants in diverse settings.

    • Yong Ge
    • , Xilin Wu
    •  & Shengjie Lai

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The impacts of SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 vaccination in pregnancy are not fully understood. Here, the authors perform a cohort study using data from Scotland and find that infection was associated with increased risk of preterm birth and some adverse maternal outcomes, but there was no evidence of adverse outcomes associated with vaccination.

    • Laura Lindsay
    • , Clara Calvert
    •  & Sarah J. Stock

  • Article
    | Open Access

    White-tailed deer are an important reservoir of SARS-CoV-2 in the USA and continued monitoring of the virus in deer populations is needed. In this genomic epidemiology study from Ohio, the authors show that the virus has been introduced multiple times to deer from humans, and that it has evolved faster in deer.

    • Dillon S. McBride
    • , Sofya K. Garushyants
    •  & Andrew S. Bowman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Estimating health burden of air pollution against the background of population aging is of significance for achieving Sustainable Development Goal 3.9. Here, the authors show that population aging is expected to be the leading contributor to increased deaths attributable to PM2.5 in China by 2035, which will counter the positive gains achieved by improvements in air pollution and healthcare.

    • Fangjin Xu
    • , Qingxu Huang
    •  & Brett A. Bryan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Identification of gene-by-environment interactions is crucial to understand the interplay of environmental effects on complex traits. Here, the authors present MonsterLM, a method for estimating the proportion of trait variance explained by gene-by-environment interactions in a fast, unbiased manner on biobank-scale datasets.

    • Matteo Di Scipio
    • , Mohammad Khan
    •  & Guillaume Paré

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Many chronic diseases present with desynchronized sleep-wake cycles, indicative of disrupted biorhythms. Here, the authors propose peripheral thermoregulation as a digital biomarker based on the association between lower temperature rhythms measured from wearable activity trackers with future onset of disease, such as type 2 diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, hypertension and pneumonia.

    • Thomas G. Brooks
    • , Nicholas F. Lahens
    •  & Carsten Skarke

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Measuring an individual’s level of exposure to COVID-19 is challenging, and it is therefore unclear whether high exposure may impact immunity. Here, the authors investigate this question using data from a correctional facility in Connecticut, USA, by comparing rates of infection in people who share cells, cellblocks, and with no known exposure.

    • Margaret L. Lind
    • , Murilo Dorion
    •  & Albert I. Ko

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The value of SARS-CoV-2 lateral flow immunoassay tests for estimating individual disease risk is unclear. Here, the authors link testing data from the REACT-2 study in England to hospital and death records and show that vaccinated individuals with a negative LFIA test were at a higher risk of hospitalisation and death.

    • Matthew Whitaker
    • , Bethan Davies
    •  & Helen Ward

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The impacts of COVID-19 have been more severe in certain population groups, including migrants. In this total-population study from Sweden, the authors investigate the association between country of birth and COVID-19 related hospitalisation and death and describe how it changed over the first two years of the pandemic.

    • Mikael Rostila
    • , Agneta Cederström
    •  & Sol P. Juárez

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The serial interval (time between symptom onset in an infector and infectee) is usually estimated from contact tracing data, but this is not always available. Here, the authors develop a method for estimation of serial intervals using whole genome sequencing data and apply it data from clusters of SARS-CoV-2 in Victoria, Australia.

    • Jessica E. Stockdale
    • , Kurnia Susvitasari
    •  & Caroline Colijn

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The relative protection against Omicron SARS-CoV-2 infection conferred by vaccination and previous infection are not fully understood. Here, the authors use data from a prospective cohort study in the Netherlands and show that hybrid immunity (vaccination plus previous infection) conferred strongest protection.

    • Brechje de Gier
    • , Anne J. Huiberts
    •  & Mirjam J. Knol

  • Editorial
    | Open Access

    One Health refers to the interconnectedness of the health of humans, animals, and the environment. It recognises that coordination across sectors is needed for effective prevention, detection, and management of infectious disease threats. Although the concept of One Health is not new, it has gained increased prominence following the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting national and international institutions to adopt One Health policies aimed at preventing disease spillover1–4. At Nature Communications, we have launched a Collection and call for papers in recognition of the need for better scientific evidence to support One Health policy ambitions.

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cardiovascular and thromboembolic events (CVE) are common among hospitalised COVID-19 patients and are causes of many COVID-19-related deaths. Here, the authors examine whether genetic predisposition and lifestyle factors are associated with the risk of post-COVID-19 CVE using data from UK Biobank.

    • Junqing Xie
    • , Yuliang Feng
    •  & Daniel Prieto-Alhambra

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Triple artemisinin-based combination therapies have shown high efficacy for treatment of malaria in preliminary studies. Here, the authors use mathematical modelling to assess whether these therapies could also delay the emergence and spread of antimalarial drug resistance when compared against frontline therapies.

    • Tran Dang Nguyen
    • , Bo Gao
    •  & Ricardo Aguas

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Although human life expectancy has been increasing, time spent in good physical and cognitive health has not been rising at similar rate. Here, the authors show that both lifespan and healthspan are quantitatively linked to ancestral longevity, and that those from the longest-lived families have a healthier metabolomics profile before the onset of disease, highlighting the important role of the family in healthy survival.

    • Niels van den Berg
    • , Mar Rodríguez-Girondo
    •  & Marian Beekman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Chikungunya virus is endemic in Brazil and cases have been rapidly increasing in recent years. Here, the authors describe the expansion of a genomic surveillance program across the country allowing them to characterise the emergence and dispersal of two distinct subclades mainly seeded from the north eastern region.

    • Joilson Xavier
    • , Luiz Carlos Junior Alcantara
    •  & Marta Giovanetti

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Evaluation of the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines is increasingly challenging due to high levels of exposure to infection and vaccination. Here, the authors use a model-based approach incorporating these factors and estimate that using a variant-matched rather than ancestral booster could prevent nearly twice as many hospitalisations and deaths over one year.

    • Alexandra B. Hogan
    • , Patrick Doohan
    •  & Azra C. Ghani

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The COVID-19 pandemic has been characterised by periods of dominance of different SARS-CoV-2 variants. In this mathematical modelling study, the authors investigate the epidemiological properties of successive variants in England until early 2022 and quantify the impacts of control measures.

    • Pablo N. Perez-Guzman
    • , Edward Knock
    •  & Marc Baguelin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Test-negative case control studies have been widely used to estimate COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness, but the accuracy of estimates may be impacted by bias and unmeasured confounding. Here, the authors investigate the these impacts by collecting additional data from individuals included in the first UK COVID-19 test negative study.

    • Sophie Graham
    • , Elise Tessier
    •  & Helen I. McDonald

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pregnant people visiting antenatal clinics may represent a useful sentinel surveillance population for monitoring infections such as malaria. Here, the authors investigate the potential of this approach by comparing malaria prevalence in pregnant people and children living in the same area of southern Mozambique.

    • Arnau Pujol
    • , Nanna Brokhattingen
    •  & Alfredo Mayor

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Being fit has been linked to a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, but it is unclear whether this relationship is causal. Using large scale studies with genetic data and measurements of cardiorespiratory fitness, the authors show evidence that higher genetically predicted fitness is causally associated with lower risk of type 2 diabetes independent of adiposity.

    • Lina Cai
    • , Tomas Gonzales
    •  & Nicholas J. Wareham

  • Article
    | Open Access

    China ended its ‘zero-COVID’ policy in late 2022, but the public health impacts of the rapid removal of restrictions are not known. Here, the authors use mathematical modelling combined with survey data and estimate that at least 90% of the population became infected by the end of December 2022.

    • Emma E. Goldberg
    • , Qianying Lin
    •  & Ruian Ke

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Estimates of COVID-19 impacts in many low- and middle-income countries remain very uncertain, with lack of high-quality data. Here, the authors reconstruct epidemic dynamics in Lusaka, Zambia and estimate that, when accounting for demographic patterns, the epidemic severity is comparable with global norms.

    • Richard J. Sheppard
    • , Oliver J. Watson
    •  & Christopher J. Gill

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron lineage XBB/XBB.1.5 became the leading cause of new infections in the US in January 2023. Here, the authors use testing and hospitalisation data and show that this variant has increased ability to evade infection-derived immunity but enhanced vaccine sensitivity.

    • Joseph A. Lewnard
    • , Vennis Hong
    •  & Sara Y. Tartof

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Cox’s Bazar area of Bangladesh has received a large number of Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals. Cholera outbreaks have been detected in the area, and here, the authors perform genomic surveillance of cholera in the refugee and non-refugee population to infer the risk of epidemic spread.

    • Alyce Taylor-Brown
    • , Mokibul Hassan Afrad
    •  & Firdausi Qadri

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sequencing malaria parasites from low density infections in small amounts of dried blood is important for large-scale genomic surveillance. Here, the authors develop and validate a highly multiplexed droplet digital PCR-based amplicon deep sequencing assay and apply it to data from Zanzibar, Tanzania.

    • Aurel Holzschuh
    • , Anita Lerch
    •  & Cristian Koepfli

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Millions of excess deaths are estimated to have occurred in India during the COVID-19 pandemic, but their causes are not well documented at the national level. In this study, the authors use death registration records to describe the extent and causes of excess deaths in the large urban municipality of Madurai.

    • Joseph A. Lewnard
    • , Chandra Mohan B
    •  & Ramanan Laxminarayan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The long-term natural history of long-COVID is not well understood. In this population-based cohort study from Scotland, the authors describe symptom prevalence and health-related quality of life up to 18 months after a positive SARS-CoV-2 test and compare with matched test-negative controls.

    • Claire E. Hastie
    • , David J. Lowe
    •  & Jill P. Pell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Global COVID-19 vaccine distribution has been inequitable. In this mathematical modelling study, the authors estimate the proportion of deaths that could have been averted in twenty low- and lower-middle-income countries if vaccines had been more widely available early in the pandemic.

    • Nicolò Gozzi
    • , Matteo Chinazzi
    •  & Alessandro Vespignani

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Trachoma is targeted for global elimination as a public health problem by 2030. Here, the authors combine data from 14 African populations to show that IgG in children is a robust approach to monitor transmission as populations approach elimination.

    • Christine Tedijanto
    • , Anthony W. Solomon
    •  & Benjamin F. Arnold

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors assess performance and limitations to polygenic risk scores in different race/ethnic groups. They find that polygenic risk score performance improves with diverse training data, and a better understanding of varying genetic backgrounds, social and environmental factors, and gene-environment interactions, is needed to enhance PRS performance for all groups.

    • Nuzulul Kurniansyah
    • , Matthew O. Goodman
    •  & Tamar Sofer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plasmodium knowlesi is a zoonotic malaria parasite that can infect humans, but whether human-mosquito-human transmission occurs is not known. Here, the authors use data from Malaysia and show, through mathematical modelling, that sustained non-zoonotic transmission is unlikely to be occurring in this setting.

    • Kimberly M. Fornace
    • , Hillary M. Topazian
    •  & Chris Drakeley

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Mechanisms of the impact of PFAS (also known as forever chemicals) on adverse birth outcomes remain largely unknown. Here, authors identified tissue neogenesis, neuroendocrine function, and redox homeostasis as imprints of prenatal PFAS exposures and reduced gestational age in the newborn metabolome.

    • Kaitlin R. Taibl
    • , Anne L. Dunlop
    •  & Donghai Liang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Binding antibody levels correlate with protection against infection with the ancestral SARS-CoV-2 strain, but it is not clear whether this relationship extends to the Omicron variant. Here, the authors characterise antibody dynamics and their relationship with Omicron infection in a longitudinal cohort from Geneva, Switzerland.

    • Javier Perez-Saez
    • , María-Eugenia Zaballa
    •  & Ania Wisniak

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In this study, the authors investigate the relationship between exposure to air pollutants and severe COVID-19 disease using data from a cohort of ~5 million people in Catalonia, Spain. They find that long-term exposure to pollutants is associated with a higher risk of COVID-19-related hospitalization, death, intensive care admission, and length of hospital stay.

    • Otavio Ranzani
    • , Anna Alari
    •  & Cathryn Tonne

  • Article
    | Open Access

    mRNA boosters have been shown to be effective against severe COVID-19 illness. In this work, the authors show that in high-risk populations, three doses of mRNA-1273 vaccine instead of BNT162b2 vaccine conferred a small benefit against death or hospitalization with COVID-19 pneumonia.

    • J. Daniel Kelly
    • , Samuel Leonard
    •  & Salomeh Keyhani

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The extent to which COVID-19 vaccination protects against long COVID is not well understood. Here, the authors use electronic health record data from the United States and find that, for people who received their vaccination prior to infection, vaccination was associated with lower incidence of long COVID.

    • M. Daniel Brannock
    • , Robert F. Chew
    •  & Stuart Katz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Dewald et al. show a high Spike-IgG seroprevalence (95%) in a multicenter study with 1,411 participants. They determined a substantially reduced serum neutralization against the SARS-CoV-2 VOCs BA.4/5 and BQ.1.1. and explored predictive factors of neutralizing activity.

    • Felix Dewald
    • , Martin Pirkl
    •  & Florian Klein

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The duration and strength of protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection resulting from a booster vaccine dose or breakthrough infection are not well understood. This study uses data from the UK COVID-19 Infection Survey to investigate correlates of protection against Omicron BA.4/5 infection and assess antibody responses to booster vaccination and breakthrough infections.

    • Jia Wei
    • , Philippa C. Matthews
    •  & Chris Cunningham

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