How do communities proactively address lead remediation? : community case studies from Iowa

In 2016, Scott County Health Department officials reached out to the Sustainable Working Landscapes Initiative (SWLI) program at Augustana College to begin a partnership addressing lead poisoning in our community. Teams of students in the Fall 2016 Contemporary Social Issues class conducted sociological case studies of communities in Iowa that are proactively addressing lead remediation through combinations of United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and private funding. Groups of students conducted case studies in Dubuque, Linn, Polk, Marshall, and Black Hawk counties in Iowa. Students researched the demographics of these areas as well as successes, lessons learned, challenges, local partnerships, and sources of funding for these programs. The students worked to identify key questions and concerns, as well as goals, for the case studies and presented these to the Scott County Public Health Department contacts at the conclusion of the fall term. During the Winter 2016 term, student interns compiled findings from these case studies into the following report. For the sake of brevity, we only include information which we felt was most relevant and useful to Scott County

Stratified analyses refine association between TLR7 rare variants and severe COVID-19

Summary: Despite extensive global research into genetic predisposition for severe COVID-19, knowledge on the role of rare host genetic variants and their relation to other risk factors remains limited. Here, 52 genes with prior etiological evidence were sequenced in 1,772 severe COVID-19 cases and 5,347 population-based controls from Spain/Italy. Rare deleterious TLR7 variants were present in 2.4% of young (<60 years) cases with no reported clinical risk factors (n = 378), compared to 0.24% of controls (odds ratio [OR] = 12.3, p = 1.27 × 10−10). Incorporation of the results of either functional assays or protein modeling led to a pronounced increase in effect size (ORmax = 46.5, p = 1.74 × 10−15). Association signals for the X-chromosomal gene TLR7 were also detected in the female-only subgroup, suggesting the existence of additional mechanisms beyond X-linked recessive inheritance in males. Additionally, supporting evidence was generated for a contribution to severe COVID-19 of the previously implicated genes IFNAR2, IFIH1, and TBK1. Our results refine the genetic contribution of rare TLR7 variants to severe COVID-19 and strengthen evidence for the etiological relevance of genes in the interferon signaling pathway