Editorial: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19): pathophysiology, epidemiology, clinical management and public health response

During a pandemic, there are multiple concurrent clinical and scientific priorities, including the need to understand the pathophysiology of the disease, the different modes of transmission, how patient care can be optimized, as well as the need to develop mathematical models that can now cast and forecast the progression of infections within given populations and/or geographical regions. When the current SARS-CoV2 pandemic was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization, a formal declaration of its gravity, it became evident that there was an acute need to understand all of the above aspects. In doing so, by 11th February 2020, a special topic, entitled “Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19): Pathophysiology, Epidemiology, Clinical Management and Public Health Response,” was initiated with a dedicated team of handling editors to facilitate the timely peer-review and publication of relevant manuscripts (1). Frontiers, as the publisher of this special topic, took the bold step of waiving any article processing charges so that financial constraints would not be a barrier to communicating crucial information about the pandemic to a broad audience. Furthermore, this was the most extensive special topic to date in the Frontiers portfolio, in terms of the numbers of participating Frontiers journals, disciplines, and sections. This reflected the acute need for the scientific community to understand the many aspects of the pandemic. This special Research Topic captured the entire first wave in the northern hemisphere, from February to May 2020, and the intensity of the associated editorial work is evident by the reported numbers. Within 4 months, 194 abstracts were received; in total 851 manuscripts were submitted, of which 453 were rejected while 398 were published. From the scientific community perspective, by June 2020 the special topic achieved over 2 million views, by December 2020 over 4 million views, and by August 2021 over 8 million views. As an example of the breadth of subjects covered, manuscripts included the attempt by Larsen et al. to model the onset of symptoms of COVID-19; the observed gender differences on COVID-19 patients’ severity and mortality by Jin et al., the correlation between poverty levels and rates of COVID-19 incidence and death in the United States by Finch and Finch, as well as the careful review of the cytokine storm in COVID-19 (Tang et al.

Violence in Gaza: An Academic-Activist Agenda for Health Communication

10.1080/10410236.2015.1089455Health Communication31121579-158

Decolonizing Communication for Social Change: A Culture-Centered Approach

Communication Theory252123-14

Songs of the Bauls: Voices from the Margins as Transformative Infrastructures

Bauls, the rural minstrels who sing songs of transformation, are a socio-economically and politico-religiously marginalized cultural population from rural Bengal (both from eastern and north-eastern, India and from Bangladesh). They identify themselves outside of any organized religion or established caste system in India, and therefore are constituted at the margins of contemporary global South. Voicing through their songs and narratives of emancipation, they interrogate and criticize material and symbolic inequalities and injustices such as discrimination and intolerance (including class and caste hierarchies, and other forms of disparities) perpetuated by hegemonic authorities and religious institutions. Embracing a critical communication lens, this paper pays attention to material and discursive marginalization of Bauls and Fakirs, foregrounding voice as an anchor to communicative interrogation of structural and cultural inequalities. Through voice, Bauls and Fakirs foreground reflexive spiritual and humane practices that raise societal consciousness and cultivate polymorphic possibilities

A Community-Based Heart Health Intervention: Culture-Centered Study of Low-Income Malays and Heart Health Practices

10.3389/fcomm.2020.00016Frontiers in Communication

Assessment of effectiveness of DAMaN: A malaria intervention program initiated by Government of Odisha, India.

India, a persistently significant contributor to the global malaria burden, rolled out several anti-malaria interventions at the national and state level to control and recently, to eliminate the disease. Odisha, the eastern Indian state with the highest malaria burden experienced substantial gains shown by various anti-malaria initiatives implemented under the National Vector-borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP). However, recalcitrant high-transmission "pockets" of malaria persist in hard-to-reach stretches of the state, characterised by limited access to routine malaria surveillance and the forested hilly topography favouring unbridled vector breeding. The prevalence of asymptomatic malaria in such pockets serves as perpetual malaria reservoir, thus hindering its elimination. Therefore, a project with the acronym DAMaN was initiated since 2017 by state NVBDCP, targeting locally identified high endemic 'pockets' in 23 districts. DAMaN comprised biennial mass screening and treatment, provisioning of long-lasting insecticidal net (LLIN) and behavioural change communication. Subsequently, to inform policy, assessment of DAMaN was conceived that aims to estimate the coverage of the various components of the project; the prevalence of malaria, even at sub-patent level especially among pregnant/lactating women and children; and its impact on malaria incidence. A survey of DAMaN beneficiaries will measure coverage; and knowledge and practices related to LLIN; along with collection of blood specimens from a probability sample. A multi-stage stratified clustered sample of 2228 households (~33% having pregnant/lactating women) will be selected from 6 DAMaN districts. Routine DAMaN project data (2017-2018) and NVBDCP data (2013-2018) will be extracted. Rapid Diagnostic Test, Polymerase Chain Reaction and blood smear microscopy will be conducted to detect malarial parasitemia. In addition to measuring DAMaN's coverage and malarial prevalence in DAMaN pockets, its impact will be estimated using pre-post differences and Interrupted Time Series analysis using 2017 as the "inflection" point. The assessment may help to validate the unique strategies employed by DAMaN

Culturally centering social change communication: subaltern critiques of, resistance to, and re-imagination of development

10.1080/17447143.2018.1446440Journal of Multicultural Discourses13287-10