Telling Stories about Dynamic Networks with Graph Comics

International audienceIn this paper, we explore graph comics as a medium to communicate changes in dynamic networks. While previous research has focused on visualizing dynamic networks for data exploration, we want to see if we can take advantage of the visual expressiveness and familiarity of comics to present and explain temporal changes in networks to an audience. To understand the potential of comics as a storytelling medium, we first created a variety of comics during a 3 month structured design process, involving domain experts from public education and neuroscience. This process led to the definition of 8 design factors for creating graph comics and propose design solutions for each. Results from a qualitative study suggest that a general audience is quickly able understand complex temporal changes through graph comics, provided with minimal textual annotations and no training

The Role of Formative Evaluation in Promoting Digitally-based Health Equity and Reducing Bias for Resilient Health Systems: The Case of Patient Portals.

OBJECTIVES: Patient portals are increasingly implemented to improve patient involvement and engagement. We here seek to provide an overview of ways to mitigate existing concerns that these technologies increase inequity and bias and do not reach those who could benefit most from them. METHODS: Based on the current literature, we review the limitations of existing evaluations of patient portals in relation to addressing health equity, literacy and bias; outline challenges evaluators face when conducting such evaluations; and suggest methodological approaches that may address existing shortcomings. RESULTS: Various stakeholder needs should be addressed before deploying patient portals, involving vulnerable groups in user-centred design, and studying unanticipated consequences and impacts of information systems in use over time. CONCLUSIONS: Formative approaches to evaluation can help to address existing shortcomings and facilitate the development and implementation of patient portals in an equitable way thereby promoting the creation of resilient health systems

Endemic persistence of a highly contagious pathogen : foot-and-mouth disease in its wildlife host

Extremely contagious pathogens are a global biosecurity threat because of their high burden of morbidity and mortality, as well as their capacity for fast-moving epidemics that are difficult to quell. Understanding the mechanisms enabling persistence of highly transmissible pathogens in host populations is thus a central problem in disease ecology. Through a combination of experimental and theoretical approaches, we investigated how highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease viruses persist in the African buffalo, which serves as their wildlife reservoir. We found that viral persistence through transmission among acutely infected hosts alone is unlikely. However, the inclusion of occasional transmission from persistently infected carriers reliably rescues the most infectious viral strain from fade-out. Additional mechanisms such as antigenic shift, loss of immunity, or spillover among host populations may be required for persistence of less transmissible strains.DATA AND MATERIALS AVAILABLITY : Code for our parameter analyses and model simulations are available on Github (https://github.com/SimonGubbins/FMDVInBuffalo/tree/1.0.0 and https://github.com/janmedlock/FMDV/tree/Science_publication) and archived at ZenodoSUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL 1 : Materials and Methods; Supplementary Text S1 to S6; Figs. S1 to S13; Tables S1 to S7; References (54–83).SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL 2 : MDAR Reproducibility Checklist.USDA-NIFA AFRI and by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.http://www.sciencemag.orghj2022Microbiology and Plant PathologyVeterinary Tropical Disease

Are publicly available internet resources enabling women to make informed fertility preservation decisions before starting cancer treatment: an environmental scan?

Background To identify publicly available internet resources and assess their likelihood to support women making informed decisions about, and between, fertility preservation procedures before starting their cancer treatment. Methods A survey of publically available internet resources utilising an environmental scan method. Inclusion criteria were applied to hits from searches of three data sources (November 2015; repeated June 2017): Google (Chrome) for patient resources; repositories for clinical guidelines and projects; distribution email lists to contact patient decision aid experts. The Data Extraction Sheet applied to eligible resources elicited: resource characteristics; informed and shared decision making components; engagement health services. Results Four thousand eight hundred fifty one records were identified; 24 patient resources and 0 clinical guidelines met scan inclusion criteria. Most resources aimed to inform women with cancer about fertility preservation procedures and infertility treatment options, but not decision making between options. There was a lack of consistency about how health conditions, decision problems and treatment options were described, and resources were difficult to understand. Conclusions Unless developed as part of a patient decision aid project, resources did not include components to support proactively women’s fertility preservation decisions. Current guidelines help people deliver information relevant to treatment options within a single disease pathway; we identified five additional components for patient decision aid checklists to support more effectively people’s treatment decision making across health pathways, linking current with future health problems