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Long COVID and Post-COVID Conditions: Health Effects and Public Health

A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Health Behavior, Chronic Disease and Health Promotion".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 July 2023) | Viewed by 3484

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
1. Institute for Medical Education, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
2. CINTESIS—Centre for Health Technology and Services Research, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, 4200-450 Porto, Portugal
Interests: adult respiratory distress syndrome; acute lung injury

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In December 2019, novel coronavirus pneumonia infections were recorded in the city of Wuhan, China, caused by a new coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2. The spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (COVID-19) quickly reached pandemic proportions, affecting the daily routines and lives of the global population within just a few weeks. In 2022, the pandemic is still ongoing.

Over two years of living and working in a pandemic situation has significantly changed our lives. The control of this global event has included a number of public health measures and restrictions; adequate infection prevention, treatment, and vaccination constitute only a handful of the social, economic, and political interventions experienced over the last two years. SARS-CoV-2 continues to cause acute disease and chronic manifestations in vulnerable individuals; however, the pandemic has triggered global behavioural changes and new forms of social interaction.

The pandemic had a severe impact on socially and economically disadvantaged groups, and amplified pre-existing inequalities. The impact on mental health was and still is considerable in many sectors of society. Lockdowns and school closures isolated people and groups. Families were split physically, and there have been reports of increased domestic violence. While highly educated groups have been able to cope with the pandemic—even benefiting from home working—others have suffered unemployment or lack of support and company. Healthcare workers were particularly hit, with several reports of increased psychiatric symptoms in the last two years. Parallel to these events, we witnessed a global research effort to synthesize and spread knowledge, alongside other positive changes, such as reduced levels of air pollution.

This Special Issue seeks papers offering insight into the challenges and lessons learned in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our focus is on public health data, data deficits, emergent data problems, and innovative solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. We welcome papers that bring together international researchers from different theoretical and methodological perspectives, as well as biological and clinical standpoints, in order to advance knowledge in the field of COVID-19.  We hope that this Special Issue will shed light on current evidence and further inform political decisions.

Dr. Joana Berger-Estilita
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • health planning
  • healthcare system
  • monitoring
  • health surveillance
  • governance
  • environmental health (climate change, air pollution, urban health)
  • critical care
  • public health data
  • political decision
  • COVID-19
  • health policy
  • long COVID-19
  • healthcare workers
  • inequality

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

30 pages, 9318 KiB  
Article
A Novel Social Distancing Approach for Limiting the Number of Vehicles in Smart Buildings Using LiFi Hybrid-Network
by Sallar Salam Murad, Salman Yussof, Rozin Badeel and Wahidah Hashim
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(4), 3438; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20043438 - 15 Feb 2023
Viewed by 1307
Abstract
The coronavirus (COVID-19) has arisen as one of the most severe problems due to its ongoing mutations as well as the absence of a suitable cure for this virus. The virus primarily spreads and replicates itself throughout huge groups of individuals through daily [...] Read more.
The coronavirus (COVID-19) has arisen as one of the most severe problems due to its ongoing mutations as well as the absence of a suitable cure for this virus. The virus primarily spreads and replicates itself throughout huge groups of individuals through daily touch, which regretfully can happen in several unanticipated way. As a result, the sole viable attempts to constrain the spread of this new virus are to preserve social distance, perform contact tracing, utilize suitable safety gear, and enforce quarantine measures. In order to control the virus’s proliferation, scientists and officials are considering using several social distancing models to detect possible diseased individuals as well as extremely risky areas to sustain separation and lockdown procedures. However, models and systems in the existing studies heavily depend on the human factor only and reveal serious privacy vulnerabilities. In addition, no social distancing model/technique was found for monitoring, tracking, and scheduling vehicles for smart buildings as a social distancing approach so far. In this study, a new system design that performs real-time monitoring, tracking, and scheduling of vehicles for smart buildings is proposed for the first time named the social distancing approach for limiting the number of vehicles (SDA-LNV). The proposed model employs LiFi technology as a wireless transmission medium for the first time in the social distance (SD) approach. The proposed work is considered as Vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication. It might aid authorities in counting the volume of likely affected people. In addition, the proposed system design is expected to help reduce the infection rate inside buildings in areas where traditional social distancing techniques are not used or applicable. Full article
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11 pages, 1199 KiB  
Article
Persistent Increase of Sympathetic Activity in Post-Acute COVID-19 of Paucisymptomatic Healthcare Workers
by Filippo Liviero, Maria Luisa Scapellato, Franco Folino, Angelo Moretto, Paola Mason and Sofia Pavanello
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(1), 830; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20010830 - 01 Jan 2023
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1687
Abstract
Healthcare workers (HCWs) represent a population with a significant burden of paucisymptomatic COVID-19, as the general population. We evaluated autonomic nervous system activity by means of heart rate variability (HRV) in HCWs during health surveillance visits. Short-term electrocardiogram (ECG) recordings were obtained 30 [...] Read more.
Healthcare workers (HCWs) represent a population with a significant burden of paucisymptomatic COVID-19, as the general population. We evaluated autonomic nervous system activity by means of heart rate variability (HRV) in HCWs during health surveillance visits. Short-term electrocardiogram (ECG) recordings were obtained 30 days (IQR 5.25–55.75) after a negative naso-pharyngeal swab for SARS-CoV-2 in 44 cases and compared with ECGs of 44 controls with similar age and sex distribution. Time and frequency domain HRV were evaluated. HCWs who used drugs, had comorbidities that affected HRV, or were hospitalized with severe COVID-19 were excluded. Frequency domain HRV analysis showed a significantly higher low/high-frequency power ratio (LF/HF) in the case study compared with controls (t = 2.84, p = 0.006). In time domain HRV analysis, mean standard deviation of normal-to-normal intervals (SDNN) and root mean square of successive RR interval differences (RMSSD) were significantly lower for cases compared with controls (t = −2.64, p = 0.01 and t = −3.27, p = 0.002, respectively). In the post-acute phase of infection, SARS-CoV-2 produces an autonomic imbalance mirrored by a reduction in HRV. These results are consistent with epidemiological data that suggest a higher risk of acute cardiovascular complications in the first 30 days after COVID-19 infection. Full article
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