All three studies by Yale researchers illustrate how collaboration in public health research can have enormous benefits. Source: Facebook
Three research publications in which Yale School of Public Health faculty were key authors have been identified as among the best papers of 2021 by several leading research publications and The Commonwealth Fund.
The faculty worked seamlessly since last year, conducting critical research with the aim to advance science and influence policy as the world continued its fight against COVID-19 and its various variants.
Clinical and Economic Effects of Widespread Rapid Testing to Decrease SARS-CoV-2 Transmission,authored by A. David Paltiel was included in the Annals of Internal Medicine’s “Best of 2021” collection. The paper focuses on the costs and benefits of mass distribution of rapid home antigen tests. A. David Paltiel, Yale School of Public Health professor, co-director of the school’s acclaimed public health modeling unit and served as lead author. The paper was co-authored by Amy Zheng of Harvard Medical School and Paul Sax of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. The “Annals of Internal Medicine” is one of the most widely cited and influential specialty medical journals in the world.
Clinical Outcomes Of A COVID-19 Vaccine: Implementation Over Efficacy, is again authored by A. David Paltiel was ranked as one of the ten most read papers of 2021 by Health Affairs. Jason Schwartz, Ph.D, YSPH Associate Professor of Public Health (Health Policy); Amy Zheng of Harvard Medical School and current CDC Director Rochelle Walensky were co-authors. The paper showed that the effectiveness of a COVID-19 vaccine would be strongly affected by three parameters: the speed with which the vaccine is produced and administered; the willingness of people to be vaccinated; and the pandemic’s severity when the vaccine is introduced.
Alison Galvani, Ph.D, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis (CIDMA) at Yale and the Burnett and Stender Families Professor of Epidemiology (Microbial Diseases) at YSPH, was the paper’s senior author and led the research team. YSPH Associate Research Scientist Pratha Sah, Ph.D., was also part of the research team and is listed as a co-author.
The research was conducted in collaboration with scientists from The Commonwealth Fund and was published by The Commonwealth Fund in mid-December 2021. It was assessed by the impact of the U.S. COVID-19 vaccine program. The researchers presented their work showing that vaccine rollout averted about 1.1 million additional deaths from COVID-19.
All three studies illustrate how collaboration in public health research can have enormous benefits.