As pressures mount to reopen U.S. businesses that were shuttered to prevent COVID-19 spread, a pressing question is, at what level of government should these judgments be made? A new model of disease transmission shows that city- and county-level characteristics have significant impact.

Mortality risk from COVID-19 seems to be associated with cardiovascular disease, diabetes and hypertension—disorders that share an underlying pathophysiology related to the renin-angiotensin system. That relationship may provide important clinical insights about how we treat COVID-19—but first, argues a team of authors, we need to clearly understand the causal mechanism that lies at the heart of it.

Many people get higher blood pressure readings in a doctor’s office than they do elsewhere. A new study tells us we should take “white coat hypertension” very seriously.

With more and more population-based data available from wearable devices, scientists are increasingly questioning how physical activity influences our health and the role it plays in psychiatric health, in particular. A recent study, one of the first to examine multiple biological systems in mood disorders via real-time tracking data, could refine and expand our understanding of that link

In 2015, the kickoff accounted for six percent of all football plays in the Ivy League athletic conference, but was to blame for 21 percent of the concussions. The next year, the League made an experimental rule change — moving the kickoff line from the 35- to the 40-yard line and the touchback line from the 25- to the 20-yard line. A research team has produced rigorous evidence that the change worked: concussions from kickoffs decreased by 68 percent.

New, direct-acting antivirals for the disease are highly effective, yet a recent study shows that both private and public insurers still refuse to cover these prescriptions for many patients.

People with severe head injuries fare better when treated by trauma centers, even if that means bypassing other hospitals, this research team showed—which presents a major opportunity to improve outcomes for almost half of these patients.