A new study in JAMA Network Open found that between 1999-2022, the annual number of excess US deaths—deaths that would not have occurred had the mortality rate in the US been the same as in other HICs—increased steadily through 2019 and then rose rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic. By 2022, all-cause mortality rates in the US were 38 percent higher than in other HICs. An estimated 12.7 million US deaths could have been averted during this period if US mortality rates mirrored those of its peers. The authors refer to these excess US deaths as “missing Americans.”

A new study explored whether women visualised a vaccine would have a positive or negative impact on their babies, and if that affected their decision to be vaccinated. The findings, published in the journal Social Science & Medicine, showed that mental images were common and – depending on whether that mental image was a positive or negative one, and about the impacts of diseases or the vaccine itself – could be used in some cases to predict if and when the women ultimately became vaccinated during pregnancy.

New research using data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) reveals that employment stability and in-person work buffered older adults against depression during the first year of COVID-19.