People who use both vapes and cigarettes are less likely to quit compared to people who only smoke or only vape, according to a study published in ERJ Open Research. Instead, the research suggests that over time, most of these ‘dual users’ tend to revert to only smoking cigarettes. The researchers say their findings suggest that taking up vaping while continuing to smoke will probably not help people to stop smoking.

Evaluating the speed at which viruses spread and transmit across host populations is critical to mitigating disease outbreaks. A study published December 3^rd in PLOS Biology by Simon Dellicour at the University of Brussels (ULB), Belgium, and colleagues evaluate the performance of statistics measuring how viruses move across space and time in infected populations.

A new study published today in JAMA reveals text message reminders for patients who delay refilling their medications didn’t help improve how regularly they refilled medications over a year.

The study enrolled over 9,000 patients in a randomized pragmatic clinical trial and included representation from a diverse population across subgroups, including females, Hispanic ethnicity and Spanish-speaking patients, all groups who can be traditionally underrepresented in clinical trials.

“There are a lot of studies that focus on using technology to improve healthcare behaviors. However, it’s unclear and under-studied whether text message reminders are effective for a sustained period, given they have become a commonly used practice in healthcare settings. That’s one of the reasons why we wanted to focus on text message reminders for refilling medication in this study, which we were hoping would also decrease serious health issues,” said first author Michael Ho, MD, professor adjoint in the department of medicine and cardiology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.