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The literature on the interplay between geographic communities and organizations has largely ignored the role of individual residents. In adopting a meso-perspective, we examine a potentially vital relationship between corporate conduct and pro-social behavior demanding sacrifice from individuals. Drawing on Weber (Economy and society: an outline of interpretive sociology. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1978 (Translation of Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, Grundriss der verstehenden Soziologie, 1922)), we theorize that organizations in a community legitimize personal social conduct in three ways-by serving as role models, imparting norms and values, and routinizing forms of interaction. We study the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) behavior by local firms and the social distancing (SD) of citizens in US counties during the Covid-19 pandemic, a core ethical outcome. We argue and find that the residents of communities in which firms exhibit higher levels of CSR engaged in more SD during the Covid-19 pandemic. This was true when firms were (a) long-established, (b) isomorphic in their CSR, and (c) major employers and vendors. Moreover, CSR relating to the treatment of employees as well as positive and negative extremes in CSR bore especially strong relationships with SD. Implications are drawn for the study of business ethics, as modeled by CSR, as a force for ethical personal behavior and public health in communities.

Background A critical window in infancy has been proposed, during which the microbiota may affect subsequent health. The longitudinal development of the oropharyngeal microbiota is under-studied and may be associated with early-life wheeze. We aimed to investigate the temporal association of the development of the oropharyngeal microbiota with early-life wheeze. Methods A population-based birth cohort based in London, UK was followed for 24 months. We collected oropharyngeal swabs at six time-points. Microbiota was determined using sequencing of the V3-V5 region of the 16S rRNA-encoding gene. Medical records were reviewed for the outcome of doctor diagnosed wheeze. We used a time-varying model to investigate the temporal association between the development of microbiota and doctor-diagnosed wheeze. Findings 159 participants completed the study to 24 months and for 98 there was complete sequencing data at all timepoints and outcome data. Of these, 26 had doctor-diagnosed wheeze. We observed significant increase in the abundance of Neisseria between 9 and 24 months in children who developed wheeze (p = 0∙003), while in those without wheezing there was a significant increment in the abundance of Granulicatella (p = 0∙012) between 9 and 12 months, and of Prevotella (p = 0∙018) after 18 months. Interpretation A temporal association between the respiratory commensal Granulicatella and also Prevotella with wheeze (negative), and between Neisseria and wheeze (positive) was identified in infants prior to one year of age. This adds to evidence for the proposed role of the microbiota in the development of wheeze. Fund Research funding from the Winnicott Foundation, Meningitis Now and Micropathology Ltd.

Vaccination programmes are considered a main contributor to the decline of infectious diseases over the 20th century. In recent years, the national vaccination coverage in the Netherlands has been declining, highlighting the need for continuous monitoring and evaluation of vaccination programmes. Our aim was to quantify the impact of long-standing vaccination programmes on notified cases in the Netherlands. We collected and digitised previously unavailable monthly case notifications of diphtheria, poliomyelitis, mumps and rubella in the Netherlands over the period 1919–2015. Poisson regression models accounting for seasonality, multi-year cycles, secular trends and auto-correlation were fit to pre-vaccination periods. Cases averted were calculated as the difference between observed and expected cases based on model projections. In the first 13 years of mass vaccinations, case notifications declined rapidly with 82.4% (95% credible interval (CI): 74.9–87.6) of notified cases of diphtheria averted, 92.9% (95% CI 85.0–97.2) cases of poliomyelitis, and 79.1% (95% CI 67.1–87.4) cases of mumps. Vaccination of 11-year-old girls against rubella averted 49.9% (95% CI 9.3–73.5) of cases, while universal vaccination averted 68.1% (95% CI 19.4–87.3) of cases. These findings show that vaccination programmes have contributed substantially to the reduction of infectious diseases in the Netherlands.

It is often argued that engaging in indoor residual spraying in areas with high coverage of mosquito bed nets may discourage net ownership and use. This is just a case of a public program having perverse incentives. This paper analyzes new data from a randomized control trial conducted in Eritrea, which surprisingly shows the opposite: indoor residual spraying encouraged net acquisition and use. The evidence points to the role of imperfect information. The introduction of indoor residual spraying may have made the problem of malaria more salient, leading to a change in beliefs about its importance and to an increase in private health investments.

This paper highlights challenges that the government of Papua New Guinea faces in delivering equitable health care. It analyses findings from the 2010 household survey, including sickness reporting, health service utilization and out of pocket expenditure, concluding that the poorest quintile is most vulnerable to illness, yet has the lowest utilization rates of healthcare facilities. The lack of healthcare workers and the distance to facilities are among the most dominant reasons cited for not utilizing healthcare facilities in the poorest quintile while out-of-pocket payments have minimal catastrophic impact, yet have still been found to be a barrier to utilization. The paper also sets out policy implications of these findings, including the need for the government to focus on, and prioritize, strengthening the health services delivery to achieve universal health coverage.

Researchers have observed differences in stress levels, and coping abilities and mechanisms based on the community being studied. This paper reports on the impact of extracurricular activities and student communities on stress and coping for youth in the Seattle area. Various self-reports, distributed through school health teachers, were used to gain information on students' stress levels, coping mechanisms, and coping ability. Results indicate that general categorizations of communities and activities (music, sports, etc.) did not demonstrate a significant correlation with students' stress or coping levels. Correlations between stress and coping were found, as were correlations between stress and coping and the number of communities/activities that students were involved in. Results provide insight into how students' activity loads impact their stress and coping levels more than the specific activities they are involved in and open the door to further research in the field.

With the far-reaching COVID-19 pandemic starting in December 2019, a surge of misinformation, now coined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as an ‘infodemic’, has also taken the world by storm. False information and variations in interpretations about the pandemic and mitigation interventions/strategies continue to spread at a faster pace than the relevant scientific evidence. The WHO has called for a fight against this infodemic, describing it as the most contagious aspect of the pandemic. In this era of rapid information exchange, public health measures, and state interventions to control the pandemic, a contextual understanding of how information is communicated and shared is important for uncovering possible reasons for action or inaction by the general public. With the Lebanese state scrambling to implement and enforce different measures to control and mitigate the spread of COVID-19, adherence by the general public is not uniform. In this paper, we refer to social science and risk communication theory to discuss how the political, economic and social contexts in the country, and not only the content of the messages that people receive from officials, affect how they interpret and act on information. We highlight how this has played out in Lebanon and identify societal aspects of importance in a low-middle income country fraught with social, economic and political inequalities which continue to undermine the efforts to contain the spread. Implications to inform state response in the context of low-middle income countries are also discussed.

Former Chief Medical Officer Sir Kenneth Calman recently celebrated 50\ud years in medicine. It was a period which saw the evolution of the public\ud health agenda from communicable diseases to diseases of lifestyle, the\ud change from a hospital-orientated health service to one dominated by\ud community-based services, and the increasing recognition of inequalities as a\ud major determinant of health. This paper documents selected highlights from\ud his career including the Aberdeen typhoid outbreak, AIDS, bovine spongiform encephalopathy,\ud foot and mouth disease, radioactive fallout, the invention of computerised tomography and\ud magnetic resonance imaging, and draws parallels between the development of the modern\ud understanding of public health and the theoretical background to the science 100 years earlier.

Background The implementation of research findings is not a straightforward matter. There are substantive and recognised gaps in the process of translating research findings into practice and policy. In order to overcome some of these translational difficulties, a number of strategies have been proposed for researchers. These include greater use of theoretical approaches in research focused on implementation, and use of a wider range of research methods appropriate to policy questions and the wider social context in which they are placed. However, questions remain about how to combine theory and method in implementation research. In this paper, we respond to these proposals. Discussion Focussing on a contemporary social theory, Normalisation Process Theory, and a participatory research methodology, Participatory Learning and Action, we discuss the potential of their combined use for implementation research. We note ways in which Normalisation Process Theory and Participatory Learning and Action are congruent and may therefore be used as heuristic devices to explore, better understand and support implementation. We also provide examples of their use in our own research programme about community involvement in primary healthcare. Conclusions Normalisation Process Theory alone has, to date, offered useful explanations for the success or otherwise of implementation projects post-implementation. We argue that Normalisation Process Theory can also be used to prospectively support implementation journeys. Furthermore, Normalisation Process Theory and Participatory Learning and Action can be used together so that interventions to support implementation work are devised and enacted with the expertise of key stakeholders. We propose that the specific combination of this theory and methodology possesses the potential, because of their combined heuristic force, to offer a more effective means of supporting implementation projects than either one might do on its own, and of providing deeper understandings of implementation contexts, rather than merely describing change. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12913-016-1587-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.