COIOS — International risk research catalyst focused on medical advances, behavioural insights and data science
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Official figures
Where the evidence stands
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building mixedRevisions and new sources
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established mixedDiet, exercise and sleep
What people eat and how much they move, what the measured evidence says each does to how long they live, and what has been shown to change either.
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building strengtheningInnovation in treatment
Treatments that did not exist before — drugs, operations, devices — and whether they reach the people who would benefit.
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building mixedCancer
Which cancers are rising and which falling, what screening and new tests find earlier, what treatment has done to survival.
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building strengtheningObesity, diabetes and GLP-1
Are obesity and diabetes still rising, understanding behavioural change and public policy, what difference do GLP-1 and friends make.
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building strengtheningWhat linked data reveals
What linked registries are making it possible to know about whole populations
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established mixedSmoking and vaping
How far smoking has fallen and how many deaths it still causes, what vaping is doing to the people who take it up, and what generational bans will show.
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emerging mixedMedicine at a distance
What wearables, remote monitoring and care at home add to how health is measured and delivered, and whether it shows in outcomes.
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building mixedHeart and stroke
Whether deaths from heart disease and stroke have stopped falling, what is found earlier, what treatment and prevention now do, and what the deaths say.
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emerging strengtheningAI in medicine
Whether machine learning predicts, detects and decides better than the tools we have, and whether that has yet changed an outcome for a population.
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established mixedAlcohol and drug use
What is happening to deaths from alcohol, drugs and suicide, whether they move together, and how much of it is behaviour and how much circumstance.
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established steadyInfection and pandemics
Infectious disease and pandemics: understanding both the risks and how well prepared we are
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building mixedAdherence and persistence
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building mixedForecasts and their record
How the numbers are made, how much they revise their own past, and how well mortality can be forecast — and by whom.
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established strengtheningA changing climate
How air pollution, heat and cold affect how long people live, how the attribution is made, and how the balance is changing.
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established mixedMental health
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emerging mixedSlowing ageing itself
Whether anything yet slows ageing itself, rather than treating one disease at a time, and how we would know if it did.
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established mixedSocial connection
How isolation and loneliness shorten lives, proving the causal relationship and what can be done.
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contested mixedDementia
Whether dementia is becoming more or less common, what is found earlier and why that clouds the count, what treatment and prevention now do, and what the deaths say.
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emerging mixedValue in health
What a treatment, programme or policy is worth against what it costs, and how far the models that decide it can be trusted.
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building strengtheningChanging behaviour at scale
What moves a population's behaviour — price, defaults, availability, incentives, information — and what the evidence on vaccination, screening and adherence says about which of them work.
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building mixedFrailty and multimorbidity
Whether the years added after 85 are healthy ones, how frailty and multiple conditions are measured, and where the limits of the data lie.
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established strengtheningHealth funding and inequalities
Whether inequalities in health and length of life are widening, where, and what is happening to health at working ages.
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Item refines preprint
Excess deaths in 2020-2023 were partly offset by death deficits in 2024-2025
Across 38 populations with reliable death registration, cumulative 2020-2025 excess deaths were estimated at 0.92-2.49 million, with 33 of 38 countries showing death deficits in 2024-2025 that partly offset the 1.99-2.88 million excess of 2020-2023.
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Item refines preprint
Tirzepatide starters had slightly less new heart failure than semaglutide starters
In a propensity-matched cohort of 848,538 patients with obesity drawn from TriNetX records, one-year new-onset heart failure was 1.0% among tirzepatide initiators versus 1.3% among semaglutide initiators (HR 0.9), with lower all-cause mortality also reported for tirzepatide.
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Item new preprint
AI-guided ultrasound by untrained operators detected 93% of proximal DVTs on remote review
In a multicentre prospective study of 594 patients with 700 scans, ultrasounds acquired by non-ultrasound-trained operators under AI guidance and read remotely reached diagnostic quality in 86.8% of scans, with triage sensitivity of 92.9% for proximal deep vein thrombosis and specificity of 39.1%.
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Item refines preprint
Seven in ten US women stay on endocrine therapy in the first year, linked claims show
In 401,450 US women initiating adjuvant endocrine therapy for breast cancer, 69.9% had a medication possession ratio of at least 80% in the first year, with modelled behavioural attributes such as comfort following medication instructions weakly associated with adherence after adjustment.
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Item refines preprint
Polygenic scores add most to prediction where clinical risk is already low
Across 150 diseases in 900,000 UK Biobank and FinnGen participants, polygenic risk scores added most to clinical prediction in metabolic, cardiovascular, autoimmune and neurological disease, and their gains were consistently larger among those at lower clinical risk.
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Item refines preprint
Tirzepatide starters had slightly less new heart failure than semaglutide starters
In a propensity-matched cohort of 848,538 patients with obesity drawn from TriNetX records, one-year new-onset heart failure was 1.0% among tirzepatide initiators versus 1.3% among semaglutide initiators (HR 0.9), with lower all-cause mortality also reported for tirzepatide.
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Item new preprint
28% of middle-aged and older Canadians know of the hearing loss-dementia link
A cross-sectional survey of 1,404 Canadians aged 44-97 found that 28% were aware of the reported link between hearing loss and dementia, and 17% of those aware said they were more inclined to seek or continue hearing-loss treatment.
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Item new preprint
Gemcitabine regimens show consistent myelosuppression signals in FDA adverse-event reports
A disproportionality analysis of 18.37 million FAERS reports from 2014 to 2026 found myelosuppression the most consistent adverse-event signal across gemcitabine regimens for biliary and pancreatic cancer (reporting odds ratios 3.35 to 7.74), with liver-toxicity signals unstable on restriction.
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Item new peer-reviewed
A multicancer blood test did not cut late-stage cancer diagnoses in 142,250 adults
In the NHS-Galleri randomised trial of 142,250 adults aged 50 to 77 in England, three annual rounds of a blood-based multicancer early-detection test alongside usual care did not reduce stage III or IV cancer incidence across 12 prespecified cancers (rate ratio 1.03).
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Item refines peer-reviewed
Unemployed and unmarried Danes start cardioprotective diabetes drugs less often
Among 81,361 Danes with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, initiation of SGLT2 inhibitors and GLP-1 receptor agonists was 23% lower in unemployed men and 19% lower in unemployed women than in the employed, while the educational gradient vanished after adjustment.
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Item refines preprint
Seven in ten US women stay on endocrine therapy in the first year, linked claims show
In 401,450 US women initiating adjuvant endocrine therapy for breast cancer, 69.9% had a medication possession ratio of at least 80% in the first year, with modelled behavioural attributes such as comfort following medication instructions weakly associated with adherence after adjustment.
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Item refines preprint
Higher-than-usual personal particulate exposure precedes less walking the next day
In 67 UK adults aged 50-85 wearing personal air quality monitors and accelerometers for five days, a rise of 2.6 micrograms per cubic metre above usual PM2.5 exposure was followed by 8 minutes less light activity and 483 fewer steps the next day.
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Item new peer-reviewed
MDMA-related fatal poisonings in Australia rose to 2019 then fell through 2023
A national coronial series of 217 MDMA-related fatal poisonings in Australia found the population rate rising sharply to 2019 (annual percentage change 61.5) then falling to 2023 (-26.7), with 82.5% of deaths attributed to multiple drug toxicity and 78.8% occurring in private settings.
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Item refines preprint
High-volume vigorous exercise in mid-life tracks higher fracture risk in UK Biobank
In 322,749 UK Biobank participants aged 40-65, self-reported fracture in the previous five years was more common among those in the highest quintile of leisure-time physical activity, while activity at the level of WHO recommendations showed no such association.
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Item confirms peer-reviewed
Most US patients starting fostemsavir remained on it at 12 months in a 77-person cohort
A retrospective US cohort of 77 heavily treatment-experienced people with HIV initiating fostemsavir between 2020 and 2023 found most still on the drug at 12 months, with high adherence in the subset for whom dispensing data allowed proportion of days covered to be calculated.
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Item refines preprint
Excess deaths in 2020-2023 were partly offset by death deficits in 2024-2025
Across 38 populations with reliable death registration, cumulative 2020-2025 excess deaths were estimated at 0.92-2.49 million, with 33 of 38 countries showing death deficits in 2024-2025 that partly offset the 1.99-2.88 million excess of 2020-2023.
-
Item new preprint
AI-guided ultrasound by untrained operators detected 93% of proximal DVTs on remote review
In a multicentre prospective study of 594 patients with 700 scans, ultrasounds acquired by non-ultrasound-trained operators under AI guidance and read remotely reached diagnostic quality in 86.8% of scans, with triage sensitivity of 92.9% for proximal deep vein thrombosis and specificity of 39.1%.
-
Item refines preprint
Polygenic scores add most to prediction where clinical risk is already low
Across 150 diseases in 900,000 UK Biobank and FinnGen participants, polygenic risk scores added most to clinical prediction in metabolic, cardiovascular, autoimmune and neurological disease, and their gains were consistently larger among those at lower clinical risk.
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Item refines statistics
Scottish drug deaths rose 11% in 2025, with nitazenes linked to a fifth of fatalities
Drug-related deaths in Scotland rose by 11% to 1133 in 2025, with 247 (22%) linked to nitazenes, more than triple the 2024 figure, although routine postmortem testing for etonitazene began only in May 2025.
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Item new preprint
Safe 7-day primaquine package costs US$6,636 per DALY averted in Indonesia
A decision-tree model of a G6PD-screening and high-dose primaquine package for Plasmodium vivax radical cure in Indonesia gave an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of US$6,636 per DALY averted from the health system perspective, above the 1x GDP per capita threshold of US$4,925.
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Item refines peer-reviewed
Korea's 2025-26 avian flu season carried diverse H5Nx genotypes, one of European origin
Genomic surveillance of 62 poultry outbreaks and 63 wild bird detections in Korea during winter 2025-26 found extensive clade 2.3.4.4b reassortment, including the European H5N1 genotype EA-2024-DI.2.1 that spread across Europe in 2025, alongside novel H5N1 and H5N9 poultry genotypes.
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Item refines peer-reviewed
Pacemaker after cardiac surgery carries modestly higher long-term mortality in Sweden
Among 76 223 Swedish adults undergoing cardiac surgery between 2006 and 2020, the 2.8% who received a permanent pacemaker within 30 days had a 9% higher adjusted risk of all-cause death and a 36% higher risk of heart failure hospitalisation over a mean 6.8 years.
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Item new preprint
Wastewater sequencing in Lagos found enteric viruses, cholera and mcr resistance genes
Virus-enriched sequencing of untreated wastewater from open drainage canals in Lagos over July and August 2024 recovered a human virome dominated by enteric adenoviruses, astroviruses and caliciviruses, alongside Vibrio cholerae and mcr resistance genes.
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Item refines preprint
Immunosuppressed people are less protected than their antibody levels would suggest
A meta-analysis of antibody responses to mRNA COVID-19 vaccination found binding antibody levels 54.5-fold lower in people on B-cell depleting therapy than in healthy controls, and protection against infection and hospitalisation lower at any given antibody level.
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Item confirms peer-reviewed
Carbapenem resistance tracked death in ICU-acquired bloodstream infection
Among 352 adults who developed a gram-negative bloodstream infection at least 48 hours after ICU admission, half the isolates were carbapenem-resistant and 30-day mortality was 57.9%, with resistance independently associated with death and appropriate early treatment with survival.
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Releases this week
Next seven days: CBS Overleden door een val *, in Dutch (Tue 29); Eurostat Cancer screening (Tue 29); Eurostat Deaths due to diseases of the circulatory system by region (Tue 29); ONS weekly deaths (Wed 30); ONS Deaths of homeless people in England and Wales (Thu 1); and 6 more. Full calendar