ArticleFrontiers in immunology2023
Prolonged mask wearing changed nasal microbial characterization of young adults during the COVID-19 pandemic in Shanghai, China.
Article in Frontiers in immunology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Health Care-Associated Infections Among Neonates During the COVID-19 Pandemic.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- Risks and benefits of face masks in children.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2026Review
- The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Staphylococcus aureus infections in pediatric patients admitted with community acquired pneumonia.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- The bacterial burden of worn face masks-observational research and literature review.Frontiers in public health · 2024Review
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Face masks have become a common sight during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in many countries. However, the impact of prolonged face mask wearing on nasal microbiota of healthy people is not fully understood. Methods: In this study, we compared the nasal microbiota of 82 young adults who wore face masks for an extended period of time to 172 mask-free peers from the same school recruited before the COVID-19 pandemic via 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequencing. Diversity, composition, and function of nasal microbiota between the two groups were analyzed. Prevalence of commensal bacteria colonized in the nasal cavity was determined by culture-based analysis. Results: We observed that prolonged face mask wearers had significantly different nasal microbial characterization and metabolic function compared to mask-free controls from 2018. Specifically, the nasal microbiota of the prolonged mask wearers displayed increased abundance of Conclusions: Overall, our study suggests that prolonged face mask wearing can significantly alter the nasal microbiota.
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