Publications

Selected Publications

A small set of recent papers that capture the questions I care about most — chosen for methodological or public-health impact rather than prominence of venue.

1. A Rapid Risk Assessment for Measles Outbreaks in North Carolina
   DeWitt ME§, Bellotti BR, Kortessis N, Shetty AK, Green J, Neelakanta A, et al.
   North Carolina Medical Journal, 2026. doi:10.18043/001c.162610
   A fast, reusable framework for estimating county-level measles outbreak risk to guide state and local public-health response.
2. Promise and peril: doxycycline prophylaxis and the spread of resistance among diverse populations
   DeWitt ME§, Wenner JJ, Bellotti BR, Manuel JA¶, Toler C, Palavecino E, et al.
   The Lancet Microbe, 2025. doi:10.1016/j.lanmic.2025.101222
   Shows how doxycycline post-exposure prophylaxis may accelerate antimicrobial resistance in populations where it is being scaled up.
3. Lyme Disease Under-Ascertainment During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States: Retrospective Study
   Jones BS*¶, DeWitt ME*§, Wenner JJ, Sanders JW
   JMIR Public Health and Surveillance, 2024. doi:10.2196/56571
   Quantifies how COVID-era disruptions to care-seeking led to substantial under-ascertainment of Lyme disease, with implications for surveillance interpretation.
4. Time is of the Essence: Effectiveness of Dairy Farm Control of H5N1 is Limited by Fast Spread
   DeWitt ME§, Bellotti BR, Kortessis N
   medRxiv, 2024 (preprint). doi:10.1101/2024.11.15.623774
   Shows that containment of H5N1 in dairy herds is rate-limited by the speed of within-herd spread, motivating faster detection windows.
5. Global Monkeypox Case Hospitalisation Rates: A Rapid Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
   DeWitt ME§, Polk C, Williamson J, Shetty AK, Passaretti CL, McNeil CJ, et al.
   EClinicalMedicine, 2022. doi:10.1016/j.eclinm.2022.101710
   First rapid meta-analysis of monkeypox hospitalisation rates during the 2022 global outbreak, widely cited in early response planning.