How do I prevent content refresh on iOS 13? iPhone 7Plus running iOS 13.1.2. 

Ever since upgrading to iOS 13 when apps with live feeds refresh it also resets to the top of the feed. So if I am trying to catch up on my Instagram  feed I may get 10 or 15 posts down the list and all of a sudden the feed refreshes and I "pulled" back up to the top of the feed. At first I thought this was an issue with the Instagram app but then it happened on the CNN app while reviewing the news. This led me to believe it was related to iOS rather than the specific app.

Is there a way to adjust or turn this behavior off so that the app does not auto-refresh but relies on pull-to-refresh?
There's no global way to do this because it's under control of the app developer.

Each developer can decide how they want to refresh the data and the view you're seeing.  In these instances, CNN &amp; Instagram developers decided to keep that this was the behaviour they wanted to give you.

Some developers, for example, Tapbots (maker of Tweetbot), provide an option in the app Settings to allow their users to change this refresh experience.

Because there no global setting to control this, you would need to contact the developers of those applications and ask them to include this feature.