The COVID-19 pandemic initially hit Italy at the end of February 2020. In the following two years, there were about 13 million diagnosed cases and more than 150000 deaths. For this period, we have performed a study that evaluates and compares the impacts on public health of the SARS-CoV-2 waves at the national and regional levels. Based on contagion trends, we considered four pandemic waves. For each wave, we also analyzed a restricted time interval of one month around the peak. We found an underestimation of diagnosed cases and a saturation of available intensive care unit (ICU) beds during the first wave. The second wave had a more significant impact on public health, highlighting that the system of physical distancing measures was less effective than the lockdown implemented during the first wave. Instead, during the first three peaks, the incidence of ICU bed occupancy was superimposable. In general, odds ratios of case fatality rate showed a more significant risk for males than females from the age of thirty onwards. We verified that regional responses to the health emergency were not homogeneous. In particular, in contrast with the national temporal trend, some regions showed a significant increase in the incidence of deaths. Furthermore, we found positive correlations between availability and occupancy of hospital beds from the second wave onward. In contrast, a significant correlation was verified for ICU bed occupancy and deaths only during the second peak. In light of what happened, it would be desirable to plan an increase in public health funds for new emergencies and issue a rigorous plan to face pandemics.
Obesity is a complex and multifactorial disease marker, which has become a major threat to cardiovascular health. We sought to assess the correlation of obesity and other cardio-metabolic risk factors in patients seen at the outpatient specialist clinic in Ghana.
A prospective cross-sectional study was conducted on 395 patients at Precise Specialist Clinic in Kumasi, Ghana. A standardized questionnaire was used to obtain demographic, anthropometric and clinical data of patients. Fisher's exact test for statistical significance at a 95% confidence interval was used to evaluate associations between categorical variables. The associations between obesity indices and cardiovascular disease risk factors were analyzed by Pearson's correlation.
Of the 395 participants, 187 were males and 208 were females. The mean (± standard deviation) age of study participants was 59.29 (± 13.93); more than half of the participants were between 50 and 69 years. The mean BMI of male participants was significantly lower than the mean BMI of female participants (28.18 kg/m2 vs 31.16 kg/m2,
Obesity was found to be significantly associated with female gender, increasing age, increasing systolic blood pressure, and increasing diastolic blood pressure. Efforts to step-up preventive measures to reduce the increasing prevalence of obesity in Ghana are highly recommended.
A large proportion of children and adolescents spend their leisure time with predominantly sedentary pursuits and do not reach the WHO physical activity recommendations. As there remains limited research on specific sedentary behaviors in Austrian children and adolescents, we investigated time spent sitting and the utilization of various media during school days and the weekend in 6- to 15-year-old schoolchildren. Data for this cross-sectional study were collected in Spring 2022 with a standardized questionnaire that was based on the “Heidelberger Questionnaire for the Assessment of Sitting Behavior in Children and Adolescents”. Questions examined the frequency and duration of different sedentary behaviors separately for weekdays and weekends. A total of 2061 students were included in the analyses. Various factors, including school grade, sex, or recreational behavior, were implemented in a multifactorial ANOVA accounting for 1st order interactions. The mean sitting time of children and adolescents of all eight school grades was 10.4 ± 1.7 hours, with 56.7% associated with school. A significant increase in sitting time was observed from 1st grade (10.0 ± 1.3 h) to 8th grade (12.3 ± 1.2 h; p < 0.01), while sleep duration decreased with increasing age (p < 0.01). Media use was 1.2 ± 0.7 h in 1st grade and increased to 3.2 ± 1.2 h by 8th grade (p < 0.01). Physical activity decreased from 4.5 ± 1.4 h to 3.6 ± 1.0 h during the same period. While the increase in sitting time on weekdays was at the expense of sleep duration, the increase in sitting time on weekend days was at the expense of time spent in physical activity. In summary, there was a substantial increase in sedentary time from 1st to 8th grade, with school-related sedentary time accounting for the largest proportion, followed by a large increase in time spent with electronic media with increasing age. In addition, high sedentary time may come at the expense of sufficient sleep time, which further emphasizes the need to address sedentary behavior and sleep as important health correlates.
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