Journal of Public Health Research最新文献

Background: Deficiency of Vitamin B12 and folate may determine hematological, neurological, and metabolic alterations; therefore, an accurate quantification of their serum levels is required, especially in the presence of symptoms that might suggest a deficiency. CHORUS VIT B12 and CHORUS FOLATE are two automated immunoassays, developed to quantify vitamin B12 and folate, respectively, in human serum.

Design and methods: This single-center, non-pharmacological, diagnostic study described the validation and characterization of CHORUS VIT B12 and CHORUS FOLATE, with a specific focus on performance, precision, and reliability. For each assay, 500 serum samples were analyzed. A comparison between CHORUS assays and commercially available kit was also performed.

Results: For CHORUS VIT B12 the lower limit of quantification (LLoQ) was 165.0 pg/mL and the upper LoQ (ULoQ) was 1846.8 pg/mL. The assay was linear within the calibration range (150-2000 pg/mL) and the accuracy was described with the International Standard Vitamin B12, Serum Folate, HOLO TC (NIBSC code: 03/178), with a mean recovery on two lots of 111%. For CHORUS FOLATE (calibration range of 2.0-20.0 ng/mL), LLoQ was 2.0 ng/mL and ULoQ 19.6 ng/mL. The linearity was demonstrated from 2.4 to 20.0 ng/mL; the accuracy was described with the International Standard mentioned above, achieving a mean recovery on three lots of 92%. The lowest and highest values of both CHORUS and COBAS kits were similar and the median values did not significantly vary.

Conclusion: CHORUS VIT B12 and CHORUS FOLATE performed well, accurately, and reliably in quantifying vitamin B12 and folate in human serum.

Background: Electronic medical records (EMR) are considered an important aspect to improve medical services provided to patients. The purpose of this study was to assess the development of an Electronic Medical Records Project for Al-Razi hospital in Palestine.

Design and methods: The study was mixed method, qualitative and quantitative. The use of a questionnaire for the staff in the Al-Razi hospital and seven administrators' participants were meat as focus group.

Results: Approximately 136 participants in the study. The study findings reported that employees perceived the use of EMRs to have several benefits. The most common benefits include promoting patient safety culture and drug error reduction. In addition, the study findings reported that employees perceived the use of EMRs to have several challenges. The most common challenges include lack of knowledge and skill, insufficient time to use EMR, and limited of computers.

Conclusions: Health informatics brings various benefits to the healthcare system. Some participants believed that the EMR system would improve patient care and it will improve patient satisfaction.

Background: According to the studies conducted, teen pregnancy and its related health issues are among the most significant issues. The purpose of the study was to develop a musculoskeletal health intervention training programme using an intervention mapping approach (IMA) for teenagers aged 12-14 years old.

Methods: The present study is a study protocol where IMA has been used as a planning framework for developing a musculoskeletal health intervention training programme. Six steps of the intervention mapping process have been completed in the study. As the first step, needs assessment has been performed through systematic review and qualitative evaluation. In the second step, a matrix of change objectives was designed. Later on, after designing the programme and planning its implementation, the programme evaluation plan was developed.

Results: IMA guided us in designing and implementing a control-oriented training programme with the participation of the participants, along with the definition of outcomes, performance goals, and determinants, theoretical methods, practical applications, an intervention programme, implementation, and step-by-step assessment.

Conclusion: Intervention mapping is a participation-based approach to designing and implementing promotion programmes.

Background: The cost of maternal complications is considered as an important factor hindering the utilization of maternal health care services. However, information of estimate of spending on maternal complication was lacking. This study was aimed to estimate the cost of maternal complications and associated factors among mother's attending Hawassa public hospitals, Sidama Regional state, Ethiopia.

Methods: A cross-sectional study design was conducted among 348 randomly selected mothers attending public hospitals in Hawassa from November 15 to December 15, 2021. Data was coded and entered into Epi Data version 3.1 and exported to STATA version 16.0 for analysis. Simple and multiple linear regression analysis was done. Correlation coefficient along with 95% CI was used to present the finding and p < 0.05 was used to declare statistical significance.

Results: This study found that total median cost of maternal complications was 4895.5 (IQR = 3779) ETB. The total median direct medical cost was 1765.5 (IQR = 1649.5) ETB. Number of days absent [(R = 0.028; 95% CI: (0.023, 0.033)], distance from facility [(R = 0.001; 95% CI: (0.000, 0.002)], site of laboratory diagnosis [(R = 0.230; 95% CI: (0.140, 0.320)], number of laboratory test conducted [(R = 0.045; 95% CI: (0.021, 0.069)] were found to be significance predictors of maternal complications costs.

Conclusions: Total median cost of maternal complications in current study was high. Respondents' site of diagnosis, number of days missed from work, number of laboratory tests, and distance from hospitals were independent predictors of maternal complications cost. Thus, we will recommend governments to introduce strategies that specifically help mothers with maternal complications.

New York City is attempting to find a solution to an issue that many states and cities face: how to minimize air pollution so that it has fewer negative impacts on human health. Despite having the highest population in the United States (US), New York City typically has reasonably clean air. As the City and State of New York have worked to reduce emissions from local and regional sources, the air quality in New York City has improved during the past few decades. Despite these advancements, air pollution still poses a severe hazard to the health of everyone living in New York's environment. Various diseases including respiratory, circulatory, neurological, gastrointestinal, and urinary illnesses, which can be fatal, are intimately associated with air pollution. This review article will concentrate on how air pollution affects respiratory diseases such as asthma in children. In addition to analyzing the severe effects of air pollution on the vulnerable population, this review article will highlight the health repercussions of air pollution on New York City and its residents. furthermore, we argue for potential ideas and discoveries while also putting up a policy option to lower air pollution.

Background: The partial and complete lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19 caused enormous economic and social disruptions throughout the world. India witnessed the sharpest decline in its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and the unemployment rate rose sharply in the first quarter of 2020-21. Odisha, one of the low income states of India, has faced a steep rise in unemployment, with lakhs of migrant workers returning to the state. This article attempts to examine Odisha's unemployment situation compared to the low-income states of India as well as with the national average during COVID-19. This also investigates to what extent the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) provided relief to the people by providing short-term employment opportunities.

Design: This is a descriptive study and is based upon repetitive cross sectional secondary data on unemployment rate and labour force participation rate across the low-income states of India.

Method: The study used descriptive statistics to analyze the secondary data from the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) and MGNREGA report. The labour force participation rate (LFPR) and unemployment rate (UER) data were collected from the CMIE trimester reports. The information related to number days of employment demanded and employment provided were collected from the MGNREGA reports. Total time period was divided in to two parts - 2017-19 pre pandemic period and 2020-2021 pandemic period.

Results: The analysis of UER revealed that the unemployment situation in Odisha was better than the low-income states and overall India. The UER during COVID-19 (Sep-Dec 2020 to Sep-Dec 2021) was lower than the pre COVID-19 level in Odisha (1.6% in Sep-Dec 2020), compared to all India, where this was more than the pre-COVID-19 level (7.4% in Sep-Dec 2020). Odisha government had nearly doubled the employment generation through MGNREGA during 2020-21.The state government undertook a number of proactive measures - increasing wage rate, providing extra days of work in vulnerable districts to address the unemployment situation during the pandemic.

Conclusion: The state government's effort to manage the livelihood crisis was notable during the pandemic.. Proper implementation of the wage employment programmes led to higher decline in the UER in Odisha compared to other states These experiences can be emulated by other states or countries.

Background: Life skills, according to the World Health Organization, can promote youth well-being through educational school programs. Among life skills, decision-making and problem-solving skills can help adolescents consciously choose their career path.The Italian school system, in fact, requires students, already at a young age (13-14 years old) to make important decisions about their future, like for example choosing the high school that they would like to attend. This study aims to analyze differences in decision-making, self-efficacy, and life satisfaction in a sample of adolescents in secondary school in Italy. It aims to analyze whether there are differences in those dimensions according to students' age, gender, regularity, and future choice intentions.

Design and methods: Here we present a cross-sectional study involving 2104 students, balanced by gender, and attending upper secondary school in Italy. Participants completed Soresi and Nota's questionnaires on life satisfaction and Caprara's questionnaire on problem-solving self-efficacy. The data were processed using MANOVA.

Results: Research results show significant differences in self-efficacy and school satisfaction in relation to the age at which school transition occurred. Specifically, incoming preadolescents (13-14 years old) scored lower than outgoing late adolescents (17-18 years old) in both decision-making self-efficacy and school satisfaction. Girls scored lower than boys in decision-making self-efficacy. Students who expressed the intention to drop out of school scored lowest on both the self-efficacy and perceived support satisfaction scales.

Conclusions: The results highlight the importance of promoting the development of self-efficacy in life skills and school satisfaction to help students in school transitions.

Background: Provider-initiated contact tracing (CT) is an important measure to slow down the spread of infectious diseases such as COVID-19. However, carrying out effective CT depends on the collaboration between the patient and the contact tracer. To improve CT, it is important to understand which factors influence contact tracers in being able to carry out CT during large pandemics.

Methods: We performed individual semi-structured interviews with nine contact tracers working for the COVID-19 unit of the Public Health Service (PHS) Rotterdam-Rijnmond, the Netherlands, to explore their experiences with carrying out CT. Data were collected between July 2020 and December 2020. The interview protocol was structured based on the CT tasks and guided by the literature and the framework explaining adherence to clinical practice guidelines.

Results: In general, CT seemed to be carried out satisfactorily. Individual factors (interviewing techniques and skills, attitude towards the patient and attitude towards CT), factors related to the patient (cooperativeness and engagement, emotions, language and culture and (mis)information), guideline-related factors (characteristics) and factors related to the organisation (interactions with colleagues, support from management, workload and training) were found to influence the carrying out of CT.

Conclusion: To be well prepared for future pandemics, it is important to explore strategies that can be effective to support the contact tracer in performing CT, support patients in feeling comfortable to be engaged and ways to reach more consistency in policies and protocols.

Background: RSUP Dr. M. Djamil was one of the COVID referral hospitals that treats patients with degrees of severity ranging from mild to critical. The high prevalence of COVID-19 differs from the severity of which it is necessary to know the risk factors as a preventive measure to minimize the higher risk. This study aims to determine the factors associated with the severity of COVID-19 in inpatients at Dr. M. Djamil Hospital, Padang, Indonesia.

Design and methods: A quantitative study with a cross-sectional design was conducted by reviewing the medical record data of COVID-19 inpatients from March 2020 to February 2021. Sampling using a simple random sampling technique with a total of 95 patients. The Prevalence Odds Ratio (POR) is a statistical measure used in epidemiology and medical research to assess the association between an exposure or risk factor and a particular outcome in a cross-sectional study.

Results: Based on research, there are 41 (43.2%) severe patients. There is a relationship between age with p-value 0.004 (POR 4.5; 95% CI; 1.48-12.1), cardiovascular disease with p-value 0.003 (POR 5.9; 95% CI 1.7-21.4), and respiratory disease with p-value 0.001 (POR 6.6; 95% CI; 2.1-20.8) against COVID-19 infection. Diabetes Mellitus is the confounding variable. Respiratory disease is the dominant factor associated with the severity of COVID-19. Respiratory disease has 6.6 POR or Prevalence Odds Ratio values which means that COVID-19 patients with respiratory disease 6.6 more severe than those who has not respiratory disease history.

Conclusions: Age, cardiovascular, and respiratory diseases are associated with the severity of COVID-19 infection in patients at Dr. M. Djamil Hospital, Padang, Indonesia. It is highly recommended to increase health promotion regarding risk factors for the severity of COVID-19 to the community to avoid a more severe outcome.

Background: Health warning labels (HWLs) are evidence-based tobacco control strategies; however, their application to e-cigarettes and related impacts (e.g. on perceived risk), including across countries with different regulations, are understudied.

Design and methods: Using 2021 survey data from 927 US and Israeli adults reporting past-month tobacco use, multivariate analyses examined: (1) sociodemographics in relation to self-reported impact of e-cigarette HWLs (i.e. more concerned about e-cigarette use, reassured, no effect) among those who noticed e-cigarette HWLs (multinomial regressions); and (2) HWL impacts in relation to use intentions and perceived addictiveness and harm (linear regressions).

Results: Among those who noticed HWLs (n = 835, 90.1%), 34.1% reported HWLs resulted in greater concern about e-cigarette use, 45.5% no effect, and 20.4% reassurance. Factors associated with greater concern (vs no effect) included e-cigarette non-use (vs use; aOR = 1.69, 95% CI:1.22, 2.38), US (vs Israel) resident (aOR = 1.65, 95% CI:1.16, 2.34), age 18-25 (vs 36-45; aOR = 1.72, 95% CI:1.11, 2.67), and more education (aOR = 1.85, 95% CI:1.30, 2.63). Factors associated with being reassured (vs no effect) included use of cigarettes (aOR = 1.71, 95% CI:1.06, 2.75), e-cigarettes (aOR = 2.64, 95% CI:1.77, 3.94), and other tobacco (aOR = 2.11, 95% CI:1.39, 3.21), and Israeli resident (aOR = 2.33, 95% CI:1.47, 3.70). Not noticing HWLs (vs no effect) correlated with lower intentions (β = -0.44, 95% CI:-0.87, -0.01), perceived addictiveness (β = -0.61, 95% CI:-1.05, -0.18), and harm (β = -0.56, 95% CI:-0.95, -0.18); reassurance correlated with greater use intentions (β = 0.48, 95% CI:0.12, 0.83); and greater concern was unassociated with use intentions or perceived risk.

Conclusion: Effects of differing e-cigarette HWLs in distinct subpopulations warrant research. Despite being noticed, they may have no effect or encourage e-cigarette use.