Articles

Predictors of teenage pregnancy in Ethiopia: a multilevel analysis

In Ethiopia, pregnancy, and childbearing begin at an early age. Teenage pregnancy has long-term implications for girls, their families, and communities. However, multilevel predictors of teenage pregnancy are ...

Authors: Betelhem Eshetu Birhanu, Deresse Legesse Kebede, Alemayehu Bayray Kahsay and Abate Bekele Belachew

‘Working to stay healthy’, health-seeking behaviour in Bangladesh’s urban slums: a qualitative study

Kamrangirchar and Hazaribagh are the largest slum areas in Dhaka, Bangladesh. In 2013, Médecins Sans Frontières initiated an urban healthcare programme in these areas providing services for factory workers and...

Authors: Jeroen van der Heijden, Nell Gray, Beverly Stringer, Aminur Rahman, Sadika Akhter, Stobdan Kalon, Martins Dada and Animesh Biswas

Educational and health outcomes of children and adolescents receiving antiepileptic medication: Scotland-wide record linkage study of 766 244 schoolchildren

Childhood epilepsy can adversely affect education and employment in addition to health. Previous studies are small or highly selective producing conflicting results. This retrospective cohort study aims to com...

Authors: Michael Fleming, Catherine A. Fitton, Markus F. C. Steiner, James S. McLay, David Clark, Albert King, Daniel F. Mackay and Jill P. Pell

Intimate partner violence, HIV and sexually transmitted infections in fishing, trading and agrarian communities in Rakai, Uganda

Intimate partner violence (IPV), HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STI) can contribute to disparities in population health, depending on the individual, social and environmental factors characterizing a...

Authors: Bushra Sabri, Andrea L. Wirtz, Joseph Ssekasanvu, Bareng A. S. Nonyane, Fred Nalugoda, Joseph Kagaayi, Robert Ssekubugu and Jennifer A. Wagman

Organizational readiness for wellness promotion – a survey of 100 African American church leaders in South Los Angeles

Churches are an important asset and a trusted resource in the African American community. We needed a better understanding of their readiness to engage in health promotion before launching a large-scale health...

Authors: Annette E. Maxwell, Rhonda Santifer, L. Cindy Chang, Juana Gatson, Catherine M. Crespi and Aziza Lucas-Wright

A generalized additive model to disentangle age and diagnosis-specific cohort effects in psychological and behavioral outcomes in people living with HIV: the French cross-sectional ANRS-VESPA2 survey

Unlike their younger counterparts, some of today’s older HIV patients were diagnosed before the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). The psychosocial and behavioral outcomes of people living...

Authors: Luis Sagaon-Teyssier, Antoine Vilotitch, Marion Mora, Gwenaëlle Maradan, Valérie Guagliardo, Marie Suzan-Monti, Rosemary Dray-Spira and Bruno Spire

Employment disadvantage and associated factors for informal carers of adults with mental illness: are they like other disability carers?

Providing unpaid support to family and friends with disabling health conditions can limit a carer’s capacity to participate in employment. The emotional support needs and unpredictability of caring for people ...

Authors: Sandra Diminic, Emily Hielscher and Meredith G. Harris

Knowledge, attitude and practices among parents regarding food poisoning: a cross-sectional study from Palestine

Food serves as a vehicle for many pathogenic and toxigenic agents that cause food-borne diseases. Knowledge, attitude, and practices are key factors in reducing the incidence of food-borne diseases in food ser...

Authors: Sa’ed Zyoud, Jawad Shalabi, Kathem Imran, Lina Ayaseh, Nawras Radwany, Ruba Salameh, Zain Sa’dalden, Labib Sharif, Waleed Sweileh, Rahmat Awang and Samah Al-Jabi

Multimorbidity and care dependence in older adults: a longitudinal analysis of findings from the 10/66 study

In an ageing world facing an epidemic of chronic diseases, there is great interest in the burden of multimorbidity on individuals and caregivers, yet no studies have examined the longitudinal association betwe...

Authors: Jianan Bao, Kia-Chong Chua, Matthew Prina and Martin Prince

Willingness to pay for flexibility at the workplace for people with diabetes and chronic disease: a discrete choice experiment in a population of workers in Denmark

The number of people of working age suffering from chronic disease is increasing. Chronic diseases such as diabetes can cause negative work-related consequences in the form of early retirement or absenteeism. ...

Authors: Kristoffer Panduro Madsen, Bryan Cleal, Kasper Olesen, Lise Hagelund and Ingrid Willaing

Do four or more antenatal care visits increase skilled birth attendant use and institutional delivery in Bangladesh? A propensity-score matched analysis

With Bangladesh’s adoption of the third Sustainable Development Goal to reduce maternal mortality, the impetus for Bangladesh to continue to improve uptake of maternal healthcare is strong.

Authors: Bridget L. Ryan, Rohin J. Krishnan, Amanda Terry and Amardeep Thind

A three-year multifaceted intervention to prevent obesity in children of Mexican-heritage

Obesity and overweight have increased dramatically in the United States over the last decades. The complexity of interrelated causal factors that result in obesity needs to be addressed within the cultural dyn...

Authors: Banafsheh Sadeghi, Lucia L. Kaiser, Meagan M. Hanbury, Iraklis Erik Tseregounis, Ulfat Shaikh, Rosa Gomez-Camacho, Rex C. Y. Cheung, Alberto L. Aguilera, Linda Whent and Adela de la Torre

Health conditions and occupational risks in a novel group: waste pickers in the largest open garbage dump in Latin America

The inadequate management of solid waste impacts populations’ health and quality of life, and disproportionately affects developing countries. This study aims to describe a protocol for epidemiological diagnos...

Authors: Vanessa Resende Nogueira Cruvinel, Carla Pintas Marques, Vanessa Cardoso, Maria Rita Carvalho Garbi Novaes, Wildo Navegantes Araújo, Antonia Angulo-Tuesta, Patrícia Maria Fonseca Escalda, Dayani Galato, Petruza Brito and Everton Nunes da Silva

Responding to sustained poor outcomes in the management of non-communicable diseases (NCDs): an “incident control” approach is needed to improve and protect population health

In 2017 Public Health England were asked to assist with investigating why 1-year cancer survival rates appeared lower than expected in a local area. We identified 50 premature deaths that surveillance data sug...

Authors: Julia Knight, Matthew Day, John Mair-Jenkins, Chris Bentley, Ben Anderson and Fu-Meng Khaw

Prevalence of dementia in the People’s Republic of China from 1985 to 2015: a systematic review and meta-regression analysis

In China, the most populous developing country in the world, dementia represents a serious challenge. We performed a large-scale systematic review and meta-regression analysis to elucidate the prevalence of de...

Authors: Yangjun Zhu, Hao Liu, Xi-Li Lu, Bo Zhang, Wanwen Weng, Jun Yang, Jun Zhang and Meng-Jie Dong

Association between school-level attributes and weight status of Ghanaian primary school children

Little is known about the impact of the school environmental context on the emerging trend of childhood obesity in Africa. We examined the association of the schools’ contextual factors with body mass index (B...

Authors: Theodosia Adom, André Pascal Kengne, Anniza De Villiers and Thandi Puoane

Child friendly spaces impact across five humanitarian settings: a meta-analysis

Humanitarian crises present major threats to the wellbeing of children. These threats include risks of violence, abduction and abuse, emotional distress and the disruption of development. Humanitarian response...

Authors: Sabrina Hermosilla, Janna Metzler, Kevin Savage, Miriam Musa and Alastair Ager

Associations of sedentary time and self-reported television time during pregnancy with incident gestational diabetes and plasma glucose levels in women at risk of gestational diabetes in the UK

Sedentary time is associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes, but the association between objectively measured sedentary time and incident gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) has not been tested. The pu...

Authors: Janelle M. Wagnild, Kim Hinshaw and Tessa M. Pollard

Smoking, alcohol consumption, diet and physical activity following stoma formation surgery, stoma-related concerns, and desire for lifestyle advice: a United Kingdom survey

Adherence to smoking, alcohol consumption, diet and physical activity (PA) guidelines may improve outcomes for people with a stoma. A better understanding of these behaviours following stoma formation surgery ...

Authors: Rebecca J. Beeken, Joanne S. Haviland, Claire Taylor, Anna Campbell, Abigail Fisher, Chloe Grimmett, Gozde Ozakinci, Sarah Slater, Iseult Wilson and Gill Hubbard

Effectiveness of a network of automatically activated trained volunteers on the reduction of cardiopulmonary resuscitation manoueuvers initiation time: study protocol

Cardiorespiratory arrest (CRA) is a health emergency with high mortality. Mortality depends on time of initiation and quality of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) manoeuvres and the use of the automated exte...

Authors: Albert Del Pozo, Felipe Villalobos, Cristina Rey-Reñones, Ester Granado, David Sabaté, Carme Poblet, Angels Calvet, Josep Basora, Antoni Castro and Gemma Flores

Evaluation of the mindfulness-augmented “Trampoline” programme – a German prevention programme for children from substance-involved families tested in a cluster-randomised trial

Children of substance-abusing parents are at a substantial risk of developing substance-use and other mental disorders. Children involved in substance abuse – not diagnosed with substance-use problems but inte...

Authors: Diana Moesgen, Katharina Ise, Janina Dyba and Michael Klein

A realist review of infant feeding counselling to increase exclusive breastfeeding by HIV-positive women in sub Saharan-Africa: what works for whom and in what contexts

The most recent World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines on Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and infant feeding promotes exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) in resource limited settings for the prevention of mot...

Authors: Simangaliso Nyoni, Linda Sweet, Jacinta Clark and Paul Ward

The association between urbanization and child height: a multilevel study in China

Recent economic development in China has been accompanied by well-documented health inequalities between regions. The impact of individual factors on child height has been widely studied, but the influence of ...

Authors: Yan Zhang, Han Wang, Xi Wang, Meicen Liu, Yinping Wang, Yan Wang and Hong Zhou

Pregnancy intentions in a group of remote-dwelling Australian Aboriginal women: a qualitative exploration of formation, expression and implications for clinical practice

Unintended pregnancies are associated with poorer obstetric outcomes and are sometimes measured at a population level as a surrogate marker for reproductive autonomy and access to health services, including co...

Authors: Emma Griffiths, David Atkinson, Domenica Friello and Julia V. Marley

Getting a grippe on severity: a retrospective comparison of influenza-related hospitalizations and deaths captured in reportable disease and administrative data sources in Ontario, Canada

Since 2009, in Ontario, reportable disease surveillance data has been used for timely in-season estimates of influenza severity (i.e., hospitalizations and deaths). Due to changes in reporting requirements inf...

Authors: J. Leigh Hobbs, Michael Whelan, Anne-Luise Winter, Michelle Murti and Karin Hohenadel

Prevalence of prescribed benzodiazepine long-term use in the French general population according to sociodemographic and clinical factors: findings from the CONSTANCES cohort

Data are lacking regarding the prevalence of benzodiazepine long-term use in the general population. Our aim was to examine the prevalence of prescribed benzodiazepine long-term use (BLTU) according to sociode...

Authors: Guillaume Airagnes, Cédric Lemogne, Adeline Renuy, Marcel Goldberg, Nicolas Hoertel, Yves Roquelaure, Frédéric Limosin and Marie Zins

Using a theory-driven creative process to design a peri-urban on-site sanitation quality improvement intervention

Behavior change interventions have been developed by drawing from many different theories using design processes of varying specificity. We describe the development of a behavior change intervention to improve...

Authors: James B. Tidwell, Jenala Chipungu, Roma Chilengi, Val Curtis and Robert Aunger

Poly-substance use and sexual risk behaviours: a cross-sectional comparison of adolescents in mainstream and alternative education settings

Surveys of young people under-represent those in alternative education settings (AES), potentially disguising health inequalities. We present the first quantitative UK evidence of health inequalities between A...

Authors: Marion Henderson, Catherine Nixon, Martin J. McKee, Denise Smith, Daniel Wight and Lawrie Elliott

The Food4toddlers study - study protocol for a web-based intervention to promote healthy diets for toddlers: a randomized controlled trial

Eating habits are established during childhood and track into adolescence and later in life. Given that these habits have a large public health impact and influence the increasing rates of childhood obesity wo...

Authors: Margrethe Røed, Elisabet R. Hillesund, Frøydis N. Vik, Wendy Van Lippevelde and Nina Cecilie Øverby

What’s in it for me? A process evaluation of the implementation of a mobile phone-supported intervention after stroke in Uganda

The prevalence of stroke in Uganda is increasing. In stroke rehabilitation, information and communication technology has been shown to have potential in improving service delivery in high-income countries but ...

Authors: Minna Teriö, Gunilla Eriksson, Julius T. Kamwesiga and Susanne Guidetti

Food bank operational characteristics and rates of food bank use across Britain

Food banks are a common community-based response to household food insecurity in high-income countries. While the profile of their users and nature of the quality of food they provide have been researched, few...

Authors: Rachel Loopstra, Hannah Lambie-Mumford and Jasmine Fledderjohann

Association of behavioral risk factors with self-reported and symptom or measured chronic diseases among adult population (18–69 years) in India: evidence from SAGE study

The objective is to analyze the behavioral risk factors among the adult population and to identify the determinants of and their association with self-reported and symptom or measured chronic diseases in India.

Authors: Sunita Patel, Faujdar Ram, Surendra Kumar Patel and Kaushalendra Kumar

Machine learning to refine decision making within a syndromic surveillance service

Worldwide, syndromic surveillance is increasingly used for improved and timely situational awareness and early identification of public health threats. Syndromic data streams are fed into detection algorithms,...

Authors: I. R. Lake, F. J. Colón-González, G. C. Barker, R. A. Morbey, G. E. Smith and A. J. Elliot

Short sleep duration is associated with specific food intake increase among school-aged children in China: a national cross-sectional study

The relationship between sleep duration and food intake is unclear. This study aims to examine the relationship among children aged 6–17 years in China.

Authors: Muqing Cao, Yanna Zhu, Fan Sun, Jingyin Luo and Jin Jing

Cesarean delivery rates, costs and readmission of childbirth in the new cooperative medical scheme after implementation of an episode-based bundled payment (EBP) policy

In the past decade, the rate of cesarean delivery increased dramatically in rural China under the fee-for-service (FFS) system. In September 2011, the New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) agency in Yong’an co...

Authors: Zhaolin Meng, Kun Zou, Ning Ding, Min Zhu, Yuanyi Cai and Huazhang Wu

Implementing health policies in Australian junior sports clubs: an RCT

This pilot study aimed to test the potential effectiveness and acceptability of an intervention to support the implementation of 16 recommended policies and practices to improve the health promotion environmen...

Authors: Tara Clinton-McHarg, Sharleen Gonzalez, Sharin Milner, Shauna Sherker, Melanie Kingsland, Christophe Lecathelinais, Alix Hall, Chris Doran, John Wiggers and Luke Wolfenden

Evaluation of the promising neighbourhoods community program to reduce health inequalities in youth: a protocol of a mixed-methods study

Reducing socioeconomic health inequalities among youth is a major challenge for governments around the world and reports on successful attempts are scarce. Socioecological and integral approaches with collabor...

Authors: Mirte Boelens, Dafna A. Windhorst, Harrie Jonkman, Clemens M. H. Hosman, Hein Raat and Wilma Jansen

Acute and mixed alcohol intoxications in asylum seekers presenting to an urban emergency department in Switzerland

Previous studies have reported an increase in alcohol-and-mixed intoxication (AAMI)-related emergency department (ED) admissions, but less is known about the incidence and characteristics of AAMI admissions to...

Authors: Adam D. Brown, Martin Müller, Trevor Hirschi, Jonathan F. Henssler, Katharina Rönz, Aristomenis K. Exadaktylos and David Srivastava

Association of environmental and sociodemographic factors with life satisfaction in 27 European countries

Life satisfaction is a cognitive and evaluative judgement of one’s outlook on life and an integral component of subjective wellbeing. There is a strong association between life satisfaction and mental and phys...

Authors: Nikita B. Rajani, Vassilis Skianis and Filippos T. Filippidis

A ten-year China-US laboratory collaboration: improving response to influenza threats in China and the world, 2004–2014

The emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) underscored the importance of influenza detection and response in China. From 2004, the Chinese National Influenza Center (CNIC) and the United States ...

Authors: Yuelong Shu, Ying Song, Dayan Wang, Carolyn M. Greene, Ann Moen, C. K. Lee, Yongkun Chen, Xiyan Xu, Jeffrey McFarland, Li Xin, Joseph Bresee, Suizan Zhou, Tao Chen, Ran Zhang and Nancy Cox

The burden of non-communicable diseases and their related risk factors in the country of Georgia, 2015

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs), mainly cardiovascular diseases, are a substantial cause of mortality in the country of Georgia, accounting for approximately 93% of all deaths (standardized mortality rate 630...

Authors: Steven Russell, Lela Sturua, Chaoyang Li, Juliette Morgan, Marina Topuridze, Curtis Blanton, Liesl Hagan and Stephanie J. Salyer

Building laboratory capacity to detect and characterize pathogens of public and global health security concern in Kenya

Since 1979, multiple CDC Kenya programs have supported the development of diagnostic expertise and laboratory capacity in Kenya. In 2004, CDC’s Global Disease Detection (GDD) program within the Division of Glo...

Authors: Elizabeth Hunsperger, Bonventure Juma, Clayton Onyango, John B. Ochieng, Victor Omballa, Barry S. Fields, M. Kariuki Njenga, Jane Mwangi, Godfrey Bigogo, Richard Omore, Nancy Otieno, Sandra S. Chaves, Peninah Munyua, Daniel Macharia Njau, Jennifer Verani, Sara Lowther…

Challenges and solutions for instituting an efficient maintenance program for laboratory equipment in Central Asian, and developing world, countries

We review the current state of quality assurance in laboratories of the five Central Asia Republics (CARs), focusing on laboratory equipment, and compare quality assurance approaches with CLSI standards. The l...

Authors: Riza Ikranbegiin, George Schmid, David Hoos, Andrew Young, Phyllis Della-Latta, Paul Spearman, Artur Ramos, Bereket Alemayehu, Begaiym Achmetova, Gulzhan Nauryzova and Adilya Albetkova

Progress in public health risk communication in China: lessons learned from SARS to H7N9

Following the SARS outbreak, the World Health Organization revised the International Health Regulations to include risk communication as one of the core capacity areas. In 2006, the U.S. Centers for Disease Co...

Authors: Melinda Frost, Richun Li, Ronald Moolenaar, Qun’an Mao and Ruiqian Xie

Regional approaches for enhancing global health security

Authors: Rebecca Katz and Claire J. Standley

The cost of influenza-associated hospitalizations and outpatient visits in Kenya

We estimated the cost-per-episode and the annual economic burden associated with influenza in Kenya.

Authors: Gideon O. Emukule, Linus K. Ndegwa, Michael L. Washington, John W. Paget, Jazmin Duque, Sandra S. Chaves, Nancy A. Otieno, Kabura Wamburu, Irene W. Ndigirigi, Philip M. Muthoka, Koos van der Velden and Joshua A. Mott

A cutaneous Anthrax outbreak in Koraput District of Odisha-India 2015

Cutaneous anthrax in humans is associated with exposure to infected animals or animal products and has a case fatality rate of up to 20% if untreated. During May to June 2015, an outbreak of cutaneous anthrax ...

Authors: Priyakanta Nayak, Samir V. Sodha, Kayla F. Laserson, Arun K. Padhi, Basanta K. Swain, Shaikh S. Hossain, Aakash Shrivastava, Pradeep Khasnobis, Srinivas R. Venkatesh, Bikash Patnaik and Kailash C. Dash

Capacity assessment of the health laboratory system in two resource-limited provinces in China

Strong laboratory capacity is essential for detecting and responding to emerging and re-emerging global health threats. We conducted a quantitative laboratory assessment during 2014–2015 in two resource-limite...

Authors: Bo Liu, Fang Ma, Jeanette J. Rainey, Xin Liu, John Klena, Xiaoyu Liu, Biao Kan, Meiying Yan, Dingming Wang, Yan Zhou, Guangpeng Tang, Mingliu Wang and Chihong Zhao

An evaluation of the hepatitis C testing, care and treatment program in the country of Georgia’s corrections system, December 2013 – April 2015

The country of Georgia has a high burden of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, and prisoners are disproportionately affected. During 2013, a novel program offering no cost screening and treatment of HC...

Authors: Aaron M. Harris, Otar Chokoshvili, Joshua Biddle, Kostantine Turashvili, Maia Japaridze, Irma Burjanadze, Tengiz Tsertsvadze, Lali Sharvadze, Marine Karchava, Archil Talakvadze, Ketevan Chakhnashvili, Tamta Demurishvili, Paata Sabelashvili, Monique Foster, Liesl Hagan, Maia Butsashvili…

Jaundice outbreak likely caused by HEV in Amritsar, Punjab, India, 2013

Hepatitis-E Virus (HEV) infection is endemic in Punjab, India. On 4th April 2013, public officials of Labour Colony, Amritsar reported > 20 jaundice cases occurring within several days.

Authors: Tripurari Kumar, Aakash Shrivastava, Deepak Bhatia, Yash Mitra, Anil Kumar, Sharmeen Hussain, Lakhbir Singh Chauhan, Kayla F. Laserson, Jai Prakash Narain, Rajesh Kumar and Averhoff Francisco