Differences in Covid-19 mortality among persons 70 years and older in an integrated care setting in region Stockholm: a multi-level analysis between March 2020-February 2021.

Background: In Norrtälje municipality, within Region Stockholm, there is a joint integrated care organisation providing health and social care, which may have facilitated a more coordinated response to the covid-19 pandemic compared to the otherwise decentralised Swedish system. This study compares the risk of covid-19 mortality among persons 70 years and older, in the municipalities of Stockholm, Södertälje, and Norrtälje, while considering area and individual risk factors.

Methods: A population-based study using linked register data to examine covid-19 mortality among those 70 + years (N = 127,575) within the municipalities of interest between the periods March-August 2020 and September 2020-February 2021.

Health impact of the Tajogaite volcano eruption in La Palma population (ISVOLCAN study): rationale, design, and preliminary results from the first 1002 participants.

Background: The eruption of the Tajogaite volcano began on the island of La Palma on September 19, 2021, lasting for 85 days. This study aims to present the design and methodology of the ISVOLCAN (Health Impact on the Population of La Palma due to the Volcanic Eruption) cohort, as well as the preliminary findings from the first 1002 enrolled participants.

Methods: A prospective cohort study was conducted with random selection of adult participants from the general population, with an estimated sample size of 2600 individuals.

Are the estimated needs for mental health care among adolescents from different socioeconomic backgrounds met equally in Sweden? A longitudinal survey-registry linkage study.

Evidence of inequality in the utilisation of mental health care (MHC) by adolescents in Nordic countries is mixed. This study aims to investigate if there are socioeconomic differences in the utilisation of MHC, while accounting for adolescents' mental health status. We analysed a cohort of 3517 adolescents, followed from 7 to 9th grade (ages 13-16), to examine the association between parental socioeconomic position (SEP: education and disposable income), adolescents' estimated needs, and the utilisation of MHC (defined as visits to secondary psychiatric care or receipt of psychotropic medication).

Individual and neighborhood risk factors of hospital admission and death during the COVID-19 pandemic: a population-based cohort study.

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) disproportionately affects minority populations in the USA. Sweden - like other Nordic countries - have less income and wealth inequality but lacks data on the socioeconomic impact on the risk of adverse outcomes due to COVID-19.

Methods: This population-wide study from March 2020 to March 2022 included all adults in Stockholm, except those in nursing homes or receiving in-home care.

Resistin as a risk factor for all-cause (and cardiovascular) death in the general population.

Serum resistin is a pro-inflammatory cytokine that has been described as a risk factor associated with mortality in several clinical sets including type 2 diabetes. Mortality studies in the general population are needed to find out the risk of death associated to this cytokine. In a follow-up study of a cohort of adult population (n = 6636) in Spain over a period of fifteen years (447 deaths/102,255 person-years), serum resistin measurements and death records were obtained.

Detection and follow-up of chronic health conditions in Rio de Janeiro - the impact of residency training in family medicine.

Background: There is a need for evidence that residency training in family medicine can benefit the care of patients in primary care in low- and middle-income countries. We tested the hypothesis that two years of residency training in family medicine enables doctors to better detect chronic health conditions while requesting fewer laboratory tests and providing more follow-up visits.

Methods: We performed a retrospective longitudinal observational analysis of medical consultations from 2013 to 2018 in primary care in Rio de Janeiro, comparing doctors without residency training in family medicine (Generalists) versus family physicians (FPs).

The Brief Esophageal Dysphagia Questionnaire shows better discriminative capacity for clinical and manometric findings than the Eckardt score: Results from a multicenter study.

Introduction: Grading dysphagia is crucial for clinical management of patients. The Eckardt score (ES) is the most commonly used for this purpose. We aimed to compare the ES with the recently developed Brief Esophageal Dysphagia Questionnaire (BEDQ) in terms of their correlation and discriminative capacity for clinical and manometric findings and evaluate the effect of gastroesophageal reflux symptoms on both.

Impact of Integrated Care on the Rate of Hospitalization for Ambulatory Care Sensitive Conditions among Older Adults in Stockholm County: An Interrupted Time Series Analysis.

Introduction: Reducing avoidable hospital admissions is often viewed as a possible positive consequence of introducing integrated care (IC). The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of implementing IC in Norrtälje on the rate of admissions for ambulatory care sensitive conditions (ACSC).

Method: Using interrupted time series analyses we investigated the effect of implementing IC in Norrtälje municipality in the northern part of Stockholm county, Sweden.

Thirty-year trends in dementia: a nationwide population study of Swedish inpatient records.

Background: The continuous growth of the current dementia epidemic is contingent on the stability of age- and sex-specific trends over time. However, recent evidence suggests declining or stable trends. The aim of this study was to evaluate the real-world changes in the burden of dementia in older adults in Sweden from 1987 to 2016 by estimating age- and sex-specific incidence of dementia diagnosis in hospital inpatient records (dementia incidence).

Myokines, physical activity, insulin resistance and autoimmune diseases.

Myokines are peptides produced and released by myocytes of muscle fibers that influence physiology of muscle and other organs and tissues. They are involved in mediating the beneficial effects that exercise has on health. More than one hundred have been identified and among them are IL6, myostatin, irisin, mionectin and decorin.

Strategies to improve the efficiency of celiac disease diagnosis in the laboratory.

The demand for testing to detect celiac disease (CD) autoantibodies has increased, together with the cost per case diagnosed, resulting in the adoption of measures to restrict laboratory testing. We designed this study to determine whether opportunistic screening to detect CD-associated autoantibodies had advantages compared to efforts to restrict testing, and to identify the most cost-effective diagnostic strategy. We compared a group of 1678 patients in which autoantibody testing was restricted to cases in which the test referral was considered appropriate (G1) to a group of 2140 patients in which test referrals were not reviewed or restricted (G2).

Does parity worsen diabetes-related chronic complications in women with type 1 diabetes?

Aim: To determine the relationship between parity, glycemic control, cardiovascular risk factors and diabetes-related chronic complications in women with type 1 diabetes.

Methods: This was a multicenter cross-sectional study conducted between December 2008 and December 2010 in 28 public clinics in 20 cities from the 4 Brazilian geographic regions. Data were obtained from 1532 female patients, 59.

Air pollution and its impacts on health in Vitoria, Espirito Santo, Brazil.

Objective: To analyze the impact of air pollution on respiratory and cardiovascular morbidity of children and adults in the city of Vitoria, state of Espirito Santo.

Methods: A study was carried out using time-series models via Poisson regression from hospitalization and pollutant data in Vitoria, ES, Southeastern Brazil, from 2001 to 2006. Fine particulate matter (PM10), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and ozone (O3) were tested as independent variables in simple and cumulative lags of up to five days.

The HLA-DQβ1 insertion is a strong achalasia risk factor and displays a geospatial north-south gradient among Europeans.

Idiopathic achalasia is a severe motility disorder of the esophagus and is characterized by a failure of the lower esophageal sphincter to relax due to a loss of neurons in the myenteric plexus. Most recently, we identified an eight-amino-acid insertion in the cytoplasmic tail of HLA-DQβ1 as strong achalasia risk factor in a sample set from Central Europe, Italy and Spain. Here, we tested whether the HLA-DQβ1 insertion also confers achalasia risk in the Polish and Swedish population.

On the problem of type 2 diabetes-related mortality in the Canary Islands, Spain. The DARIOS Study.

Aims: To compare diabetes-related mortality rates and factors associated with this disease in the Canary Islands compared with other 10 Spanish regions.

Methods: In a cross-sectional study of 28,887 participants aged 35-74 years in Spain, data were obtained for diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, obesity, insulin resistance (IR), and metabolic syndrome. Healthcare was measured as awareness, treatment and control of diabetes, dyslipidemia, and hypertension.

Socioeconomic Status and in-hospital Mortality of Acute Coronary Syndrome: Can Education and Occupation Serve as Preventive Measures?

Background: Socioeconomic status (SES) can greatly affect the clinical outcome of medical problems. We sought to assess the in-hospital mortality of patients with the acute coronary syndrome (ACS) according to their SES.

Methods: All patients admitted to Tehran Heart Center due to 1(st)-time ACS between March 2004 and August 2011 were assessed.

Acute coronary syndrome in the young: clinical characteristics, risk factors and prognosis.

Background: To describe the characteristics of patients ≤40 years of age hospitalized for acute coronary syndrome, analyze the risk factors and identify the variables associated with prognosis.

Methods: Case series of patients admitted between 2003 and 2012 inclusive in a tertiary hospital (123 consecutive cases admitted between 2003 and 2012), and case-control study (369 controls selected from the general population matched for sex and age with cases, at a ratio of 3:1).

Outcome Variables: Mortality, likelihood of survival without readmission for heart-related problems, extent of coronary disease as determined by coronary angiography and cardiovascular risk factors.

Acute effects of particulate matter and black carbon from seasonal fires on peak expiratory flow of schoolchildren in the Brazilian Amazon.

Background: Panel studies have shown adverse effects of air pollution from biomass burning on children's health. This study estimated the effect of current levels of outdoor air pollution in the Amazonian dry season on peak expiratory flow (PEF).

Methods: A panel study with 234 schoolchildren from 6 to 15 years old living in the municipality of Tangará da Serra, Brazil was conducted.

A repeated measurement study investigating the impact of school outdoor environment upon physical activity across ages and seasons in Swedish second, fifth and eighth graders.

Background: School children are confined to and exposed to outdoor environment that happens to be at their disposal during compulsory school time. The health-promoting potential of outdoor environment, and the use of it, is therefore important. We have studied the impact of school outdoor environment in terms of playground features, space, topography and vegetation upon the patterns of moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) across ages and seasons in Swedish pupils at compulsory school.

Common variants in the HLA-DQ region confer susceptibility to idiopathic achalasia.

Idiopathic achalasia is characterized by a failure of the lower esophageal sphincter to relax due to a loss of neurons in the myenteric plexus. This ultimately leads to massive dilatation and an irreversibly impaired megaesophagus. We performed a genetic association study in 1,068 achalasia cases and 4,242 controls and fine-mapped a strong MHC association signal by imputing classical HLA haplotypes and amino acid polymorphisms.

The influence of social relationships on obesity: sex differences in a longitudinal study.

Objective: To investigate the effect of five dimensions of social relationships on obesity and potential sex differences in these associations.

Design And Methods: This study used longitudinal data from the Swedish Level of Living Surveys (LNU) in 1991 and 2000. The sample included 3,586 individuals.

Individual and community-level socioeconomic position and its association with adolescents experience of childhood sexual abuse: a multilevel analysis of six countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Background: Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is a substantial global health and human rights problem and consequently a growing concern in sub-Saharan Africa. We examined the association between individual and community-level socioeconomic status (SES) and the likelihood of reporting CSA.

Methods: We applied multiple multilevel logistic regression analysis on Demographic and Health Survey data for 6,351 female adolescents between the ages of 15 and 18 years from six countries in sub-Saharan Africa, between 2006 and 2008.

Prevalence of obesity and associated cardiovascular risk: the DARIOS study.

Background: To estimate the prevalence of overweight and obesity in the Spanish population as measured with body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC) and waist to height ratio (WHtR) and to determine the associated cardiovascular risk factors.

Methods: Pooled analysis with individual data from 11 studies conducted in the first decade of the 21st century. Participants aged 35-74 years were asked about the history of cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, diabetes and hypercholesterolemia.

Multicity study of air pollution and mortality in Latin America (the ESCALA study).

Introduction: The ESCALA* project (Estudio de Salud y Contaminación del Aire en Latinoamérica) is an HEI-funded study that aims to examine the association between exposure to outdoor air pollution and mortality in nine Latin American cities, using a common analytic framework to obtain comparable and updated information on the effects of air pollution on several causes of death in different age groups. This report summarizes the work conducted between 2006 and 2009, describes the methodologic issues addressed during project development, and presents city-specific results of meta-analyses and meta-regression analyses.

Methods: The ESCALA project involved three teams of investigators responsible for collection and analysis of city-specific air pollution and mortality data from three different countries.