Publications by authors named "Atkins S"

Article Synopsis
  • Tuberculosis (TB) not only impacts the individual with the disease but also significantly burdens their households, particularly caregivers, often women in poorer families.
  • The study highlighted that caregiving for a TB patient exacerbates health and financial challenges, especially under existing stressors, leading to greater health inequities and gender disparities.
  • While social support can ease these burdens, it's often insufficient due to weakened kinship ties amid high poverty and unemployment, making targeted support for affected households crucial for recovery.
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TB disproportionately affects poorer, vulnerable people and communities, and has severe social and economic impacts on those affected. However, many countries do not yet include social protection in their programmatic response to TB. Here, we provide a critical perspective on the guidance developed by the WHO and the International Labour Organization (ILO) to help countries implement social protection programmes.

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Background: A voluntary and free initial health assessment is offered to all asylum seekers upon arrival in Finland. The central aim of this initial health assessment is early identification of service needs. There is, however, limited information on how effective the initial assessment is in fulfilling its aims.

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Internally displaced persons (IDPs) are at high risk for COVID-19 transmission because of congested and unsanitary living conditions. COVID-19 vaccination is essential to build population immunity and prevent severe disease among this population. We determined the prevalence and factors associated with intention to accept COVID-19 vaccine among IDPs in Northeast Nigeria.

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Objectives: To determine the relationship between climate change, food systems and diet-related non-communicable diseases (DR-NCDs) in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and propose a conceptual framework for food systems in SSA.

Design: A scoping review.

Eligibility Criteria: Studies included investigated the relationship between climate change and related systemic risks, food systems, DR-NCDs and its risk factors in SSA.

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In this paper, we investigate an optimal harvesting problem of a spatially explicit fishery model that was previously analyzed. On the surface, this problem looks innocent, but if parameters are set to where a singular arc occurs, two complex questions arise. The first question pertains to Fuller's phenomenon (or chattering), a phenomenon in which the optimal control possesses a singular arc that cannot be concatenated with the bang-bang arcs without prompting infinite oscillations over a finite region.

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Article Synopsis
  • - This study assessed the effectiveness of bone anchored maxillary protraction (BAMP) in treating class III skeletal malocclusion in children (ages 11-14) compared to a control group receiving no treatment, focusing on surgery necessity, dental changes, and psychological effects.
  • - Conducted as a randomized controlled trial in six UK hospitals, 57 participants were divided into two groups: 28 received BAMP treatment, while 29 were in the no-treatment control group; measurements were taken at multiple points over 3 years.
  • - Results showed significant improvements in skeletal and dental measures for the BAMP group at the 18-month mark, with a lower percentage of participants in this group feeling they needed surgery at the 3-year
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The COVID-19 pandemic has hugely affected the world and human lives, the economy, and lifestyles. The pandemic control measures, such as lockdowns, forced many people to migrate from their destination to their source in various states, leading to increased vulnerability of migrants. The present review aimed to explore the different health, economic, and social impacts on internal migrants of India during the pandemic.

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Article Synopsis
  • Internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Northeast Nigeria face heightened COVID-19 infection risks due to unsanitary living conditions, making accurate information and knowledge crucial for effective preventive measures.
  • A study conducted from July to December 2022 surveyed 2,175 IDPs, assessing their COVID-19 knowledge and risk perceptions using a structured tool and statistical analyses.
  • Results showed that only 32% of participants had adequate COVID-19 knowledge, while over half perceived a high risk of infection; higher knowledge and education levels were linked to better risk perception and adherence to preventive measures like vaccination and mask-wearing.
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Background: A systematic review and meta-analysis from 2013 reported increased risks of congenital malformations, neonatal death and neonatal hospitalization amongst infants born to women with asthma compared to infants born to mothers without asthma.

Objective: Our objective was to update the evidence on the associations between maternal asthma and adverse neonatal outcomes.

Search Strategy: We performed an English-language MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, and COCHRANE search with the terms (asthma or wheeze) and (pregnan* or perinat* or obstet*).

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Tuberculosis is recognised as a disease of the economically disadvantaged people due to its association with financial vulnerability. Mozambique still faces the challenge of the high burden of TB and associated costs. We aimed to understand the social and economic impacts of TB and the need for social support among people with TB in Mozambique.

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Waste segregation at source, particularly at the household level, is an integral component of sustainable solid waste management, which is a critical public health issue. Although multiple interventions have been published, often with contradictory findings, few authors have conducted a comprehensive systematic synthesis of the published literature. Therefore, we undertook a systematic review to synthesize all published interventions conducted in any country in the world which targeted household-level waste segregation with or without additional focus on recycling or composting.

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Background: PRDM16 plays a role in myocardial development through TGF-β (transforming growth factor-beta) signaling. Recent evidence suggests that loss of PRDM16 expression is associated with cardiomyopathy development in mice, although its role in human cardiomyopathy development is unclear. This study aims to determine the impact of PRDM16 loss-of-function variants on cardiomyopathy in humans.

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Background And Objectives: The intersection of race, gender, and age puts older African American women at high risk of experiencing comorbid pain and depressive symptoms. The purpose of this study was to assess the feasibility and acceptability of a 12-week behavioral activation intervention to target self-selected goals related to pain and depressive symptoms in middle-aged and older African American women.

Research Design And Methods: This randomized waitlist control study included 34 self-identified African American women, 50 years of age or older, with moderate-to-severe chronic pain and depressive symptoms.

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Chromogranin A (CgA) is a well-known biomarker for neuroendocrine tumors (NETs). However, due to its non-specificity, a proper assessment of CgA test results requires a detailed knowledge of the factors, conditions, and medications influencing its serum concentration. We describe a case of a 61-year-old patient presenting with a mass suspicious of a gastrointestinal NET and an exceedingly high level of serum CgA persistent after mass resection.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Over two million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in northeastern Nigeria face high health risks due to poor living conditions, prompting a study to analyze their health-seeking behaviors for better disease response strategies.
  • - A study involving 2,373 IDPs showed that most sought care at health facilities (75.7%), while a smaller percentage turned to non-facility options (11.1%) or home remedies/care (13.2%).
  • - Key factors influencing health-seeking included the severity of perceived illness and whether the IDPs lived in officially recognized camps, with those in recognized camps and perceiving severe illness less likely to opt for non-facility care.
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Introduction: Crowdsourcing is an emerging technique to engage or access a wider set of experts and multiple stakeholders through online platforms, which might effectively be employed in waste management. Therefore, we assessed the feasibility of the crowdsourcing method to provide an alternative approach that can improve household waste segregation using an "online-slogan-contest".

Methods: The contest was promoted via targeted emails to various governmental and non-governmental organizations and through social media platforms for around 4 weeks (25 days).

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Purpose: Intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) of prematurity can lead to hydrocephalus, sometimes necessitating permanent cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) diversion. We sought to characterize the relationship between head circumference (HC) and ventricular size in IVH over time to evaluate the clinical utility of serial HC measurements as a metric in determining the need for CSF diversion.

Methods: We included preterm infants with IVH born between January 2000 and May 2020.

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Waste segregation is an essential function in improving waste management. Waste segregation not only facilitates recycling and reduces waste going to landfills, rather it can benefit our environment and human in various ways. A pick analysis of waste composition is used to characterize the household waste stream and thus can analyze the segregation rate among the residents.

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While there are many proposed surgical treatment options for the correction of swan-neck deformities, none are perfect. We describe a partial flexor digitorum superficialis tenodesis that combines both a static volar plate with a dynamic oblique retinacular ligament vector reconstruction. This is performed through a single, short mid-lateral incision and requires no tendon grafts.

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Objective: People with tuberculosis (TB) and their households face severe socioeconomic consequences, which will only be mitigated by intersectoral collaboration, especially between the health and social sectors. Evidence suggests that key factors for successful collaboration include shared goals, trust, commitment, resource allocation, efficient processes and effective communication and motivation among collaborating parties. This study aimed to understand healthcare and social support sector policymakers' perspectives on potential solutions to mitigate financial impact among people with TB and their households in Mozambique.

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Introduction: The health and economic burden of tuberculosis (TB) in urban Viet Nam is high. Social protection and support interventions can improve treatment outcomes and reduce costs. However, evidence regarding optimal strategies in this context is lacking.

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It is well known that the demands of working in healthcare can take a psychological toll on staff. Schwartz Centre Rounds are an intervention aimed at supporting staff wellbeing through providing a forum to talk about the emotional, social and ethical complexities of such work, employing facilitated storytelling and group discussion to try and achieve this. However, while prior research, through extensive interviews and surveys, has found Schwartz Rounds to be effective in fostering compassion and wellbeing amongst participants, the talk that occurs within Schwartz Rounds themselves has not been explored.

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Background: Pain and depression frequently co-occur among older adults with comorbidities and can exacerbate one another. The intersection of race, gender and age puts older African American women at high risk of experiencing comorbid pain and depression. The purpose of this study is to test the feasibility and acceptability of a 12-week behavioral activation intervention called DAPPER (Depression and Pain Perseverance through Empowerment and Recovery) that uses non-pharmacological, tailored strategies to target pain and mood symptoms.

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Background: Fewer than 50% of patients who develop aortic valve calcification have concomitant atherosclerosis, implying differential pathogenesis. Although circulating extracellular vesicles (EVs) act as biomarkers of cardiovascular diseases, tissue-entrapped EVs are associated with early mineralization, but their cargoes, functions, and contributions to disease remain unknown.

Methods: Disease stage-specific proteomics was performed on human carotid endarterectomy specimens (n=16) and stenotic aortic valves (n=18).

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