Publications by authors named "Benach J"

The scope of this article is to analyze public policies and interventions (PPI) prevailing in 2022 at the national level for the prevention of excess weight (overweight and obesity) in the adult population of Mexico, from an intersectional perspective. We performed documental analysis of PPI to prevent excess weight in Mexico in adulthood by applying a methodology for policy analysis based on intersectionality (Intersectionality-Based Policy Analysis Framework). A total of nine PPI were analyzed.

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Objectives: To (i) ascertain stakeholders' perceptions of the contextual factors and resources necessary to successfully implement the AMORE platform, a tool that provides accessibility assessments for health care services, considering factors such travel time and traffic conditions, and (ii) identify potential barriers to and facilitators for enhancing spatial accessibility to health care services within the Colombian urban context.

Methods: In this qualitative study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of seven key stakeholders. The sample was drawn from individuals involved in development of policies in Colombia, service providers, and users, among others, who had expertise in the field.

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Objectives: The prevalence of depression related to precarious employment (PE) has become a significant public health concern, given the declining trend of the standard employment relationship. Research has focused on the mental health detrimental effects of employment conditions, whereas there is scarce evidence concerning the burden of depression that could be prevented by targeting precariousness. This paper estimates the impact of PE on the risk of depression and the attributable fraction within the active and working salaried population in Spain.

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Generating evidence on health inequalities (HI) is necessary to raise awareness of these issues, describe and monitor their evolution, analyze their causes, and inform interventions aiming to improve health equity. Yet not all cities and countries have the capacity to produce this type of research. Recent research provides new contextual and causal insights into this research production process, and in-depth understanding on why and how this type of research is produced in certain settings.

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This is a short commentary to accompany the article "Hospital Workers: Class Conflicts in the Making" by Barbara Ehrenreich and John H. Ehrenreich. The article was originally published in the International Journal of Health Services in 1975.

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Powassan virus (POWV) is an emerging tick-borne Flavivirus that causes lethal encephalitis and long-term neurologic damage. Currently, there are no POWV therapeutics, licensed vaccines, or reverse genetics systems for producing infectious POWVs from recombinant DNA. Using a circular polymerase extension reaction (CPER), we generated recombinant LI9 (recLI9) POWVs with attenuating NS1 protein mutations and a recLI9-split-eGFP reporter virus.

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This research studies the evolution of COVID-19 crude incident rates, effective reproduction number R(t) and their relationship with incidence spatial autocorrelation patterns in the 19 months following the disease outbreak in Catalonia (Spain). A cross-sectional ecological panel design based on n = 371 health-care geographical units is used. Five general outbreaks are described, systematically preceded by generalized values of R(t) > 1 in the two previous weeks.

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COVID-19 lockdowns greatly affected the mental health of populations and collectives. This study compares the mental health and self-perceived health in five countries of Latin America and Spain, during the first wave of COVID 19 lockdown, according to social axes of inequality. This was a cross-sectional study using an online, self-managed survey in Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, and Spain.

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Background: Evidence on health inequalities has been growing over the past few decades, yet the capacity to produce research on health inequalities varies between countries worldwide and needs to be strengthened. More in-depth understanding of the sociohistorical, political and institutional processes that enable this type of research and related research capacity to be generated in different contexts is needed. A recent bibliometric analysis of the health inequalities research field found inequalities in the global production of this type of research.

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This article is the first half of a 2-part essay on the Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) as a field of scientific inquiry and theoretical framework, exploring its historical roots, current applications, and the controversies that surround it. Part 1 (this article) discusses the background and rationale of the SDOH framework, whilst part 2 (forthcoming) will analyze the current alternatives to this framework. The authors analyze the debate surrounding the contested term "social" in the field of health equity, through a clarification of the terms "social" and "social systems" and providing an alternative model through realist semantics and ethics.

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Despite the biological and therapeutic relevance of CDK4/6 for the treatment of HR+, HER2- advanced breast cancer, the detailed mode of action of CDK4/6 inhibitors is not completely understood. Of particular interest, phosphorylation of CDK4 at T172 (pT172) is critical for generating the active conformation, yet no such crystal structure has been reported to date. We describe here the x-ray structure of active CDK4-cyclin D3 bound to the CDK4/6 inhibitor abemaciclib and discuss the key aspects of the catalytically-competent complex.

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Since its discovery in the United States in 2017, the Asian longhorned tick (Haemaphysalis longicornis) has been detected in most eastern states between Rhode Island and Georgia. Long Island, east of New York City, a recognized high-risk area for tick-borne diseases, is geographically close to New Jersey and New York sites where H. longicornis was originally found.

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While income gradients and gender inequalities in excess weight have been noted elsewhere, data from Latin American cities is lacking. We analyzed gender-specific associations between city-level women's empowerment and income inequality with individual-level overweight/obesity, assessing how these associations vary by individual education or living conditions within cities in Latin America. Data came from national surveys and censuses, and was compiled by the SALURBAL project (Urban Health in Latin America).

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Societal concerns about the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have largely focussed on the social groups most directly affected, such as the elderly and health workers. However, less focus has been placed on understanding the effects on other collectives, such as children. While children's physical health appears to be less affected than the adult population, their mental health, learning and wellbeing is likely to have been significantly negatively affected during the pandemic due to the varying policy restrictions, such as withdrawal from face to face schooling, limited peer-to-peer interactions and mobility and increased exposure to the digital world amongst other things.

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Every year, 8 million small arms and 15 billion rounds of ammunition are manufactured in the world. Every day, 700 people worldwide (more than 2.5 million in a decade) die from firearms such as pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, or machine guns.

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Liver disease is a major cause of premature death and disability in Europe. However, morbidity and mortality are not equally distributed in the population. In spite of this, there are few studies addressing the issue of health inequalities in Europe.

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