State of the health workforce in the WHO African Region: decade review of progress and opportunities for policy reforms and investments.

Introduction: An adequate health workforce is one of the cornerstones of a healthy nation. Over the last two decades, Africa has gained momentum in mitigating critical health workforce gaps, but urgent actions are still needed to accelerate progress towards universal health coverage and ensuring health security. This analysis provides an overview of the health workforce in the WHO African Region for the last decade.

Projected health workforce requirements and shortage for addressing the disease burden in the WHO Africa Region, 2022-2030: a needs-based modelling study.

Introduction: An adequate health workforce (HWF) is essential to achieving the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), including universal health coverage. However, weak HWF planning and constrained fiscal space for health, among other factors in the WHO Africa Region, has consistently resulted in underinvestment in HWF development, shortages of the HWF at the frontlines of service delivery and unemployment of qualified and trained health workers. This is further compounded by the ever-evolving disease burden and reduced access to essential health services along the continuum of health promotion, disease prevention, diagnostics, curative care, rehabilitation and palliative care.

COVID-19 Vaccination Acceptance and Hesitancy in Healthcare Workers and the General Population: A Systematic Review and Policy Recommendations.

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic challenged the scientific community to find and develop a vaccine to fight the disease. However, problems with achieving high vaccine coverage have emerged, even among high-risk groups such as healthcare workers (HCWs).

Objective: The objective of this study is to examine factors that influence HCW's and the general population's adherence to COVID-19 vaccination and national policies to vaccinate HCWs and other target groups.

Reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health services in humanitarian and fragile settings: A mixed methods study of midwives' and women's experiences.

Insufficient progress has been made to reduce morbidity and mortality for women, children and adolescents particularly in Humanitarian and Fragile settings (HFS). Midwives play a critical and unique role in ensuring communities receive quality and safe essential sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health services. A lack of knowledge exists on the availability and experiences of midwifery services in HFS.

Understanding COVID-19 Impacts on the Health Workforce: AI-Assisted Open-Source Media Content Analysis.

Background: To investigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the health workforce, we aimed to develop a framework that synergizes natural language processing (NLP) techniques and human-generated analysis to reduce, organize, classify, and analyze a vast volume of publicly available news articles to complement scientific literature and support strategic policy dialogue, advocacy, and decision-making.

Objective: This study aimed to explore the possibility of systematically scanning intelligence from media that are usually not captured or best gathered through structured academic channels and inform on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the health workforce, contributing factors to the pervasiveness of the impacts, and policy responses, as depicted in publicly available news articles. Our focus was to investigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and, concurrently, assess the feasibility of gathering health workforce insights from open sources rapidly.

Impacts for health and care workers of Covid-19 and other public health emergencies of international concern: living systematic review, meta-analysis and policy recommendations.

Background: Health and care workers (HCW) faced the double burden of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: as members of a society affected by a public health emergency and as HWC who experienced fear of becoming infected and of infecting others, stigma, violence, increased workloads, changes in scope of practice, among others. To understand the short and long-term impacts in terms of the COVID-19 pandemic and other public health emergencies of international concern (PHEICs) on HCW and relevant interventions to address them, we designed and conducted a living systematic review (LSR).

Methods: We reviewed literature retrieved from MEDLINE-PubMed, Embase, SCOPUS, LILACS, the World Health Organization COVID-19 database, the ClinicalTrials.

LIFETIME AMBIENT ULTRAVIOLET RADIATION EXPOSURE AND INCIDENCE OF AGE-RELATED MACULAR DEGENERATION.

Purpose: To investigate the link between lifelong exposure to ultraviolet radiation (UVR) and the development of age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

Methods: The Alienor study is a prospective population-based cohort involving 963 residents of Bordeaux, France, older than 73 years. A subset of 614 participants for advanced AMD and 422 participants for early AMD were included in the analysis.

Estimating the health workforce requirements and costing to reach 70% COVID-19 vaccination coverage by mid-2022: a modelling study and global estimates.

Objectives: The implementation of COVID-19 vaccination globally poses unprecedented stress to health systems particularly for countries with persisting health workforce shortages prior the pandemic. The present paper estimates the workforce requirement to reach 70% COVID-19 vaccination coverage in all countries by mid-2022 using service target-based estimation.

Methods: Health workforce data from National Health Workforce Accounts and vaccination coverage reported to WHO as of January 2022 were used.

The global inequity in COVID-19 vaccination coverage among health and care workers.

Background: Health and care workers (HCWs) are at the forefront of COVID-19 response, at high risk of infection, and as a result they are a priority group for COVID-19 vaccination. This paper presents the global patterns in COVID-19 vaccination coverage among HCWs in 2021, how HCWs were prioritized, and identifies factors associated with the early vaccination coverage.

Methods: Using monthly data reported to the World Health Organization, the percentages of partially and fully vaccinated HCWs were computed.

The global health workforce stock and distribution in 2020 and 2030: a threat to equity and 'universal' health coverage?

Objective: The 2016 Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health: Workforce 2030 projected a global shortage of 18 million health workers by 2030. This article provides an assessment of the health workforce stock in 2020 and presents a revised estimate of the projected shortage by 2030.

Methods: Latest data reported through WHO's National Health Workforce Accounts (NHWA) were extracted to assess health workforce stock for 2020.

Inequal distribution of nursing personnel: a subnational analysis of the distribution of nurses across 58 countries.

Background: Nursing personnel are critical for enabling access to health service in primary health care. However, the State of the World's Nursing 2020 report showed important inequalities in nurse availability between countries.

Methods: The purpose of this study/analysis was to describe the differences in nurse-to-population density in 58 countries from six regional areas and the relationship between differences in access to nurses and other indicators of health equity.

Distribution of the workforce involved in cancer care: a systematic review of the literature.

Background: A skilled health workforce is instrumental for the delivery of multidisciplinary cancer care and in turn a critical component of the health systems. There is, however, a paucity of data on the vast inequalities in cancer workforce distribution, globally. The aim of this study is to describe the global distribution and density of the health care workforce involved in multidisciplinary cancer management.

Increasing access to health workers in rural and remote areas: what do stakeholders' value and find feasible and acceptable?

Background: The primary aim of this study is to assess stakeholders' views of the acceptability and feasibility of policy options and outcome indicators presented in the 2010 World Health Organization (WHO) global policy recommendations on increasing access to health workers in remote and rural areas through improved retention.

Methods: A survey on the acceptability, feasibility of recruitment and retention policy options, and the importance of their outcome indicators was developed. It followed a cross-sectional approach targeting health workers in rural and remote settings as well as policy- and decision-makers involved in the development of recruitment and retention policies for such areas.

Epidemiological evidence of carcinogenicity of sunbed use and of efficacy of preventive measures.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer classified, in July 2009, exposure to artificial tanning devices (sunbeds) as carcinogenic to humans. This classification was based on evidence from epidemiological and experimental animal studies. The present chapter will review these epidemiological evidences.

Stakeholders' perceptions of policy options to support the integration of community health workers in health systems.

Background: Community health workers (CHWs) are an important component of the health workforce in many countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) has developed a guideline to support the integration of CHWs into health systems. This study assesses stakeholders' valuation of outcomes of interest, acceptability and feasibility of policy options considered for the CHW guideline development.

Collagen Prolyl Hydroxylases Are Bifunctional Growth Regulators in Melanoma.

Appropriate post-translational processing of collagen requires prolyl hydroxylation, catalyzed by collagen prolyl 3-hydroxylase and collagen prolyl 4-hydroxylase, and is essential for normal cell function. Here we have investigated the expression, transcriptional regulation, and function of the collagen prolyl 3-hydroxylase and collagen prolyl 4-hydroxylase families in melanoma. We show that the collagen prolyl 3-hydroxylase family exemplified by Leprel1 and Leprel2 is subject to methylation-dependent transcriptional silencing in primary and metastatic melanoma consistent with a tumor suppressor function.

National cancer control plans: a global analysis.

There is increasing global recognition that national cancer plans are crucial to effectively address the cancer burden and to prioritise and coordinate programmes. We did a global analysis of available national cancer-related health plans using a standardised assessment questionnaire to assess their inclusion of elements that characterise an effective cancer plan and, thereby, improve understanding of the strengths and limitations of existing plans. The results show progress in the development of cancer plans, as well as in the inclusion of stakeholders in plan development, but little evidence of their implementation.

Mammography screening: A major issue in medicine.

Breast cancer mortality is declining in most high-income countries. The role of mammography screening in these declines is much debated. Screening impacts cancer mortality through decreasing the incidence of number of advanced cancers with poor prognosis, while therapies and patient management impact cancer mortality through decreasing the fatality of cancers.

Effectiveness of and overdiagnosis from mammography screening in the Netherlands: population based study.

 To analyse stage specific incidence of breast cancer in the Netherlands where women have been invited to biennial mammography screening since 1989 (ages 50-69) and 1997 (ages 70-75), and to assess changes in breast cancer mortality and quantified overdiagnosis. Population based study. Mammography screening programme, the Netherlands.

Incretin-Based Therapies and the Short-term Risk of Pancreatic Cancer: Results From Two Retrospective Cohort Studies.

Objective: Concerns have been raised about a possible increased risk of pancreatic cancer associated with incretin-based therapies. We examined the risk of pancreatic cancer among patients with diabetes prescribed incretin drugs.

Research Design And Methods: With the use of public health insurance databases of Belgium and the Lombardy Region, Italy, we created two retrospective cohorts that included adult patients who were first prescribed an incretin drug or another noninsulin antidiabetic drug (NIAD) from 1 July 2008 to 31 December 2013 in Belgium and from 1 January 2008 to 31 December 2012 in the Lombardy Region.

Effect of vitamin D supplementation on non-skeletal disorders: a systematic review of meta-analyses and randomised trials.

Randomised trials reported up to Dec 31, 2012, did not confirm that vitamin D supplementation could protect from non-skeletal health conditions affecting adults, as was expected on the basis of data from observational studies. To examine whether the more recently published meta-analyses and trials would change past conclusions, we systematically reviewed meta-analyses of vitamin D supplementation and non-skeletal disorders published between Jan 1, 2013, and May 31, 2017, that included study participants of all ages, including pregnant women. We also searched for randomised trials not included in meta-analyses.

Meta-analysis of occupational exposures in the rubber manufacturing industry and risk of cancer.

Background: Occupational exposures in the rubber manufacturing industry showed an increased risk of cancer and have been classified as a group 1 carcinogen, largely from studies on workers employed before 1950s. Cancer sites considered as causally associated are bladder, lung and stomach, and leukaemia. Recent studies did not report an increased risk of cancer.

Physical activity and change in fasting glucose and HbA1c: a quantitative meta-analysis of randomized trials.

Aims: A systematic review was conducted of randomized trials which evaluated the impact of physical activity on the change in fasting glucose and HbA1c.

Methods: A literature search was conducted in PubMed until December 2015. Studies reporting glucose or HbA1c at baseline and at the end of study were included, and the change and its variance were estimated from studies with complete data.