Alkali-Polymer Flooding in an Austrian Brownfield: From Laboratory to Field-Insights.

We focus on optimizing oil displacement in brownfields using alkali polymers (AP) flooding. The goal is to enhance rock-fluid and fluid-fluid interactions to improve oil recovery. The evaluation includes detailed screening of AP mixtures to ensure cost-effectiveness and maximize chemical slug efficiency, using an AP pilot project in Austria as a case study.

Socio-demographic factors related to children's knowledge about their rights to healthcare services in transitional Albania.

Background: Our aim was to assess the level and socio-demographic correlates of knowledge about rights to healthcare services among children in post-communist Albania in order to inform targeted interventions and policies to promote equitable healthcare access for all children.

Methods: An online survey conducted in Albania in September 2022 included a nationwide representative sample of 7,831 schoolchildren (≈54% girls) aged 12-15 years. A structured and anonymous questionnaire was administered inquiring about children's knowledge on their rights to healthcare services.

Can health impact assessment help tackle commercial determinants of health and support a wellbeing economy?

Commercial activity has positive and negative effects on health. Adverse commercial impacts on health are underpinned by corporate power and economic models and policy that prioritize economic growth, rather than a wellbeing economy that prioritizes health, equity and sustainability. Health in all policies (HiAP) aims to ensure that all policies promote health and health equity, using processes including health impact assessment (HIA).

Self-administered sexual health testing in an open prison setting: a pilot health impact assessment and social return on investment analysis.

Purpose: The sexual health of the male prison population is often among the poorest in a country. This paper aims to identify the wider health impacts and social value of a sexual health self-sampling programme offered to male prisoners in an open prison setting in Wales.

Design/methodology/approach: This study applied a unique pilot approach of using Health Impact Assessment and Social Return on Investment Frameworks in tandem.

Primary healthcare as a strategy for eliminating hepatitis C: the METRIC toolkit.

Aim: This paper presents the development of the METRIC toolkit, aimed at enhancing primary healthcare interventions in the context of hepatitis C control, thus contributing to the World Health Organization's global strategy to achieve the elimination of the disease by 2030.

Background: At the global level, most people living with hepatitis C are unaware of their condition. As such, the eradication of hepatitis C necessitates comprehensive strategies within primary healthcare settings, as it provides an opportunity to reach the general population, facilitates the identification of potential patients who may be unfamiliar with hepatitis C, and guides them toward adequate care.

Understanding Natural Disaster or Weather-Related Drowning Deaths Among Children.

Objectives: Drowning is the leading cause of death during flood disasters. Little is known about these deaths. Child death review teams review details of child deaths to understand circumstances and risk factors to inform prevention.

Public and professional stakeholders' perceptions of alcohol advertising and availability policies: A qualitative study.

Introduction: Reducing alcohol availability and restricting alcohol advertising are effective ways to reduce harm from alcohol. Implementation of public health policies involves collaboration between different stakeholders, and is influenced by public opinion. This paper explores public and professional stakeholders' perceptions of alcohol advertising and availability policies.

Creating a learning health system to include environmental determinants of health: The GroundsWell experience.

Introduction: Policies aiming to prevent ill health and reduce health inequalities need to consider the full complexity of health systems, including environmental determinants. A learning health system that incorporates environmental factors needs healthcare, social care and non-health data linkage at individual and small-area levels. Our objective was to establish privacy-preserving household record linkage for England to ensure person-level data remain secure and private when linked with data from households or the wider environment.

Remote mental health services during the COVID-19 pandemic in Finland and the Netherlands: a qualitative study.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has increased worldwide mental health conditions, substantially affecting the demand and provision of mental health services. To continue services and safeguard the health and well-being of mental health service users, service providers have responded to the pandemic with the adoption of remote services. The objective of our study was to identify and compare the promoters and challenges of the adoption of remote mental health services experienced by service users in Finland and the Netherlands during the COVID-19 pandemic with help of the FITTE framework.

Priorities in healthcare provision in Parkinson's disease from the perspective of Parkinson Nurses: A focus group study.

Background: Through their expertise and diverse skills, Parkinson Nurses are key care providers for people with Parkinson's disease. They are seen as an important profession for person-centered and multidisciplinary care, considered priorities in Parkinson's care delivery. Currently, however, little is known about the priorities that this profession itself defines for the care of Parkinson's patients and how they perceive their own role in the care process.

Higher ultraviolet light exposure is associated with lower mortality: An analysis of data from the UK biobank cohort study.

We aimed to examine associations between ultraviolet (UV) exposure and mortality among older adults in the United Kingdom (UK). We used data from UK Biobank participants with two UV exposures, validated with measured vitamin D levels: solarium use and annual average residential shortwave radiation. Associations between the UV exposures, all-cause and cause-specific mortality were examined as adjusted hazard ratios.

TrkA sensory neurons regulate osteosarcoma proliferation and vascularization to promote disease progression.

Bone pain is a presenting feature of bone cancers such as osteosarcoma (OS), relayed by skeletal-innervating peripheral afferent neurons. Potential functions of tumor-associated sensory neurons in bone cancers beyond pain sensation are unknown. To uncover neural regulatory functions, a chemical-genetic approach in mice with a knock-in allele for TrkA was used to functionally perturb sensory nerve innervation during OS growth and disease progression.

Mapping Somatosensory Afferent Circuitry to Bone Identifies Neurotrophic Signals Required for Fracture Healing.

The profound pain accompanying bone fracture is mediated by somatosensory neurons, which also appear to be required to initiate bone regeneration following fracture. Surprisingly, the precise neuroanatomical circuitry mediating skeletal nociception and regeneration remains incompletely understood. Here, we characterized somatosensory dorsal root ganglia (DRG) afferent neurons innervating murine long bones before and after experimental long bone fracture in mice.

Neuronal regulation of bone and tendon injury repair: a focused review.

Beyond the sensation of pain, peripheral nerves have been shown to play crucial roles in tissue regeneration and repair. As a highly innervated organ, bone can recover from injury without scar formation, making it an interesting model in which to study the role of nerves in tissue regeneration. As a comparison, tendon is a musculoskeletal tissue that is hypo-innervated, with repair often resulting in scar formation.

Vital Signs: Drowning Death Rates, Self-Reported Swimming Skill, Swimming Lesson Participation, and Recreational Water Exposure - United States, 2019-2023.

Introduction: Drowning is the cause of approximately 4,000 U.S. deaths each year and disproportionately affects some age, racial, and ethnic groups.

Implementing evidence ecosystems in the public health service: Development of a framework for designing tailored training programs.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of local evidence ecosystems in which academia and practice in the Public Health Service (PHS) are interconnected. However, appropriate organizational structures and well-trained staff are lacking and evidence use in local public health decision-making has to be integrated into training programs in Germany. To address this issue, we developed a framework incorporating a toolbox to conceptualize training programs designed to qualify public health professionals for working at the interface between academia and practice.

Alkali Polymer Flooding of a Romanian Field Containing Viscous Reactive Oil.

The study demonstrates the significant enhancement in oil production from a Romanian oil field using alkali-polymer (AP) flooding for reactive viscous oil. We conducted comprehensive interfacial tension (IFT) measurements across various alkali and AP concentrations, along with phase behavior assessments. Micromodel flooding experiments were used to examine pore-scale effects and select appropriate chemical concentrations.

Does cycle commuting reduce the risk of mental ill-health? An instrumental variable analysis using distance to nearest cycle path.

Background: Previous studies have linked cycling with improved mental wellbeing but these studies tend to use cross-sectional survey data that have small sample sizes and self-reported health measures, and are potentially susceptible to omitted-variable bias and reverse causation. We use an instrumental variable approach and an objective measure of mental ill-health taken from linked administrative data to ask: 'Does cycle commuting reduce the risk of mental ill-health?'

Methods: Our study links data on commuting in Edinburgh and Glasgow from the Scottish population census with mental health prescriptions from the National Health Service Prescribing Information System records. We use road distance from home to nearest cycle path as an instrumental variable for cycle commuting.

TrkA-mediated sensory innervation of injured mouse tendon supports tendon sheath progenitor cell expansion and tendon repair.

Peripheral neurons terminate at the surface of tendons partly to relay nociceptive pain signals; however, the role of peripheral nerves in tendon injury and repair remains unclear. Here, we show that after Achilles tendon injury in mice, there is new nerve growth near tendon cells that express nerve growth factor (NGF). Conditional deletion of the gene in either myeloid or mesenchymal mouse cells limited both innervation and tendon repair.

Advancing the social return on investment framework to capture the social value of public health interventions: semistructured interviews and a review of scoping reviews.

Objectives: Investment in public health has far-reaching impacts, not only on physical health but also on communities, economies and the environment. There is increasing demand to account for the wider impact of public health and the social value that can be created, which can be captured through the use of the social return on investment (SROI) framework. This study aims to explore the application of SROI and identify areas of advancement for its use in public health.

Perceptions of Finns with chronic diseases about factors affecting their eHealth literacy: A qualitative interview study.

Objective: This study aims to describe the factors related to the individual, the system and their interaction, which can affect eHealth literacy from the perspective of people living with one or multiple chronic diseases. As digital solutions are increasingly used in healthcare, perspectives of patients with chronic diseases must be considered.

Methods: The study design was a qualitative, descriptive interview study, gathering the insights of people living in Finland with chronic disease.

Near-fatal and fatal asthma and air pollution: are we missing an opportunity to ask key questions?

There is an increasing body of evidence supporting the link between asthma attacks and air pollution in children. To our knowledge, there has only been one reported case of a fatal asthma attack in a child associated with air pollution and this was in the UK. This article considers why there is a lack of evidence on fatal/near-fatal asthma and air pollution.