The health consequences of informal employment among female workers and their children: a systematic review.

Background: Informal employment is unprotected and unregistered and it is often characterized by precarious working arrangements. Although being a global phenomenon and the most common type of employment worldwide, scholarly attention to its health effects has only recently accelerated. While there is still some debate, informal employment is generally understood to be detrimental to workers' health.

Have COVID-19 Stimulus Packages Mitigated the Negative Health Impacts of Pandemic-Related Job Losses? A Systematic Review of Global Evidence from the First Year of the Pandemic.

Social protection can buffer the negative impacts of unemployment on health. Have stimulus packages introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic mitigated potential harms to health from unemployment? We performed a systematic review of the health effects of job loss during the first year of the pandemic. We searched three electronic databases and identified 49 studies for inclusion.

SARS-CoV-2 Gastrointestinal Shedding in Hospitalized Children.

Background: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a respiratory virus that can cause gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms, with studies demonstrating detection of stool viral RNA weeks after respiratory tract clearance. It is unknown if children who test negative for SARS-CoV-2 on a nasopharyngeal (NP) swab may be shedding the virus in their stool.

Objective: To measure the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 stool shedding in children with positive and negative SARS-CoV-2 NP polymerase chain reactions (PCR) tests, and to determine clinical factors associated with GI shedding.

Precarious employment and health in the context of COVID-19: a rapid scoping umbrella review.

Background: There are widespread concerns that workers in precarious employment have suffered the most in the COVID-19 pandemic and merit special attention. The aim of this rapid scoping umbrella review was to examine what evidence exists about how COVID-19 has affected the health of this highly vulnerable group, and what gaps remain to be investigated.

Methods: Five databases were searched for systematic or scoping reviews from January 2020 to May 2021.

Effectiveness of a Simulation Curriculum on Clinical Application: A Randomized Educational Trial.

Introduction: The use of simulation to develop clinical reasoning and medical decision-making skills for common events is poorly established. Validated head trauma rules help identify children at low risk for clinically important traumatic brain injury and guide the need for neuroimaging. We predicted that interns trained using a high-fidelity, immersive simulation would understand and apply these rules better than those trained using a case-based discussion.

The Gender Pain Gap: gender inequalities in pain across 19 European countries.

Aims: Chronic pain is increasingly considered to be an international public health issue, yet gender differences in chronic pain in Europe are under-examined. This work aimed to examine gender inequalities in pain across Europe.

Methods: Data for 27,552 men and women aged 25-74 years in 19 European countries were taken from the social determinants of health module of the European Social Survey (2014).

Glossary on free trade agreements and health part 2: new trade rules and new urgencies in the context of COVID-19.

Part 1 of this glossary provided a brief background on the rise of regional/bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) and described the health implications of new trade obligations that figure prominently in current and recent trade negotiations, focusing on those provisions that build on previous agreements of the World Trade Organization (WTO). This approach continues into part 2 of the glossary, which also considers components of FTAs that have no precedent within WTO treaties. Following a broader discussion of how the current political context and the COVID-19 pandemic shape the contemporary trade environment, part 2 considers the main areas of trade and health policy incoherence as well as recommendations to address them.

Glossary on free trade agreements and health part 1: the shift from multilateralism and the rise of 'WTO-Plus' provisions.

The global trading system has undergone a shift away from multilateral trade negotiations to a 'spaghetti-bowl' of regional and bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs). In this two-part glossary, we discuss why this shift has occurred, focusing on how it poses new challenges for public health. Specifically, we introduce key terms that shape this new trading environment and explain them through a public health lens.

The contribution of employment and working conditions to occupational inequalities in non-communicable diseases in Europe.

Background: Social inequalities in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are evident across all European regions. Employment and working conditions are important determinants of NCDs, however, few comparative studies have examined how these conditions contribute to health inequalities. This study therefore examines the association of non-standard employment and poor working conditions with occupational inequalities in multiple NCDs and whether there are differences by gender and across European regions.

USMCA 2.0: a few improvements but far from a 'healthy' trade treaty.

The USMCA (NAFTA 2.0), although signed over a year ago, went through several months of renegotiation of certain of its new rules that the Democrat-controlled US Congress wanted altered or strengthened. In December a 'Protocol of Amendment' was agreed upon and signed by the three Parties (the USA, Mexico, and Canada).

The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in Europe.

Background: While the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has become increasingly popular in western societies, we do not understand why CAM use is more frequent in some countries than in others. The aim of this article is to examine the determinants of CAM use at the individual and country-level.

Methods: Logistic multilevel regressions were applied analyzing data from 33,371 respondents in 21 European countries (including Israel) from the seventh round of the European Social Survey.

Relieving the tension between national health equity strategies and global health equity.

Globally, numerous national strategies have taken aim at reducing health inequities. An ever-present tension characterizing these strategies, however, is their lack of attention to the global political economy. This commentary argues that national policies which target only domestic factors (without engaging with the global political economy) will be limited, both, in their ability to address national levels of health equity and the larger global health inequity problem.

Correction to: USMCA (NAFTA 2.0): tightening the constraints on the right to regulate for public health.

Following publication of the original article [1], the authors flagged an error concerning two missing article references, which were unfortunately not provided prior to publication of the article.

USMCA (NAFTA 2.0): tightening the constraints on the right to regulate for public health.

Background: In late 2018 the United States, Canada, and Mexico signed a new trade agreement (most commonly referred to by its US-centric acronym, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA) to replace the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The new agreement is the first major trade treaty negotiated under the shadow of the Trump Administration's unilateral imposition of tariffs to pressure other countries to accept provisions more favourable to protectionist US economic interests. Although not yet ratified, the agreement is widely seen as indicative of how the US will engage in future international trade negotiations.

The European epidemic: Pain prevalence and socioeconomic inequalities in pain across 19 European countries.

Background: Using data from the European Social Survey (ESS) 2014, this study presents an update of pain prevalence amongst men and women across Europe and undertakes the first analysis of socioeconomic inequalities in pain.

Methods: Data from the ESS 2014 survey were analysed for three pain variables: back/neck pain (n = 11,032), hand/arm pain (n = 5,954) and foot/leg pain (n = 6,314). Education was used as the indicator of socioeconomic status (SES).

Health inequalities among migrant and native-born populations in Greece in times of crisis: the MIGHEAL study.

This article presents the MIGHEAL study, which was developed in parallel with the European Social Survey (ESS) Round 7 (2014). Conducted in Greece in 2016 by the National Centre for Social Research, the study was specifically designed to further our understanding of how health varies by social status, focusing particularly on migrant status. In the current article, we report results on health status (non-communicable diseases, self-reported health and depressive symptoms) and health determinants (risky health behaviours, social determinants and access to health care) in Greece, among migrants and native-born.

Health in crises. Migration, austerity and inequalities in Greece and Europe: introduction to the supplement.

This introduction summarizes and discusses the main findings of the supplement 'Health in crises. Migration, austerity and inequalities in Greece and Europe' to the European Journal of Public Health. The supplement applies data from the ESS (2014) health module in combination with the MIGHEAL study, which is a new source of data on the Greek population specially designed to examine health inequalities among and between migrants and natives.

The effects of public health policies on health inequalities in high-income countries: an umbrella review.

Background: Socio-economic inequalities are associated with unequal exposure to social, economic and environmental risk factors, which in turn contribute to health inequalities. Understanding the impact of specific public health policy interventions will help to establish causality in terms of the effects on health inequalities.

Methods: Systematic review methodology was used to identify systematic reviews from high-income countries that describe the health equity effects of upstream public health interventions.

Assessing the Health Impact of Trade: A Call for an Expanded Research Agenda Comment on "The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Is It Everything We Feared for Health?".

Labonté et al provide an insightful analysis of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and its impact on a selection of important health determinants. Their work confirms concerns raised by previous analyses of leaked drafts and offers governments serious and timely reasons to carefully consider provisions of the agreement prior to moving forward with ratification. It also contributes more generally to a growing literature focused on identifying the health impacts of trade.

Exploring the differences in general practitioner and health care specialist utilization according to education, occupation, income and social networks across Europe: findings from the European social survey (2014) special module on the social determinants of health.

Background: Low socioeconomic position (SEP) tends to be linked to higher use of general practitioners (GPs), while the use of health care specialists is more common in higher SEPs. Despite extensive literature in this area, previous studies have, however, only studied health care use by income or education. The aim of this study is, therefore, to examine inequalities in GP and health care specialist use by four social markers that may be linked to health care utilization (educational level, occupational status, level of financial strain and size and frequency of social networks) across 20 European countries and Israel.

Financial difficulties in childhood and adult depression in Europe.

Background: Financial difficulties in childhood may be associated with immediate and long-term consequences for mental health. The aim of the current paper is to investigate the association between childhood financial difficulties and adult depression, and assess the relative contribution of financial difficulties in childhood to symptoms of adult depression across different age groups.

Methods: Using three age cohorts (25–40, 41–59, 60–75) from 19 countries in the European Social Survey Round 7 (N =18 401), multi-level and country-wise OLS regression analyses were used to investigate the association between financial difficulties in childhood and adult depression, while adjusting for age, education, gender, highest education in family, level of family conflict, number of social meetings and marital status.

The health of European populations: introduction to the special supplement on the 2014 European Social Survey (ESS) rotating module on the social determinants of health.

This introduction summarizes the main findings of the Supplement 'Social inequalities in health and their determinants' to the European Journal of Public Health. The 16 articles that constitute this supplement use the new ESS (2014) health module data to analyze the distribution of health across European populations. Three main themes run across these articles: documentation of cross-national variation in the magnitude and patterning of health inequalities; assessment of health determinants variation across populations and in their contribution to health inequalities; and the examination of the effects of health outcomes across social groups.