Associations of five food- and water-borne diseases with ecological zone, land use and aquifer type in a changing climate.

Background: Food- and water-borne pathogens exhibit spatial heterogeneity, but attribution to specific environmental processes is lacking while anthropogenic climate change alters these processes. The goal of this study was to investigate ecology, land-use and health associations of these pathogens and to make future disease projections.

Methods: The rates of five acute gastrointestinal illnesses (AGIs) (campylobacteriosis, Verotoxin- producing Escherichia coli, salmonellosis, giardiasis and cryptosporidiosis) from 2000 to 2013 in British Columbia, Canada, were calculated across three environmental variables: ecological zone, land use, and aquifer type.

Building Interdisciplinary Research Capacity: a Key Challenge for Ecological Approaches in Public Health.

The shortcomings of public health research informed by reductionist and fragmented biomedical approaches and the emergence of wicked problems are fueling a renewed interest in ecological approaches in public health. Despite the central role of interdisciplinarity in the context of ecological approaches in public health research, inadequate attention has been given to the specific challenge of doing interdisciplinary research in practice. As a result, important knowledge gaps exist with regards to the practice of interdisciplinary research.

Seasonal variation of acute gastro-intestinal illness by hydroclimatic regime and drinking water source: a retrospective population-based study.

Acute gastro-intestinal illness (AGI) is a major cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide and an important public health problem. Despite the fact that AGI is currently responsible for a huge burden of disease throughout the world, important knowledge gaps exist in terms of its epidemiology. Specifically, an understanding of seasonality and those factors driving seasonal variation remain elusive.

Let's go to the park today: the role of parks in obesity prevention and improving the public's health.

Let's go to the park today! This familiar phrase is heard routinely throughout the year in many U.S. households.

Towards sustainable groundwater use: setting long-term goals, backcasting, and managing adaptively.

The sustainability of crucial earth resources, such as groundwater, is a critical issue. We consider groundwater sustainability a value-driven process of intra- and intergenerational equity that balances the environment, society, and economy. Synthesizing hydrogeological science and current sustainability concepts, we emphasize three sustainability approaches: setting multigenerational sustainability goals, backcasting, and managing adaptively.

A novel approach to modelling water transport and drug diffusion through the stratum corneum.

Background: The potential of using skin as an alternative path for systemically administering active drugs has attracted considerable interest, since the creation of novel drugs capable of diffusing through the skin would provide a great step towards easily applicable -and more humane- therapeutic solutions. However, for drugs to be able to diffuse, they necessarily have to cross a permeability barrier: the stratum corneum (SC), the uppermost set of skin layers. The precise mechanism by which drugs penetrate the skin is generally thought to be diffusion of molecules through this set of layers following a "tortuous pathway" around corneocytes, i.

Climate change and health in british columbia: projected impacts and a proposed agenda for adaptation research and policy.

This is a case study describing how climate change may affect the health of British Columbians and to suggest a way forward to promote health and policy research, and adaptation to these changes. After reviewing the limited evidence of the impacts of climate change on human health we have developed five principles to guide the development of research and policy to better predict future impacts of climate change on health and to enhance adaptation to these change in BC. We suggest that, with some modification, these principles will be useful to policy makers in other jurisdictions.

Parks promoting physical activity: synthesis of findings from interventions in seven national parks.

Background: We synthesized the results of 7 National Park Service pilot interventions designed to increase awareness of the health benefits from participation in recreation at national parks and to increase physical activity by park visitors.

Methods: A content analysis was conducted of the final evaluation reports of the 7 participating parks. Pooled data were also analyzed from a standardized trail-intercept survey administered in 3 parks.

Terminal regions of wheat chromosomes select their pairing partners in meiosis.

Many plant species, including important crops like wheat, are polyploids that carry more than two sets of genetically related chromosomes capable of meiotic pairing. To safeguard a diploid-like behavior at meiosis, many polyploids evolved genetic loci that suppress incorrect pairing and recombination of homeologues. The Ph1 locus in wheat was proposed to ensure homologous pairing by controlling the specificity of centromere associations that precede chromosome pairing.