Publications by authors named "Federica Asta"

Background: the peer-review process, which is the foundation of modern scientific production, represents one of its essential elements. However, despite numerous benefits, it presents several critical issues.

Objectives: to collect the opinions of a group of researchers from the epidemiological scientific community on peer-review processes.

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(1) The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated health disparities, both between foreign and autochthonous populations. Italy was one of the European countries that was the most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic; however, only limited data are available on vaccine willingness. This study aims to assess the propensity of foreign and autochthonous populations residing in Italy to be vaccinated and the relative associated factors.

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Introduction: Epidemiology is increasingly involved on a wide variety of topics and to engage different professionals and disciplines in an increasingly active way. A fundamental role is played by young researchers active in Italian epidemiology who create opportunities for meeting and discussion, in the name of multidisciplinarity and integration of different skills.

Objective: The aim of this paper is to provide a detailed description of the topics most frequently studied in epidemiology by young people and to highlight any changes in these topics in the pre- and post-Covid-19 workplaces.

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Aims: To examine associations of assisted reproductive technology (ART) conception (vs. natural conception: NC) with offspring cardiometabolic health outcomes and whether these differ with age.

Methods And Results: Differences in systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP), heart rate (HR), lipids, and hyperglycaemic/insulin resistance markers were examined using multiple linear regression models in 14 population-based birth cohorts in Europe, Australia, and Singapore, and results were combined using meta-analysis.

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Objectives: Unintentional injuries such as falls, are particularly frequent in early childhood. To date, epidemiological studies in this field have been carried out using routine data sources or registries and many studies were observational studies with a cross-sectional design. The aims of the study are to describe unintentional injuries in the first two years of life in the Piccolipiù birth cohort, and to investigate the association between mother and children characteristics and the First Event of Raised surface Fall (FERF).

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Importance: People conceived using assisted reproductive technology (ART) make up an increasing proportion of the world's population.

Objective: To investigate the association of ART conception with offspring growth and adiposity from infancy to early adulthood in a large multicohort study.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This cohort study used a prespecified coordinated analysis across 26 European, Asia-Pacific, and North American population-based cohort studies that included people born between 1984 and 2018, with mean ages at assessment of growth and adiposity outcomes from 0.

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Objectives: to geocode all residence addresses from Lazio Health Information System in order to obtain a geographical regional database.

Design: a semiautomatic and multistep geocoding procedure using several tools and software.

Setting And Participants: all residence addresses of resident population of Lazio Region (Central Italy) in 2020.

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Objectives: to estimate the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on total and cause-specific mortality in people residing and dead in the Municipality of Rome (Italy) in 2020, and to describe the causes of death of subjects with SARS-CoV-2 infection confirmed by molecular test.

Design: descriptive analysis of total and cause-specific mortality in 2020 in Rome and comparison with a reference period (2015-2018 for total mortality and 2018 for cause-specific mortality); descriptive analysis of cause-specific mortality in the cohort of SARS-CoV-2 infected subjects.

Setting And Participants: 27,471 deaths registered in the Lazio mortality-cause Registry, relating to people residing and died in the municipality of Rome in 2020, 2,374 of which died from COVID-19.

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Background: Air pollution exposure in pregnancy can cause molecular level alterations that might influence later disease susceptibility.

Objectives: We investigated DNA methylation (DNAm) and telomere length (TL) in the cord blood in relation to gestational PM exposure and explored potential gestational windows of susceptibility.

Methods: Cord blood epigenome-wide DNAm (N = 384) and TL (N = 500) were measured in children of the Italian birth cohort Piccolipiù, using the Infinium Methylation EPIC BeadChip and qPCR, respectively.

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Background: The first 1000 days of life -including pregnancy and the first 2 years after birth- represent a critical window for health interventions. This systematic review aimed to summarize the evidence on the relationship between traffic-related air pollutants exposure in the first 1000 days of life and the development of wheezing and asthma, with a particular focus on windows of exposure.

Methods: Medline and Embase were searched from January 2000 to May 2020 to retrieve population-based birth-cohort studies, including registries, providing quantitative information on the association between exposure to traffic-related air pollutants during pregnancy or early life, and the risk of developing wheezing and asthma in childhood.

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Background: one of the most affected European countries by the COVID-19 epidemic is Italy; data show the strong geographical heterogeneity of the epidemic.

Objectives: to propose an analysis strategy to ascertain the non-random nature of the spatial spread of COVID-19 cases infection and identify any territorial aggregations, in order to enhance contact tracing activities in specific areas of the Lazio Region (Central Italy) and a large urban area as Rome.

Methods: all cases of COVID-19 of the Lazio Region notified to the Regional Service for Epidemiology, Surveillance, and Control of Infectious Diseases (Seresmi) with daily updates from the beginning of the epidemic to April 27, 2020 were considered.

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Background: Exposure to air pollution during the first 1000 days of life (from conception to the 2nd year of life) might be of particular relevance for long-term child health. Changes in molecular markers such as DNA methylation and telomere length could underlie the association between air pollution exposure and pollution-related diseases as well as serve as biomarkers for past exposure. The objective of this systematic review was to assess the association between air pollution exposure during pregnancy and the first two years of life and changes in DNA methylation or telomere length in children.

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Introduction There is evidence of improvement on mental health and well-being due to contact with green spaces, through various mechanisms and with potentially differential impacts in different populations. Many of these studies have been conducted among adults, while children have not been sufficiently investigated. This study aimed to evaluate the association between residential exposure to greenness and cognitive development at age 7 and to evaluate nitrogen dioxide (NO) as a potential mediator of this association.

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Mechanisms underlying adverse birth and later in life health effects from exposure to air pollution during the prenatal period have not been not fully elucidated, especially in the context of mixtures. We assessed the effects of prenatal exposure to mixtures of air pollutants of particulate matter (PM), PM, PM, nitrogen oxides, NO, NO, ultrafine particles (UFP), and oxidative potential (OP) of PM on infant birthweight in four European birth cohorts and the mechanistic underpinnings through cross-omics of metabolites and inflammatory proteins. The association between mixtures of air pollutants and birthweight z-scores (standardized for gestational age) was assessed for three different mixture models, using Bayesian machine kernel regression (BKMR).

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Background: Environmental exposures across the life course may be a contributor to the increased worldwide prevalence of respiratory and allergic diseases occurring in the last decades. Asthma and rhinoconjunctivitis especially contribute to the global burden of disease. Greenness has been suggested to have beneficial effects in terms of reduction of occurrence of allergic respiratory diseases.

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This case report describes the clinical course of a child who developed staphylococcal scalded skin syndrome (SSSS) after a burn injury. The intent is to aid other units in recognizing the presentation of SSSS after a pediatric burn and to optimize subsequent management. The main clinical finding was of rapid, progressive, superficial epidermal loss at sites separate from the original burn, involving 55% of the total body surface area, 13 days after a 6% scald burn to the face, neck, and chest.

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Objectives: Studies on the effect of temperature on rates of work-related injuries (WRIs) are very recent, and are evolving in depth and scope. However, less is known about potential effects of air pollutants. Our objective was to analyse the association between WRI and NO, PM and air temperature in three major Italian cities, and to identify groups of workers more at risk in Italy.

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Urban green spaces have been associated with health benefits, but few studies have evaluated the role of greenness on pregnancy outcomes. We examined how the association between short-term exposure to heat and air pollution on the probability of preterm delivery is affected by the spatial variation of socioeconomic position (SEP) and greenness. We analyzed a cohort of newborns in Rome, from April to October of 2001-2013, defining preterm as births between the 22nd and the 36th week of gestation.

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Objectives: to evaluate the association between short term maternal exposure to high temperature and air pollution on preterm births (PBs), which represent the first cause of perinatal mortality and morbidity in developed Countries, and to identify maternal risk factors enhancing individual susceptibility.

Design: time series. SETTING E PARTICIPANTS: all singleton live-births occurred in six Italian cities between 1st April and 31st October of each year in the period 2001-2010 were identified through the Certificate of Delivery Care Registry (CedAP).

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Background: Wheezing and infections are common during infancy, and the role of early-life exposures in their development is still under investigation. We examined associations between maternal mental health in pregnancy and after delivery and subsequent offspring wheezing and infections.

Methods: We studied 2314 mother-child pairs recruited in the Piccolipiù birth cohort (Italy) from 2011 to 2015.

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Background: The increasing burden of chronic diseases associated with the ageing of the European population constitutes one of the main challenges for the welfare systems in developed western countries, especially through its impact on the use of hospital services and the cost of care. This study aims at evaluating the cost of hospital care for older adults living in the Lazio Region, Italy, according to their level of frailty.

Methods: Since 2014 a longitudinal randomized cohort study has been carried out on a sample consisting of 1280 older adults aged over 64 years resident in the Lazio region (Italy), with their being evaluated for multidimensional frailty.

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Introduction: Patients with burn injuries are at an increased risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE). This predisposition is secondary to the endothelial injury, hyper-coagulable state and stasis (Virchow's triad) associated with burn injury. Although the true incidence of VTE in burn patients has not been adequately quantified, symptomatic VTE occurs in 0.

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Acute management of a severely burned patient is an infrequent and stressful situation that requires medical knowledge as well as immediate coordinated action. Many adverse events in health care result from issues related to the application of 'non-technical' skills such as communication, teamwork, leadership and decision making rather than lack of medical knowledge. Training in these skills is known as Crisis Resource Management (CRM) training.

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