Digital health can enhance self-management of patients such as usage of medication reminders, thereby improving health outcomes. However, for successful implementation of such interventions, integration with the electronic health record (EHR) is useful. We evaluated the implementation of an integrated patient portal medication reminder tool in kidney transplant patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Digital transformation in healthcare is a necessity considering the steady increase in healthcare costs, the growing ageing population and rising number of people living with chronic diseases. The implementation of digital health technologies in patient care is a potential solution to these issues, however, some challenges remain. In order to navigate such complexities, the perceptions of healthcare professionals (HCPs) must be considered.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEvol Med Public Health
January 2013
Background And Objectives: In polygynous societies, rich men have many offspring through the marriage of multiple wives. Evolutionary, rich households would therefore benefit more from sons, and according to the Trivers-Willard hypothesis, parents invest more in offspring of the sex that has the best reproductive prospects. We determined the sex differences in number of offspring, sex ratio of offspring, offspring survival and offspring weight in rich and poor households in a polygynous population.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSocioeconomic and cultural factors are thought to have an important role in influencing human population genetic structure. To explain such population structure differences, most studies analyse genetic differences among widely dispersed human populations. In contrast, we have studied the genetic structure of an ethnic group occupying a single village in north-eastern Ghana.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPentraxin 3 (PTX3) plays an important role in innate immune responses and in female fertility, as discovered with studies in mice. However, the role of PTX3 in human fertility is unknown. Here, we report on a population-based study from a rural area of Upper East Ghana (n = 4346).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The innate immune system plays an important role in the recognition and induction of protective responses against infectious pathogens, whilst there is increasing evidence for a role in mediating chronic inflammatory diseases at older age. Despite indications that environmental conditions can influence the senescence process of the adaptive immune system, it is not known whether the same holds true for the innate immune system. Therefore we studied whether age-related innate immune responses are similar or differ between populations living under very diverse environmental conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSocio-economic status is an important determinant of health and survival in rural Africa and necessitates a practical and valid instrument to implement in health studies. Our objective was to investigate the validity of the rapid appraisal method to assess socio-economic status and its ability to identify individuals at risk. Among 1573 households in rural northern Ghana, we calculated the Demographic Health Survey (DHS) wealth index and conducted two rapid appraisal methods: self-reported wealth and interviewer-reported wealth.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMost species with a long life span have few offspring while species with a short life span have many offspring. This evolutionary trade-off between fertility and body maintenance, based on the theory of r/K-selection, is a central theme in the theory of life history regulation. This trade-off is not only found between various species but also between individuals within one species.
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