Analysis of the Predictors of Mortality from Ischemic Heart Diseases in the Southern Region of Brazil: A Geographic Machine-Learning-Based Study.

Background: Mortality due to ischemic heart disease (IHD) is heterogeneously distributed globally, and identifying the sites most affected by it is essential in developing strategies to mitigate the impact of the disease, despite the complexity resulting from the great diversity of variables involved.

Objective: To analyze the predictability of IHD mortality using machine learning (ML) techniques in combination with geospatial analysis in southern Brazil.

Methods: Ecological study using secondary and retrospective data on mortality due to ischemic heart disease (IHD) obtained from the Mortality Information Systems (SIM-DATASUS) de 2018 a 2022, covering 1,191 municipalities in the states of Paraná (399), Santa Catarina (295), and Rio Grande do Sul (497).

Resilience, Mental Health, Sleep, and Smoking Mediate Pathways Between Lifetime Stressors and Multiple Sclerosis Severity.

Introduction: Lifetime stressors (e.g., poverty, violence, discrimination) have been linked to features of multiple sclerosis (MS); yet mechanistic pathways and relationships with cumulative disease severity remain nebulous.

Sex differences in alcohol use patterns and related harms: A mixed-methods, cross-sectional study of men and women in northern Tanzania.

In northern Tanzania, alcohol use disorders (AUD) are under-diagnosed and under-treated, and current services are mostly limited to men in clinical settings despite significant alcohol-related harm in the community. The study objective was to identify sex differences in alcohol use and alcohol-related harms within and across community and clinical settings. This was a congruent triangulation mixed methods study consisting of focus group discussions (FGDs) and cross-sectional surveys.

Bayesian Modeling and Estimation of Spatial Risk for Hospitalization and Mortality from Ischemic Heart Disease in Paraná, Brazil.

Objective: Despite significant advancements in understanding risk factors and treatment strategies, ischemic heart disease (IHD) remains the leading cause of mortality worldwide, particularly within specific regions in Brazil, where the disease is a burden. Therefore, the aim of this study was to estimate the risk of hospitalization and mortality from IHD in the state of Paraná (Brazil), using spatial analysis to identify areas with higher risk based on socioeconomic, demographic and health variables.

Methods: This is an ecological study based on secondary and retrospective IHD hospitalization and mortality data obtained from the Brazilian Hospitalization and Mortality Information Systems during the 2010-2021 period.

Long COVID among Brazilian Adults and Elders 12 Months after Hospital Discharge: A Population-Based Cohort Study.

The persistence of symptoms for more than three months following infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 is referred to as "Long COVID". To gain a deeper understanding of the etiology and long-term progression of symptoms, this study aims to analyze the prevalence of Long COVID and its associated factors in a cohort of Brazilian adults and elders, twelve months after hospital discharge. An observational, prospective, and follow-up study was performed with a cohort of adults and older adults diagnosed with COVID-19 in 2020 in the State of Paraná, Brazil.

Development of culturally-appropriate text message booster content to follow a brief intervention focused on reducing alcohol related harms for injury patients in Moshi, Tanzania.

Alcohol use is a risk factor for death and disability and is attributed to almost one-third of injury deaths globally. This highlights the need for interventions aimed at alcohol reduction, especially in areas with high rates of injury with concurrent alcohol use, such as Tanzania. The aim of this study is to create a culturally appropriate text messages as a booster to a brief negotiational intervention (BNI), to in the Emergency Department of the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre, Moshi, Tanzania.

Framework proposal for Role-Playing Games as mental health intervention: the Critical Skills methodology.

Gamified interventions are an emerging approach in mental health treatment and prevention. Their positive effects on managing various clinical conditions stem from enhancing social skills. However, cost-effective options like Table-top Role-Playing Games (TTRPGs), which offer similar benefits to other game-based interventions, lack standardized methods for ensuring replicability.

Continuous epileptiform discharges are associated with worse neurodevelopmental findings in a congenital Zika syndrome prospective cohort.

Purpose: This study aimed to identify continuous epileptiform discharges (CEDs) on electroencephalograms (EEG) and to determine their clinical significance in children with congenital Zika syndrome (CZS).

Methods: This prospective cohort study included 75 children diagnosed with CZS born from March 2015 and followed up until September 2018 (age up to 36 months). EEG was performed to detect CEDs up to 24 months old.

Designing, development and validation of an app to reduce the response time of the emergency medical services.

Introduction: Delays in prehospital care attributable to the call-taking process can often be traced back to miscommunication, including uncertainty around the call location. Geolocation applications have the potential to streamline the call-taking process by accurately identifying the caller's location.

Objective: To develop and validate an application to geolocate emergency calls and compare the response time of calls made via the application with those of conventional calls made to the Brazilian Medical Emergency System (Serviço de Atendimento Médico de Urgência-SAMU).

Applicability of machine learning algorithm to predict the therapeutic intervention success in Brazilian smokers.

Smoking cessation is an important public health policy worldwide. However, as far as we know, there is a lack of screening of variables related to the success of therapeutic intervention (STI) in Brazilian smokers by machine learning (ML) algorithms. To address this gap in the literature, we evaluated the ability of eight ML algorithms to correctly predict the STI in Brazilian smokers who were treated at a smoking cessation program in Brazil between 2006 and 2017.

Resilience, mental health, sleep, and smoking mediate pathways between lifetime stressors and Multiple Sclerosis severity.

Intro: Lifetime stressors (e.g., poverty, violence, discrimination) have been linked to Multiple Sclerosis (MS) features; yet mechanistic pathways and relationships with cumulative disease severity remain nebulous.

h-Index: A Novel Author-Level Measure of the Diffusion of Scientific Ideas Among High-, Low-, and Middle-Income Countries.

Objective: To describe an intuitive and useful method for measuring the global impact of a medical scholar's research ideas by examining cross-border citations (CBCs) of peer-reviewed neurosurgical publications.

Methods: Publication and citation data for a random sample of the top 50 most academically productive neurosurgeons were obtained from Scopus Application Programming Interface. We characterized an author-level global impact index analogous to the widely used h-index, the h-index, defined as the number of published peer-reviewed manuscripts with at least the same number of CBCs.

Prevalence and factors associated with the death of older people hospitalized due to Covid-19 in the state of Paraná.

Objective: To estimate the prevalence and to analyze the factors associated with the death of older people hospitalized due to Covid-19 in the state of Paraná.

Method: Cross-sectional study conducted with secondary data from older people with a positive diagnosis of Covid-19 living in the State of Paraná, collected from March 1, 2020 to August 31, 2021. Prevalence ratios were obtained by adjusting the regression model.

AI-based approach for transcribing and classifying unstructured emergency call data: A methodological proposal.

Emergency care-sensitive conditions (ECSCs) require rapid identification and treatment and are responsible for over half of all deaths worldwide. Prehospital emergency care (PEC) can provide rapid treatment and access to definitive care for many ECSCs and can reduce mortality in several different settings. The objective of this study is to propose a method for using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to transcribe audio, extract, and classify unstructured emergency call data in the Serviço de Atendimento Móvel de Urgência (SAMU) system in southern Brazil.

Photobiomodulation Therapy to Treat Snakebites Caused by Bothrops atrox: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Bothrops venom acts almost immediately at the bite site and causes tissue damage.

Objective: To investigate the feasibility and explore the safety and efficacy of low-level laser therapy (LLLT) in reducing the local manifestations of B atrox envenomations.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This was a double-blind randomized clinical trial conducted at Fundação de Medicina Tropical Doutor Heitor Vieira Dourado, in Manaus, Brazil.

Clinical evaluation of the alcohol use disorders identification test (AUDIT) in Moshi, Tanzania.

Background: Alcohol use disorder is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in low- and middle-income countries. Alcohol screening using a validated tool is a useful way to capture high-risk patients and engage them in early harm reduction interventions. Our objectives were to 1) evaluate the psychometric evidence the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and its subscales in the general population of Moshi, Tanzania, and 2) evaluate the usefulness of the tool at predicting alcohol-related harms.

Alcohol use among emergency medicine department patients in Tanzania: A comparative analysis of injury versus non-injury patients.

Background: Alcohol is a leading behavioral risk factor for death and disability worldwide. Tanzania has few trained personnel and resources for treating unhealthy alcohol use. In Emergency Medicine Departments (EMDs), alcohol is a well-known risk factor for injury patients.

A mixed-methods comparison of gender differences in alcohol consumption and drinking characteristics among patients in Moshi, Tanzania.

Excessive alcohol use stands as a serious threat to individual and community well-being, having been linked to a wide array of physical, social, mental, and economic harms. Alcohol consumption differs by gender, a trend seen both globally and in Moshi, Tanzania, a region with especially high rates of intake and few resources for alcohol-related care. To develop effective gender-appropriate treatment interventions, differences in drinking behaviors between men and women must be better understood.

Machine learning models to predict traumatic brain injury outcomes in Tanzania: Using delays to emergency care as predictors.

Constraints to emergency department resources may prevent the timely provision of care following a patient's arrival to the hospital. In-hospital delays may adversely affect health outcomes, particularly among trauma patients who require prompt management. Prognostic models can help optimize resource allocation thereby reducing in-hospital delays and improving trauma outcomes.

The Brazilian National Oral Health Policy and oral cancer mortality trends: An autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model.

Objective: This study analyzes the effect of the Brazilian National Oral Health Policy (NOHP) on oral cancer mortality rates (OCMR).

Method: This is an ecological study with secondary oral cancer death data, using interrupted time series analysis (ARIMA, Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average). Annual death data were collected from the Mortality Information System (1996-2019).

Associations of hospitalisation - admission, readmission and length to stay - with multimorbidity patterns by age and sex in adults and older adults: the ELSI-Brazil study.

Background: Although the association between multimorbidity (MM) and hospitalisation is known, the different effects of MM patterns by age and sex in this outcome needs to be elucidated. Our study aimed to analyse the association of hospitalisations' variables (occurrence, readmission, length of stay) and patterns of multimorbidity (MM) according to sex and age.

Methods: Data from 8.

Feasibility of a pragmatic randomized adaptive clinical trial to evaluate a brief negotiational interview for harmful and hazardous alcohol use in Moshi, Tanzania.

Introduction: Low-resourced settings often lack personnel and infrastructure for alcohol use disorder treatment. We culturally adapted a Brief Negotiational Interview (BNI) for Emergency Department injury patients, the "Punguza Pombe Kwa Afya Yako (PPKAY)" ("Reduce Alcohol For Your Health") in Tanzania. This study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of a pragmatic randomized adaptive controlled trial of the PPKAY intervention.

Prioritization of surgical, obstetric, trauma, and anesthesia care in India over seven decades: A systematic analysis of policy documents.

Improving access to surgical care in India requires policy-level prioritization of surgical, obstetric, trauma, and anesthesia (SOTA) care. We quantified SOTA care prioritization in the last seven decades by analyzing India's national policy and programmatic documents. Forty documents of national importance over seven decades (1946-2017) were screened for a set of 52 surgical and 6 non-surgical keywords.