Associations of gestational anxiety and depression with neonatal hair steroid levels.

Objective: To investigate the association prenatal maternal depression and anxiety may have on the levels of neonatal hair steroids (i.e. cortisol, cortisone, and the cortisol/cortisone ratio) at birth.

Non-invasive quantification of stem cell-derived islet graft size and composition.

Aims/hypothesis: Stem cell-derived islets (SC-islets) are being used as cell replacement therapy for insulin-dependent diabetes. Non-invasive long-term monitoring methods for SC-islet grafts, which are needed to detect misguided differentiation in vivo and to optimise their therapeutic effectiveness, are lacking. Positron emission tomography (PET) has been used to monitor transplanted primary islets.

Association between work-related factors and health behaviour clusters among Finnish private-sector service workers.

Purpose: We examined how work-related factors associate with several health behaviours that appear together among the large, but less-studied, blue- and pink-collar worker group, which is characterized by low education and income levels.

Methods: In 2019, we conducted a cross-sectional survey among private sector service workers (n = 5256) in Finland. We applied two-step cluster analysis to identify groups on the basis of leisure-time physical activity, sleep adequacy, frequency of heavy drinking, smoking status, and frequency of fruit, vegetable and berry consumption.

Maternal caffeine, coffee and cola drink intake and the risk of gestational diabetes - Kuopio Birth Cohort.

Aims: Coffee intake is associated with a decreased risk of type 2 diabetes among non-pregnant people. We aimed to investigate the association between caffeine, coffee and cola drink intake in early pregnancy and the risk of gestational diabetes (GDM).

Methods: Kuopio Birth Cohort (KuBiCo) is a prospective cohort study including pregnant women who were followed at the prenatal clinics in outpatient healthcare centers and gave birth in Kuopio University Hospital, Finland (n=2214).

Modelling framework to evaluate societal effects of ecosystem management.

The ecosystem effects of different management options can be predicted through models that simulate the ecosystem functioning under different management scenarios. Optimal management strategies are searched by simulating different management (and other, such as climate) scenarios and finding the management measures that produce desirable results. The desirability of results is often defined through the attainment of policy objectives such as good environmental/ecological status.

Comparative steroid profiling of newborn hair and umbilical cord serum highlights the role of fetal adrenals, placenta, and pregnancy outcomes in fetal steroid metabolism.

Previous steroid hormone studies concerning pregnancy and newborns have mainly focused on glucocorticoids; wider steroid profiles have been less commonly investigated. Here, we performed a comparative analysis of 17 steroids from newborn hair and umbilical cord serum at the time of delivery. The study participants (n = 42, 50% girls) were a part of the Kuopio Birth Cohort and represent usual Finnish pregnancies.

Peer support for accepting distressing reality: Expertise and experience-sharing in psychiatric peer-to-peer group discussions.

Peer-based interventions are increasingly used for delivering mental health services to help people with an illness re-examine their situation and accept their illness as part of their life story. The role of the peer supporter in these interventions, known as experts-by-experience (EbE), is situated between mutual peer support and semi-professional service delivery, and they face the challenge of balancing an asymmetric, professional relationship with a reciprocal, mutuality-based, equal relationship. This article investigates how EbEs tackle this challenge when responding to clients' stories about their personal, distressing experiences in peer-based groups in psychiatric services.

Who buys non-alcoholic beer in Finland? Sociodemographic characteristics and associations with regular beer purchases.

Background: The consumption of non-alcoholic beer and other non-alcoholic and low-alcohol beverages has grown significantly in recent years. Due to a lack of suitable datasets, there have been few studies conducted on the forerunners of the non-alcoholic beer consumption trend. This study examined the associations of sociodemographic characteristics with non-alcoholic beer purchase, and of non-alcoholic beer purchases with regular beer purchases.

Changes in alcohol purchases from grocery stores after authorising the sale of stronger beverages: The case of the Finnish alcohol legislation reform in 2018.

The Finnish alcohol law was reformed in January 2018. The availability of alcoholic beverages in grocery stores increased as the legal limit for retail sales of alcoholic drinks was raised from 4.7% to 5.

A quantitative ultra-performance liquid chromatography high-resolution mass spectrometry analysis of steroids from human scalp hair.

Hair steroid analysis offers the possibility to evaluate long-term steroid metabolism. It is especially beneficial when studying the steroid milieu in newborns and children, for example it can provide new insights into steroid metabolism over months and is unaffected by diurnal fluctuations in steroid concentrations. This study describes a quantitative and highly selective high-resolution mass spectrometry method for the simultaneous analysis of multiple steroids from human scalp hair.

Experiential expertise in the co-development of social and health-care services: Self-promotion and self-dismissal as interactional strategies.

Increasing client involvement in the development of social and health-care services has resulted in clients being invited to present their experiential knowledge in service co-development groups. Nevertheless, research has shown that their opportunities to really contribute to actual decision-making are limited. This article investigates how client representatives initiate turns-at-talk in the decision-making context and the way in which professionals respond to them.

Food web assessments in the Baltic Sea: Models bridging the gap between indicators and policy needs.

Ecosystem-based management requires understanding of food webs. Consequently, assessment of food web status is mandatory according to the European Union's Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) for EU Member States. However, how to best monitor and assess food webs in practise has proven a challenging question.

Food insecurity among Finnish private service sector workers: validity, prevalence and determinants.

Objective: To examine the prevalence and determinants of food insecurity among private sector service workers in Finland and assess validity of the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) tool.

Design: In this cross-sectional study, food insecurity and background characteristics were collected from Finnish private service workers via electronic questionnaires (2019) and national register data (2018-2019). We conducted univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses to determine the variables explaining food insecurity.

Do we eat what we buy? Relative validity of grocery purchase data as an indicator of food consumption in the LoCard study.

The validity of grocery purchase data as an indicator of food consumption is uncertain. This paper investigated (1) the associations between food consumption and grocery purchases using automatically accumulated purchase data and (2) whether the strength of the associations differed in certain sub-populations. The participants filled in a FFQ, and a major Finnish retailer issued us with their loyalty-card holders' grocery purchase data covering the 1- and 12-month periods preceding the FFQ.

Causal Approach to Determining the Environmental Risks of Seabed Mining.

Mineral deposits containing commercially exploitable metals are of interest for seabed mineral extraction in both the deep sea and shallow sea areas. However, the development of seafloor mining is underpinned by high uncertainties on the implementation of the activities and their consequences for the environment. To avoid unbridled expansion of maritime activities, the environmental risks of new types of activities should be carefully evaluated prior to permitting them, yet observational data on the impacts is mostly missing.

Cost-efficiency assessments of marine monitoring methods lack rigor-a systematic mapping of literature and an end-user view on optimal cost-efficiency analysis.

Global deterioration of marine ecosystems, together with increasing pressure to use them, has created a demand for new, more efficient and cost-efficient monitoring tools that enable assessing changes in the status of marine ecosystems. However, demonstrating the cost-efficiency of a monitoring method is not straightforward as there are no generally applicable guidelines. Our study provides a systematic literature mapping of methods and criteria that have been proposed or used since the year 2000 to evaluate the cost-efficiency of marine monitoring methods.

Gaps in current Baltic Sea environmental monitoring - Science versus management perspectives.

Legislations and commitments regulate Baltic Sea status assessments and monitoring. These assessments suffer from monitoring gaps that need prioritization. We used three sources of information; scientific articles, project reports and a stakeholder survey to identify gaps in relation to requirements set by the HELCOM's Baltic Sea Action Plan, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive and the Water Framework Directive.

Bayesian Networks in Environmental Risk Assessment: A Review.

Human activities both depend upon and have consequences on the environment. Environmental risk assessment (ERA) is a process of estimating the probability and consequences of the adverse effects of human activities and other stressors on the environment. Bayesian networks (BNs) can synthesize different types of knowledge and explicitly account for the probabilities of different scenarios, therefore offering a useful tool for ERA.

Being Heard, Exerting Influence, or Knowing How to Play the Game? Expectations of Client Involvement among Social and Health Care Professionals and Clients.

Contemporary social and health care services exhibit a significant movement toward increasing client involvement in their own care and in the development of services. This major cultural change represents a marked shift in the client's role from a passive patient to an active empowered agent. We draw on interaction-oriented focus group research and conversation analysis to study workshop conversations in which social and health care clients and professionals discussed "client involvement".

Grocery purchase data in the study of alcohol use - A validity study.

Background: Alcohol use epidemiology is facing challenges as survey response rates decline. In addition, population surveys fail to capture a large proportion of alcohol consumed and are expensive to conduct. This study aims to aid in complementing traditional epidemiological methods by validate grocery purchase data in the research on population alcohol use.

Caffeine content in newborn hair correlates with maternal dietary intake.

Purpose: High-maternal caffeine intake during pregnancy may be harmful for perinatal outcomes and future child health, but the level of fetal cumulative exposure has been difficult to measure thus far. Here, we present maternal dietary caffeine intake during the last trimester and its correlation to caffeine content in newborn hair after birth.

Methods: Maternal third trimester diets and dietary caffeine intake were prospectively collected in Kuopio Birth Cohort (KuBiCo) using a 160-item food frequency questionnaire (n = 2840).

Alcohol expenditure in grocery stores and their associations with tobacco and food expenditures.

Background: Alcohol consumption is a significant cause of disease, death and social harm, and it clusters with smoking tobacco and an unhealthy diet. Using automatically registered retail data for research purposes is a novel approach, which is not subject to underreporting bias. Based on loyalty card data (LoCard) obtained by a major Finnish retailer holding a market share of 47%, we examined alcohol expenditure and their associations with food and tobacco expenditures.