Climate Change and Health in Urban Areas with a Mediterranean Climate: A Conceptual Framework with a Social and Climate Justice Approach.

The consequences of climate change are becoming increasingly evident and highlight the important interdependence between the well-being of people and ecosystems. Although climate change is a global phenomenon, its causes and consequences vary dramatically across territories and population groups. Among settings particularly susceptible to health impacts from climate change are cities with a Mediterranean climate.

Understanding how alcohol environment influences youth drinking: A concept mapping study among university students.

The aim of the study was to identify the environmental factors that influence alcohol consumption, according to university students, and assess the relative importance and the frequency attributed to each factor. A study using Concept Mapping methodology was performed with a sample of nursing students, who participated in two face-to-face data collection sessions. In session 1, a consensus about the environmental aspects that influence their alcohol consumption was obtained.

[Universal prevention of substance use in school settings: the need for continuous monitoring].

This paper documents the management of two programs for the universal prevention of substance use offered in secondary schools by the public health services of the city of Barcelona, reviewing the period from 1989-1990 to 2016-2017. Both programs had proven effectiveness in evaluations with a comparison group, they are promoted by the public health agency free of cost, and are taught by teachers, using standardized manuals with support materials and training. The coverage achieved over recent years declined from 40% to 25%.

Future intentions and beliefs about roll-your-own cigarettes in adolescents.

Objective: To determine the predisposition to use roll-your-own (RYO) cigarettes and the beliefs about RYO cigarettes of all the students of 3°-4° of ESO during the years 2016-17 and 2018-19. A cross-sectional study.

Setting: Bisaura High School from Sant Quirze de Besora.

[A public health surveillance system applied to climate change for cities].

This paper makes a first proposal for a public health surveillance system for climate change in cities, and describes the process that led to its definition. After several years of monitoring different aspects related to climate change and its impact, the public health services of Barcelona made a preliminary proposal and gathered a working group of experts to discuss and review it. Four categories of components were defined: climate data, health impacts of climate change and its determinants, contributions of the city to mitigation (especially those with health co-benefits), and actions to reduce vulnerability to extreme events.

[Improving the systematization of benchmarking in public health services].

Continuous management improvement should be an aspiration for all public sector organizations. External comparison or benchmarking identifies good practices in similar organizations. For public health services, it is not easy to obtain such indicators.

Temporal relationship between a sudden disruption of a local illicit drug market in a deprived neighborhood of the Barcelona Metropolitan Area and the number of discarded syringes collected from public space.

Background: The objective of this study was to describe the temporal relationship between an illicit drug market abrupt disruption and the number of discarded syringes collected from public space in Barcelona.

Methods: The monthly number of discarded syringes collected and interrupted time-series analyses were used to analyze changes and trends from January 2014 to December 2017, before and after an illicit drug market disruption comparing three different areas of the city: intervened (A) and not intervened (B) high trafficking areas and, as a reference, a low trafficking area (C).

Results: After the disruption, a decrease in the average number of syringes collected in area A was observed, although the trend was not significant (p value 0.

[Policies to prevent the harm caused by alcohol: priorities for Spain.].

This paper presents a strategic analysis of the prevention of the harm caused by alcohol in Spain. The alcohol action plan of the European Office of the WHO offers a guide for the development of the most effective control policies. Following its scheme, the current situation and the prevention policies are reviewed with data available in 2020.

[Prevalence of binge drinking among high school students and urban contextual factors.].

Objective: Many teenagers experiment with addictive substances such as alcohol. The objective of this study was to estimate the frequency of binge drinking among secondary school students and its relationship with sex, grade, and type of school, as well as with urban contextual factors of the school neighborhood: socioeconomic level, density of alcohol outlet premises, and tourist pressure.

Methods: This was an observational cross-sectional study.

Assessing the association between tourism and the alcohol urban environment in Barcelona: a cross-sectional study.

Objectives: Alcohol availability and promotion are not distributed equally in the urban context. Evidence shows that the socioeconomic level seems to influence the amount of alcohol-related elements in an area. Some studies suggest that tourism could also affect the distribution of these elements.

Community-Based Interventions to Reduce Alcohol Consumption and Alcohol-Related Harm in Adults.

Alcohol consumption was associated with 3 million deaths worldwide in 2016. Although community action has proven to be effective and has become a priority area of the global strategy to reduce alcohol consumption, there is a gap in the knowledge of community interventions to reduce alcohol use among adults. This study aims to analyze the evidence on effective community-based interventions to reduce alcohol consumption and harm among adults and to identify their components and underlying theories.

Availability and promotion of alcohol across different outlet typologies and under different area-level socioeconomic status.

We aimed to characterize the availability and promotion of alcohol at alcohol outlets in Madrid and to compare them according to type of outlet and area-level socioeconomic status. We used the OHCITIES instrument to characterise the alcohol outlets in 42 census tracts of Madrid in 2016. We specified alcohol availability as the density of alcohol outlets and the number of alcohol outlets with extended opening hours (12 or more).

[The gambling industry: a public health perspective.].

Objective: Gambling may cause a variety of problems, both health and social, to the player, his family and his environment; Problems can be more serious for those who gamble more frequently or bet more money. Beyond the mental health gambling disorder and considering other harms derived from gambling, it is possible to develop a public health approach to the issue, including both prevention and harm reduction aspects. In recent decades gambling availability has expanded, with attempts at regulation.

Impact of a community contraceptive counselling intervention on adolescent fertility rates: a quasi-experimental study.

Background: From 2000 to 2008, in urban areas in Spain, adolescent fertility and abortion rates underwent unprecedented increases, consecutive to intensive immigration from developing countries. To address unmet needs for contraception information and services, a community-based, gender-sensitive and culturally adapted brief counselling intervention (SIRIAN program) was launched in some deprived neighbourhoods with a high proportion of immigrants in Barcelona. Once a randomized controlled trial demonstrated its effectiveness in increasing the use of contraceptives, we aim to examine its population impact on adolescent fertility rates.

[Smoking control in Spain: current situation and priorities].

This paper presents a strategic analysis of the prevention of smoking in Spain. After a review of the situation of the epidemic and of the current prevention policies with the data available in 2019, it identifies the main problems to improve the prevention of smoking, while proposing strategies and key actions for the future. Considering as major objectives reducing the initiation of smoking and helping smokers quit, the different strategies of action and the key actions to be developed.

[Local public health services: a descriptive study of the municipalities of Catalonia in 2016].

Objective: The health system in Spain rests mostly in the Autonomous Communities (similar to the states in the US). The public health activities of many local governments are little studied. The objective of this work was to bring knowledge about the public health activities of the municipalities, providing information obtained from a recent survey in Catalonia.

[Public health services: reading their available reports].

The objective of this study is to analyze the performance of regional public health services in Spain using the information accessible in their annual reports. A search of these was conducted, and 9 were obtained from the 17 Autonomous Communities. Their analysis shows some variation in the structure of the organizations providing public health services, as well as in the published contents and in the indicators used for management.

A population based perspective of twenty years of specialized ambulatory treatment for alcohol use disorders in publicly financed clinics. Barcelona 1996-2015.

Objective: To provide information on persons treated for alcohol use disorders (AUD) over 20 years in a large city in a Southern European country and its trends, adding knowledge on the frequency of treatment from a population perspective.

Methods: This is a study of the number of annual admissions to ambulatory addiction treatment centers funded by the public sector in Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain) for the years 1996-2015. Descriptive analyses of AUD admissions were conducted, comparing changes in the number of patients entering treatment by different independent variables across periods.

[Improving the control of food allergy and intolerance risks in school settings: qualitative inputs from focus groups].

This paper describes the use of focus groups as part of the evaluation of programmes to control food allergy and intolerance (FAI) in school settings in the city of Barcelona (Spain). After fostering their adoption and as a qualitative component of their evaluation, the public health services ran two focus groups, one with people from schools that manage their own kitchen, and another from companies that outsource this service. There were 28 participants from 46% of the centres invited.

The urban environment of alcohol: a study on the availability, promotion and visibility of its use in the neighborhoods of Barcelona.

Introduction: This paper describes the presence of alcohol in the public space, assessing establishments that offer it, its advertising, and signs of consumption, as factors that may influence its consumption.

Method: Descriptive observational study based on cluster sampling with two-step selection. Results are described, and the spatial association between variables is assessed.

Development and evaluation of the OHCITIES instrument: assessing alcohol urban environments in the Heart Healthy Hoods project.

Objectives: To describe the development and test-retest reliability of OHCITIES, an instrument characterising alcohol urban environment in terms of availability, promotion and signs of consumption.

Design: This study involved: (1) developing the conceptual framework for alcohol urban environment by means of literature reviewing and previous alcohol environment research experience; (2) pilot testing and redesigning the instrument; (3) instrument digitalisation; (4) instrument evaluation using test-retest reliability.

Setting: Data for testing the reliability of the instrument were collected in seven census sections in Madrid in 2016 by two observers.

Alcohol in the city: wherever and whenever.

Alcohol urban environment has been associated with individual alcohol behaviors. We are constantly exposed to a wide variety of alcohol products, its marketing and promotion and signs of alcohol consumption that may influence alcohol-drinking behaviors. In this photo-essay, we include photographs that visually explain the exposure to alcohol in the urban streetscape of Madrid.

Binge drinking and well-being in European older adults: do gender and region matter?

Background: We aimed to describe gender and region differences in the prevalence of binge drinking and in the association between binge drinking and well-being, among older adult Europeans.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study using the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) wave 4, conducted between 2011 and 2012, including 58 489 individuals aged 50 years or older. Sixteen European countries were grouped in four drinking culture regions: South, Central, North and East.