1,684 results match your criteria: "Barcelona Institute for Global Health[Affiliation]"

Glial reactivity may contribute to sex/gender differences in Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathophysiology. Here, we investigated the differential effect of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) glial markers on AD pathology and neurodegeneration by sex/gender among cognitively unimpaired older adults at increased risk of developing AD. We included 397 participants from the ALFA+ cohort with CSF Aβ, p-tau, sTREM2, YKL40, and GFAP, magnetic resonance imaging-based hippocampal volume (n = 299), and amyloid burden (centiloids) measured with [F] flutemetamol positron emission tomography (n = 341).

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  • Mental health disorders have become a major public health issue, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which revealed gaps in identifying and addressing at-risk populations.
  • * The study developed a machine learning-based risk assessment tool to predict anxiety, depression, and self-perceived stress using data from over 9,200 individuals from Northern Spain, utilizing novel interpretative methods to enhance understanding of risk factors.
  • * Results showed predictive accuracy in identifying high-risk groups, with significant factors like poor health and lack of social support, suggesting that such data-driven strategies could improve mental health interventions in future public health crises.
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Importance: Despite its implementation in several countries, there has not been a randomized clinical trial to assess whether telemedicine in intensive care units (ICUs) could improve clinical outcomes of critically ill patients.

Objective: To determine whether an intervention comprising daily multidisciplinary rounds and monthly audit and feedback meetings performed by a remote board-certified intensivist reduces ICU length of stay (LOS) compared with usual care.

Design, Setting, And Participants: A parallel cluster randomized clinical trial with a baseline period in 30 general ICUs in Brazil in which daily multidisciplinary rounds performed by board-certified intensivists were not routinely available.

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  • * The study involved 162 lonely participants who engaged in a weekly nature-based program for nine weeks, while 157 others received standard care; their health, loneliness, and wellbeing were assessed before and after the intervention.
  • * Results showed a typical participant age of 83, with most dealing with co-morbidities; about 57% of those in the nature program reported reduced loneliness, and 96% would recommend the intervention to others.
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Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) is the most common chronic liver disease worldwide and can progress to serious complications, including metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), cirrhosis, end-stage liver disease, and hepatocellular carcinoma. Predisposing risk factors for MASH include obesity, type 2 diabetes, dyslipidemia, and metabolic syndrome. Patients with MASH often experience significant impairments in their health-related quality of life and other patient-reported outcomes (PROs), particularly in physical functioning domains, fatigue, and vitality.

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Extracellular vesicles as biomarkers in parasitic disease diagnosis.

Curr Top Membr

October 2024

ISGlobal, Barcelona Institute for Global Health, Facultat de Medicina i Ciències de la Salut, Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Barcelona, Spain; IGTP Institut d'Investigació Germans Trias I Pujol, Badalona, Barcelona, Spain; CIBERINFEC, ISCIII-CIBER de Enfermedades Infecciosas, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain. Electronic address:

Parasitic diseases constitute a major global health problem, affecting millions of people worldwide. Recent advances in the study of extracellular vesicles (EVs) have opened up new strategies for biomarker discovery in protozoan and helminth infections. Analyses of EVs in cultures and biological fluids have identified numerous potential biomarkers that could be useful for early and differential diagnosis, monitoring therapeutic responses, and the overall management and control of these diseases.

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Prenatal exposure to ambient air pollution and subsequent risk of lower respiratory tract infections in childhood and adolescence: A systematic review.

Int J Hyg Environ Health

January 2025

Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology & International Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom; Centro de Integração de Dados e Conhecimentos para Saúde (CIDACS), Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Salvador, Brazil.

Background: Pregnancy represents a critical window of vulnerability to the harmful effects of air pollution on health. However, long-term consequences such as risk of having lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs) are less explored. This systematic review aims to synthesize previous research on prenatal exposure to ambient (outdoor) air pollution and LRTIs in childhood and adolescence.

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Development of land use regression, dispersion, and hybrid models for prediction of outdoor air pollution exposure in Barcelona.

Sci Total Environ

December 2024

Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), Barcelona, Spain; Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), Barcelona, Spain; CIBER Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Madrid, Spain.

Background: Air pollution is the leading environmental risk factor for health. Assessing outdoor air pollution exposure with detailed spatial and temporal variability in urban areas is crucial for evaluating its health effects.

Aim: We developed and compared Land Use Regression (LUR), dispersion (DM), and hybrid (HM) models to estimate outdoor concentrations for NO, PM, black carbon (BC), and PM (Fe, Cu, Zn) in Barcelona.

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Interlaboratory Harmonization Study and Prospective Evaluation of the PURE-Trypanosoma cruzi-Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification Assay for Detecting Parasite DNA in Newborn's Dried Blood Spots.

J Mol Diagn

December 2024

Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Genética y Biología Molecular "Dr. Héctor N. Torres" (INGEBI)-Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina. Electronic address:

Article Synopsis
  • The current method for diagnosing Trypanosoma cruzi infections relies on less sensitive microscopy, compelling the need for serological testing for infants born to infected mothers.
  • The new loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) test is an efficient and easy-to-use alternative, showing improved accuracy when combined with a rapid DNA extraction method on dried blood spots.
  • In a study across several South American countries, LAMP demonstrated higher sensitivity for detecting infections in newborns compared to traditional microscopy, aligning well with real-time PCR results.
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Recent advances in data science and urban environmental health research utilise large-scale databases (100s-1000s of cities) to explore the complex interplay of urban characteristics such as city form and size, climate, mobility, exposure, and environmental health impacts. Cities are still hotspots of air pollution and noise, suffer urban heat island effects and lack of green space, which leads to disease and mortality burdens preventable with better knowledge. Better understanding through harmonising and analysing data in large numbers of cities is essential to identifying the most effective means of disease prevention and understanding context dependencies important for policy.

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Background: Azithromycin has been shown to be beneficial in preventing infectious diseases, including malaria, infectious diarrhoea and pneumonia. A cluster randomised control trial on azithromycin MDA in children in Niger, Malawi and Tanzania found a reduction in all-cause under-five (U5) mortality in communities who received azithromycin compared to placebo. However, the reduction was largest and statistically significant only in Niger.

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  • Assessing occupational exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) is complicated due to the variability in exposure levels across different jobs, making it hard to determine health risks accurately.
  • A study compared historical RF-EMF exposure estimates from a job-exposure matrix (RF-JEM) with recent personal measurement data from two countries, finding poor alignment between the two methods indicating that RF-JEM might overestimate exposure.
  • The results emphasize the need for more precise personal measurements in the workplace to improve accuracy in assessing RF-EMF exposure, suggesting a shift towards a semiquantitative job-exposure model to reduce errors.
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Intermittent preventive treatment regimens for malaria in HIV-positive pregnant women.

Cochrane Database Syst Rev

September 2024

Maternal, Child and Reproductive Health Initiative, Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), Hospital Clínic - Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.

Background: Malaria and HIV infection overlap geographically in sub-Saharan Africa and share risk factors. HIV infection increases malaria's severity, especially in pregnant women. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy (IPTp) with sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) for pregnant women living in areas of stable malaria transmission.

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  • - Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are tools that help assess a patient's health at a specific time and are important for personalized healthcare.
  • - The paper reviews the use of visual analog scales (VAS) for measuring asthma and allergic rhinitis control, particularly focusing on the MASK-air app, which includes electronic VAS forms.
  • - A randomized controlled trial was conducted to validate the electronic VAS, and further evaluations confirmed the effectiveness of VAS questions and additional medication scores for allergic asthma symptoms.
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  • - The study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of nature-based interventions (NBIs) in reducing depression, anxiety, and loneliness in pregnant and postpartum women, amidst concerns over maternal and child health outcomes linked to these mental health issues.
  • - A systematic review of studies published before February 2023 identified only three relevant studies that met criteria, involving 68 participants, which suffered from small sample sizes and early-stage designs, making their findings less reliable.
  • - The findings suggest a need for further research with stronger methodologies and standardized measurements to better assess the impact of NBIs, taking into account the diverse needs and circumstances of perinatal populations.
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  • Researchers aimed to validate the Late-Life Function and Disability Instrument (LLFDI) for assessing disability and loss of function specifically in people with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).
  • The study involved 605 COPD patients from six European countries, analyzing LLFDI scores and their correlations with physical functioning, symptoms, and health status.
  • Results showed moderate validation of the LLFDI across various domains, highlighting significant correlations with disease severity and functional limitations but suggesting adjustments for some subdomains.
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Objective: In this discussion paper, we provide a narrative review of past and present occupational cancer studies in the journal with a viewpoint towards future occupational cancer research.

Method: We reviewed all references in the journal that mentioned cancer according to relevance to etiology, cancer type, agent type, study design, and study population.

Results: The Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health has published over 300 manuscripts on occupational cancer over the 50 past years.

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  • * A new community care model was developed, allowing for simplified HCV screening, testing, and treatment via telemedicine across 21 centers, leading to increased patient participation and improved management of HCV cases.
  • * Results from April 2021 to April 2023 showed that a significant portion of participants successfully engaged with the care model, resulting in a high rate of successful treatments and minimal reinfections, highlighting the effectiveness of decentralizing healthcare for PWUD.
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Breast milk is a vital source of nutrients, prebiotics, probiotics, and protective factors, including antibodies, immune cells and antimicrobial proteins. Using bacterial lipopolysaccharide arrays, we investigated the reactivity and specificity of breast milk antibodies towards microbial antigens, comparing samples from rural Kenya and urban Switzerland. Results showed considerable variability in antibody reactivity both within and between these locations.

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  • Trichuris trichiura is a parasitic worm causing intestinal issues, and the typical treatment is albendazole, which works better when combined with ivermectin.
  • This article focuses on developing pharmacokinetic models and understanding how this drug combination works based on data from clinical trials involving healthy adults and infected children and adolescents.
  • Findings showed both drugs had similar absorption characteristics, and the chosen dosages in the trial were deemed suitable for future testing in larger studies.
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Radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF, 100 kHz to 300 GHz) are classified by IARC as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B). This study evaluates the potential association between occupational RF-EMF exposure and brain tumor risk, utilizing for the first time, a RF-EMF job-exposure matrix (RF-JEM) developed in the multi-country INTEROCC case-control study. Cumulative and time-weighted average (TWA) occupational RF-EMF exposures were estimated for study participants based on lifetime job histories linked to the RF-JEM using three different methods: (1) by considering RF-EMF intensity among all exposed jobs, (2) by considering RF-EMF intensity among jobs with an exposure prevalence ≥ the median exposure prevalence of all exposed jobs, and (3) by considering RF-EMF intensity of jobs of participants who reported RF-EMF source use.

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  • Scabies is a common issue in many tropical areas, especially in places with limited resources, but accurate information on its prevalence in Africa is scarce due to diagnostic challenges.
  • The study aimed to test how well minimally trained field-workers could diagnose scabies compared to standard medical assessments after they received basic training.
  • Results showed that these field-workers had a high diagnostic accuracy (94% sensitivity and 96% specificity), indicating they could effectively identify scabies, which can improve public health initiatives and treatment strategies in affected regions.
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Differential biological effect of low doses of ionizing radiation depending on the radiosensitivity in a cell line model.

Int J Radiat Biol

October 2024

Unitat d'Antropologia Biològica, Departament de Biologia Animal, Biologia Vegetal i Ecologia, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Catalonia, Spain.

Purpose: Exposure to low doses (LD) of ionizing radiation (IR), such as the ones employed in computed tomography (CT) examination, can be associated with cancer risk. However, cancer development could depend on individual radiosensitivity. In the present study, we evaluated the differences in the response to a CT-scan radiation dose of 20 mGy in two lymphoblastoid cell lines with different radiosensitivity.

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Soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections account for a significant global health burden, necessitating mass drug administration with benzimidazole-class anthelmintics, such as albendazole (ALB), for morbidity control. However, ALB efficacy shows substantial variability, presenting challenges for achieving consistent treatment outcomes. We have explored the potential impact of the baseline gut microbiota on ALB efficacy in hookworm-infected individuals through microbiota profiling and machine learning (ML) techniques.

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