Promoting Respectful Maternity Care by Reducing Unnecessary Episiotomies: Experiences from Centers of Excellence for Breastfeeding in Vietnam.

(1) Background: Routine episiotomy is not recommended by international guidelines; however, it occurs at a high rate in Vietnam. (2) Methods: A process to reduce unnecessary episiotomies was developed and implemented as part of the Centers of Excellence for Breastfeeding initiative, which aims to deliver high-quality breastfeeding and early essential newborn care services within a supportive policy environment. The aim of this project report is to outline the steps undertaken to reduce episiotomies, the experience in pilot hospitals, and the process towards changing policy.

Community-Based Knowledge Translation Strategies for Maternal, Neonatal, and Perinatal Outcomes: A Systematic Review of Quantitative and Qualitative Data.

To identify and assess the effect of community-based Knowledge Translation Strategies (KTS) on maternal, neonatal, and perinatal outcomes. We conducted systematic searches in Medline, Embase, CENTRAL, CINAHL, PsycInfo, LILACS, Wholis, Web of Science, ERIC, Jstor, and Epistemonikos. We assessed the certainty of the evidence of the studies using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) framework.

IVF-induced pregnancy and early motherhood among women with a history of severe eating disorders.

Background: There is a higher prevalence of eating disorders among women seeking fertilization (IVF). Women with a history of eating disorders may be particularly vulnerable to eating disorder relapse during IVF, pregnancy, and early motherhood. The experience of these women during this process has hardly been studied scientifically, despite its high clinical relevance.

Vaping among Norwegians who smoke or formerly smoked: reasons, patterns of use, and smoking cessation activity.

Background: The majority of Norwegians who use e-cigarettes are adults who have smoked. Little is known about vaping reasons and -patterns in this group. The aim of this paper was to study vaping prevalence, patterns, and motivations among adults who smoke.

Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy; can it be used as a rapid typing method of Neisseria gonorrhoeae?

Background: Typing of Neisseria gonorrhoeae is necessary for epidemiologic surveillance, while time consuming and resource intensive. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy has shown promising results when typing several bacterial species. This study investigates whether FTIR spectroscopy can be used as a rapid method for typing clinical N.

Hepatitis E Virus (HEV) Synopsis: General Aspects and Focus on Bangladesh.

HEV is the most common cause of acute hepatitis globally. This review summarizes the latest knowledge on the epidemiology, clinical characteristics, testing, and treatment of HEV infection. We also focused on Bangladesh to highlight the distinct challenges and the possible remedies.

A new automated national register-based surveillance system for outbreaks in long-term care facilities in Norway detected three times more severe acute respiratory coronavirus virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) clusters than traditional methods.

Objective: To develop and test a new automated surveillance system that can detect, define and characterize infection clusters, including coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), in long-term care facilities (LTCFs) in Norway by combining existing national register data.

Background: The numerous outbreaks in LTCFs during the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for accurate and timely outbreak surveillance. As traditional methods were inadequate, we used severe acute respiratory coronavirus virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) as a model to test automated surveillance.

PFAS levels and exposure determinants in sensitive population groups.

Background: Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are persistent organic pollutants. The first exposure to PFAS occurs in utero, after birth it continues via breast milk, food intake, environment, and consumer products that contain these chemicals. Our aim was to identify determinants of PFAS concentrations in sensitive population subgroups- pregnant women and newborns.

Approaches to mixture risk assessment of PFASs in the European population based on human hazard and biomonitoring data.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are a highly persistent, mobile, and bioaccumulative class of chemicals, of which emissions into the environment result in long-lasting contamination with high probability for causing adverse effects to human health and the environment. Within the European Biomonitoring Initiative HBM4EU, samples and data were collected in a harmonized way from human biomonitoring (HBM) studies in Europe to derive current exposure data across a geographic spread. We performed mixture risk assessments based on recent internal exposure data of PFASs in European teenagers generated in the HBM4EU Aligned Studies (dataset with N = 1957, sampling years 2014-2021).

From science to policy: How European HBM indicators help to answer policy questions related to phthalates and DINCH exposure.

Within the European Human Biomonitoring (HBM) Initiative HBM4EU we derived HBM indicators that were designed to help answering key policy questions and support chemical policies. The result indicators convey information on chemicals exposure of different age groups, sexes, geographical regions and time points by comparing median exposure values. If differences are observed for one group or the other, policy measures or risk management options can be implemented.

DNA methylation and general psychopathology in childhood: an epigenome-wide meta-analysis from the PACE consortium.

The general psychopathology factor (GPF) has been proposed as a way to capture variance shared between psychiatric symptoms. Despite a growing body of evidence showing both genetic and environmental influences on GPF, the biological mechanisms underlying these influences remain unclear. In the current study, we conducted epigenome-wide meta-analyses to identify both probe- and region-level associations of DNA methylation (DNAm) with school-age general psychopathology in six cohorts from the Pregnancy And Childhood Epigenetics (PACE) Consortium.

Bodies out of control: Relapse and worsening of eating disorders in pregnancy.

Background: Being pregnant is a vulnerable period for women with a history of eating disorders. A central issue in eating disorders is searching control of one's body and food preferences. Pregnancy implies being increasingly out of control of this.

Health characteristics associated with chemsex among men who have sex with men: Results from a cross-sectional clinic survey in Norway.

Background: Chemsex typically involves drugs such as GHB/GBL, crystal meth and mephedrone, and is increasingly common among MSM. The behaviour has been found to be associated with sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and mental health problems. We aimed to assess the extent of chemsex engagement and associations with different aspects of health, among MSM attending a free specialist walk-in clinic for STIs in Oslo, Norway.

COVID-19 vaccination rates among healthcare workers by immigrant background: A nation-wide registry study from Norway.

Aims: Studies have suggested that some minority groups tend to have lower vaccination rates than the overall population. This study aims to examine COVID-19 vaccination rates among healthcare workers in Norway, according to immigrant background.

Methods: We used individual-level, nation-wide registry data from Norway to identify all healthcare workers employed full time at 1 December 2020.

Subjective Well-Being Among Unaccompanied Refugee Youth: Longitudinal Associations With Discrimination and Ethnic Identity Crisis.

Unaccompanied refugee youth (URY), who as children fled their countries to seek asylum in a foreign country without the company of an adult legal caretaker are described as being in a vulnerable situation. Many of them struggle with mental reactions to traumatic events experienced pre-migration, and to the daily hassles they face after being granted asylum and residence. Despite continuous high levels of mental health problems URY demonstrate remarkable agency and social mobility in the years after being granted asylum in their destination countries.

Effectiveness of environmental surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 as an early warning system during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review.

Since infected persons shed SARS-CoV-2 in faeces before symptoms appear, environmental surveillance (ES) may serve as an early warning system (EWS) for COVID-19 and new variants of concern. The ES of SARS-CoV-2 has been widely reviewed; however, its effectiveness as an EWS for SARS-CoV-2 in terms of timeliness, sensitivity and specificity has not been systematically assessed. We conducted a systematic review to identify and synthesise evidence on the ES of SARS-CoV-2 as an EWS to evaluate the added value for public health.

COVID-19 Information-Seeking, Health Literacy, and Worry and Anxiety During the Early Stage of the Pandemic in Switzerland: A Cross-Sectional Study.

To describe COVID-19 information-seeking behavior (CISB) during the first stage of the pandemic in Switzerland and identify its determinants. We conducted an online cross-sectional survey (4 May to 6 July 2020). Participants self-reported their CISB (information sources and frequency), personal COVID-19 situation (e.

Estimation of COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation in individuals aged ≥ 65 years using electronic health registries; a pilot study in four EU/EEA countries, October 2021 to March 2022.

By employing a common protocol and data from electronic health registries in Denmark, Navarre (Spain), Norway and Portugal, we estimated vaccine effectiveness (VE) against hospitalisation due to COVID-19 in individuals aged ≥ 65 years old, without previous documented infection, between October 2021 and March 2022. VE was higher in 65-79-year-olds compared with ≥ 80-year-olds and in those who received a booster compared with those who were primary vaccinated. VE remained high (ca 80%) between ≥ 12 and < 24 weeks after the first booster administration, and after Omicron became dominant.

Developmental neurotoxicity of acrylamide and its metabolite glycidamide in a human mixed culture of neurons and astrocytes undergoing differentiation in concentrations relevant for human exposure.

Neural stem cells (NSCs) derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells were used to investigate effects of exposure to the food contaminant acrylamide (AA) and its main metabolite glycidamide (GA) on key neurodevelopmental processes. Diet is an important source of human AA exposure for pregnant women, and AA is known to pass the placenta and the newborn may also be exposed through breast feeding after birth. The NSCs were exposed to AA and GA (1 ×10 - 3 ×10 M) under 7 days of proliferation and up to 28 days of differentiation towards a mixed culture of neurons and astrocytes.

Simulation and identification of foodborne outbreaks in a large supermarket consumer purchase dataset.

Foodborne outbreaks represent a significant public health burden. Outbreak investigations are often challenging and time-consuming, and most outbreak vehicles remain unidentified. The development of alternative investigative strategies is therefore needed.

Prevalence of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 in the Norwegian population, August 2021.

Background: One year into the COVID-19 pandemic, the cumulative number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Norway was still low. In January 2021, when the Norwegian COVID-19 vaccination campaign started, the national seroprevalence estimate of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies was 3.2%.

EUnetHTA relative effectiveness assessments: efforts to increase usability, transparency and inclusiveness.

Objectives: The objective of the European Network for Health Technology Assessment (EUnetHTA) Joint Action 3 (JA3) was to develop a sustainable European model for future collaboration on HTA, by reducing duplication in HTA production and increasing patient access to health technologies. Compared to the previous JA2, several procedural changes were made aiming to increase usability, transparency, and inclusiveness of relative effectiveness assessments (REAs). This article presents and highlights these changes, explains their rationale as well as their influence on HTA production.

Parents' age at birth and daughters' time to pregnancy: a study within the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort.

Study Question: Is parents' age at birth associated with daughters' fecundability?

Summary Answer: Daughters born to mothers <25 years or fathers ≥35 years had slightly lower fecundability.

What Is Known Already: Two recent studies reported lower fecundability in women born to mothers <20 years, which may be partly due to daughters of young mothers being less likely to plan their pregnancies.

Study Design, Size, Duration: A retrospective cohort study of 58 496 pregnancy planners (4290 of whom conceived with treatment) and 14 194 non-planners enrolled in the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) between 2000 and 2008, linked with the Medical Birth Registry of Norway.