[Passive smoking: clinical aspects and workers' awareness].

Tobacco smoke contains a wide range of toxic vapors and particles which when inhaled are injurious both to the smoker himself (active smoking) and to those around him (passive smoking). It is extremely difficult to define precisely the harmful effects of passive smoking on the individual's health because of problems in quantifying the extent of exposure. A number of epidemiological studies indicate that exposure to passive smoking in public places is circumstantially, but marginally, linked to cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, as well as to pulmonary morbidity.

Association of serum lipoproteins and health-related habits with coffee and tea consumption in free-living subjects examined in the Israeli CORDIS Study.

Background: A positive association between coffee consumption and serum cholesterol levels has been demonstrated and recent results indicate that this may be due to a lipid-rich fraction present mainly in boiled coffee. The possible effects of tea consumption are less clear, although evidence has been presented which suggests that tea drinkers have lower cholesterol levels. The associations between serum lipids and lipoproteins and coffee and tea consumption were examined in the Israel CORDIS study.

Past and present smoking behaviour and its association with health-related habits in selected Israeli working populations. The Cordis Study.

Comprehensive surveys on the characteristics of smokers provide important data for the targeting and monitoring of smoking cessation programmes, and making international comparisons. Current information on this subject in Israel is very limited. During 1985-1987, the prevalence and correlates of cigarette smoking were examined in 5281 employees in Israeli industry, screened in the framework of the CORDIS study.

Differences in the prevalence of hypertension by ethnic origin and age at immigration in a cohort of 5,146 Israelis.

Marked ethnic differences in hypertension prevalence have been described in Jewish immigrants to Israel. The extent to which this phenomenon has persisted after a long period of living in the same country, and whether native-born descendants exhibit similar patterns, is not clear. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of hypertension in immigrants to Israel and native-born Israelis by region of origin and age at immigration.

Acceptance of disability, work involvement and subjective rehabilitation status of traumatic brain-injured (TBI) patients.

A follow-up of 78 TBI patients one to two years after discharge from rehabilitation hospital supported hypothesized correspondence between work involvement and subjective rehabilitation status (SRS). Subjective rehabilitation was defined as the gratification of basic needs: physical well-being, emotional security, and family, social, economic, and vocational needs. Highest SRS was found among patients employed in the open market.

Frequency selectivity as a potential measure of noise damage susceptibility.

The notched-noise procedure of Patterson (1974, Journal of the Accoustical Society of America, 55, 802-809; 1976, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 59, 640-654) was employed in revealing changes in auditory frequency selectivity (FS) in noise-exposed industrial workers in manufacturing plants in which noise levels in the working environment exceeded 90 dB(A). With 4 kHz as the test frequency, both threshold and FS measures were applied to three groups of non-exposed young adults (total N = 61) for reference values and to workers in three different factories, some ('noise-exposed') working in noise levels over 90 dB(A) (total N = 222). In another study involving 185 workers only the FS test was repeated after a work session, and the results are reported on 31 who worked in high noise levels.

Does work with visual display units impair visual activities after work?

It is well established that visual display unit (VDU) operators complain of visual fatigue and visual stress during after-work hours. The present study was divided into two parts. In the first part, standard eye examinations were performed on a group of VDU workers (n = 32) and a control group (n = 15); those subjects who were found to have correct vision (n = 16 and 13, respectively) participated in the second part.

Burnout and risk factors for cardiovascular diseases.

The burnout syndrome denotes a constellation of physical fatigue, emotional exhaustion, and cognitive weariness resulting from chronic stress. Although it overlaps considerably with chronic fatigue as defined in internal medicine, its links with physical illness have not been systematically investigated. This exploratory study, conducted among 104 male workers free from cardiovascular disease (CVD), tested the association between burnout and two of its common concomitants--tension and listlessness--and cardiovascular risk factors.

Blood pressure and serum cholesterol among male Ethiopian immigrants compared to other Israelis.

Study Objective: The aim was to determine the effect of migration from a non-industrialised to an industrialised society on age related changes in blood pressure and serum cholesterol.

Design: The study was a comparison of major risk factors for cardiovascular disease in cross sectional surveys in two groups: Ethiopian immigrants and Israeli industrial employees.

Setting: Ethiopian immigrants were examined at Army induction centres in Israel; industrial employees were examined in the course of a national Israeli study on occupational risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

Industrial noise exposure and ambulatory blood pressure and heart rate.

Studies on the effects of long-term exposure to industrial noise on resting blood pressure have yielded inconsistent results. Ambulatory blood pressure and heart rate were monitored simultaneously with noise exposure in normotensive male industrial workers in Israel (85 aged 25 to 44 and 77 aged 45 to 65 years). In the younger group, average ambulatory systolic blood pressure was 3.

Association of silent ST-segment depression on one-hour ambulatory ECGs with exposure to industrial noise among blue-collar workers in Israel examined at different levels of ambient temperature--the CORDIS Study.

Background: Epidemiologic studies on the effects of ambient temperature or industrial noise on the cardiovascular system have usually focused on blood pressure. However, the ambulatory ECG may be a sensitive instrument for evaluating transient changes in the myocardium associated with exposure to such environmental stressors. In particular, the presence of silent ST-segment depression would strongly suggest transient myocardial ischemia.

Saccadic tracking of a periodic target motion in the cat.

Cats were tested for their ability to follow a dot target which periodically jumps horizontally from side to side. They can learn to perform saccadic tracking of various stimulus frequencies, and often they produce saccades predicting the target displacements. The preferred stimulus frequency for response to synchronize was in the 0.

Applying a model of saccadic prediction to patients' saccadic eye movements.

A mathematical model of eye tracking of periodic square wave target motion has previously been proposed. In this work the model was further studied with regard to saccadic response time to symmetrical square wave target motion in 6 patients with unilateral parietal lesions following cerebrovascular accidents. Three types of saccadic response time were noted.

Temporal characteristics of tapping responses in healthy subjects and in patients who sustained cerebrovascular accident.

Tapping responses were recorded in a group of patients who sustained lesions from cerebrovascular accidents and from an age-matched group of healthy subjects. In each experiment the stimuli were an auditory signal, a flash, or a light touch on the arm, delivered either at random intervals or at fixed time intervals of 1, 2, 3, or 4 s. The tapping response was done with each hand separately (first experiment) or with each hand alternately (second experiment).

Evaluating the discriminatory power of a multiple logistic regression model.

Various measures for estimating the goodness-of-fit of the multiple logistic regression (MLR) model have been suggested, although there is no clear consensus as to which measure is most suitable. In this paper, a simple measure of the discriminatory power of the fitted MLR model, based on maximization of Youden's J index (J*), is proposed and compared with several goodness-of-fit statistics described previously. The relative effectiveness of the measure is illustrated using data from the Lipid Research Clinics Prevalence Study.

Interrelationships between blood pressure, serum calcium and other biochemical variables.

The association of serum calcium with blood pressure (BP), was examined in a group of 727 male industrial workers aged 20-69 in Israel, who underwent screening for risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Serum calcium was found to be significantly correlated with systolic BP (r = 0.18, p less than 0.