Excess mortality among the elderly in 12 European countries, February and March 2012

In February and March 2012, excess deaths among the elderly have been observed in 12 European countries that carry out weekly monitoring of all-cause mortality. These preliminary data indicate that the impact of influenza in Europe differs from the recent pandemic and post-pandemic seasons. The current excess mortality among the elderly may be related to the return of influenza A(H3N2) virus, potentially with added effects of a cold snap

Pooling European all-cause mortality: methodology and findings for the seasons 2008/2009 to 2010/2011

Several European countries have timely all-cause mortality monitoring. However, small changes in mortality may not give rise to signals at the national level. Pooling data across countries may overcome this, particularly if changes in mortality occur simultaneously. Additionally, pooling may increase the power of monitoring populations with small numbers of expected deaths, e.g. younger age groups or fertile women. Finally, pooled analyses may reveal patterns of diseases across Europe. We describe a pooled analysis of all-cause mortality across 16 European countries. Two approaches were explored. In the ‘summarized' approach, data across countries were summarized and analysed as one overall country. In the ‘stratified' approach, heterogeneities between countries were taken into account. Pooling using the ‘stratified' approach was the most appropriate as it reflects variations in mortality. Excess mortality was observed in all winter seasons albeit slightly higher in 2008/09 than 2009/10 and 2010/11. In the 2008/09 season, excess mortality was mainly in elderly adults. In 2009/10, when pandemic influenza A(H1N1) dominated, excess mortality was mainly in children. The 2010/11 season reflected a similar pattern, although increased mortality in children came later. These patterns were less clear in analyses based on data from individual countries. We have demonstrated that with stratified pooling we can combine local mortality monitoring systems and enhance monitoring of mortality across Europ

Jornal de Pediatria The preceptor in pediatric residency programs: main attributes

Abstract Objective: to analyze the profile of preceptors and the attributes they consider important for the exercise of that activity in two pediatric residency programs in Rio de Janeiro. Methods: a questionnaire answered by the preceptors of two pediatric residency programs in Rio de Janeiro (one of them a university hospital) was used to collect information on gender, age, time since graduation, time working as preceptors, academic degrees, specific training in teaching, and on the attributes (up to five) that they believed a good preceptor should have. Results: of the 90 participants, 70% were women; 74% were between 30 and 49 years of age; 87% had graduated between 10 and 29 years earlier. Half reported that they did not have any specific training in teaching. The other half had attended courses on medical pedagogy and special didactics as part of their graduate studies. The most frequently cited attributes were: mentorship, focus on ethics and humanism, command of the field, ability to continue learning, and didactic skills. Conclusion: the preceptors interviewed underscored the challenges of preceptorship, an activity based on the practice of medicine and guided by professional responsibility, human relationships, organizational skills, assessment skills, and command of the field, in addition to ethical and humanistic principles and ability to continue learning. They felt, however, the need for further didactic training

Beyond funds raised: how public displays of compassion manifest in crowdfunding campaigns

Crowdfunding enables the organizing of support for victims of a tragedy from a wide range of sources. While this support can be financial and non-financial, we know relatively little about the non-financial support donors provide. Donors’ words can have substantial positive and negative effects on sufferers; however, donors are also often limited in the extent to which they can provide relevant support due to unfamiliarity with sufferers’ lives. Therefore, it is important to investigate the messages donors leave on campaign pages. In this inductive study, we investigate online responses to a school shooting to explain how donors’ responses to charitable crowdfunding campaigns manifest. The emergent crowdfunding model of public displays of compassion suggests two core types of responses depending on the nature of the public appeal. Our insights extend the boundaries of the theory on charitable crowdfunding by illustrating the benefits of relaxing implicit assumptions regarding the nature of value creation and the uniformity of donor responses

Toekomsten voor investeren in publieke ruimte

status: publishe

Effects of light on cognitive brain responses depend on circadian phase and sleep homeostasis.

Light is a powerful modulator of cognition through its long-term effects on circadian rhythmicity and direct effects on brain function as identified by neuroimaging. How the direct impact of light on brain function varies with wavelength of light, circadian phase, and sleep homeostasis, and how this differs between individuals, is a largely unexplored area. Using functional MRI, we compared the effects of 1 minute of low-intensity blue (473 nm) and green light (527 nm) exposures on brain responses to an auditory working memory task while varying circadian phase and status of the sleep homeostat. Data were collected in 27 subjects genotyped for the PER3 VNTR (12 PER3(5/5) and 15 PER3(4/4) ) in whom it was previously shown that the brain responses to this task, when conducted in darkness, depend on circadian phase, sleep homeostasis, and genotype. In the morning after sleep, blue light, relative to green light, increased brain responses primarily in the ventrolateral and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and in the intraparietal sulcus, but only in PER3(4/4) individuals. By contrast, in the morning after sleep loss, blue light increased brain responses in a left thalamofrontoparietal circuit to a larger extent than green light, and only so in PER3(5/5) individuals. In the evening wake maintenance zone following a normal waking day, no differential effect of 1 minute of blue versus green light was observed in either genotype. Comparison of the current results with the findings observed in darkness indicates that light acts as an activating agent particularly under those circumstances in which and in those individuals in whom brain function is jeopardized by an adverse circadian phase and high homeostatic sleep pressure