Estimating the prevalence of sexual function problems: the impact of morbidity criteria

Establishing the clinical significance of symptoms of sexual dysfunction is challenging. To address this, the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) introduced two new morbidity criteria (duration and symptom severity) to the existing criteria of distress. This study sought to establish the impact of these three criteria on the population prevalence of sexual function problems. The data come from a national probability survey (Natsal-3) and are based on 11,509 male and female participants aged 16–74, reporting at least one sexual partner in the past year. The key outcomes were: proportion of individuals reporting proxy measures of DSM-5 problems, and the proportion of those meeting morbidity criteria. We found that among sexually active men, the prevalence of reporting one or more of four specific sexual problems was 38.2%, but 4.2% after applying the three morbidity criteria; corresponding figures for women reporting one or more of three specific sexual problems, were 22.8% and 3.6%. Just over a third of men and women reporting a problem meeting all three morbidity criteria had sought help in the last year. We conclude that the DSM-5 morbidity criteria impose a focus on clinically significant symptom

COMPARTIR DATOS DE BIODIVERSIDAD A TRAVÉS DE GBIF COLOMBIA: Una invitación al sector empresarial

La infraestructura Global de Información en Biodiversidad (GBIF) es la red de datos sobre biodiversidad más grande del mundo. Como infraestructura internacional de datos abiertos, permite que cualquier persona pueda acceder, compartir y utilizar información sobre las especies de nuestro planetaBogoáSiB Colombi

Publishing data to support the fight against human vector-borne diseases

Vector-borne diseases are responsible for more than 17% of human cases of infectious diseases. In most situations, effective control of debilitating and deadly vector-bone diseases (VBDs), such as malaria, dengue, chikungunya, yellow fever, Zika and Chagas requires up-to-date, robust and comprehensive information on the presence, diversity, ecology, bionomics and geographic spread of the organisms that carry and transmit the infectious agents. Huge gaps exist in the information related to these vectors, creating an essential need for campaigns to mobilise and share data. The publication of data papers is an effective tool for overcoming this challenge. These peer-reviewed articles provide scholarly credit for researchers whose vital work of assembling and publishing well-described, properly-formatted datasets often fails to receive appropriate recognition. To address this, GigaScience 's sister journal GigaByte partnered with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) to publish a series of data papers, with support from the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR), hosted by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Here we outline the initial results of this targeted approach to sharing data and describe its importance for controlling VBDs and improving public health

Changes in conceptions in women younger than 18 years and the circumstances of young mothers in England in 2000–12: an observational study

BACKGROUND: In 2000, a 10-year Teenage Pregnancy Strategy was launched in England to reduce conceptions in women younger than 18 years and social exclusion in young parents. We used routinely collected data and data from Britain's National Surveys of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal) to examine progress towards these goals. METHODS: In this observational study, we used random-effects meta-regression to analyse the change in conception rates from 1994-98 to 2009-13 by top-tier local authorities in England, in relation to Teenage Pregnancy Strategy-related expenditure per head, socioeconomic deprivation, and region. Data from similar probability sample surveys: Natsal-1 (1990-91), Natsal-2 (1999-2001), and Natsal-3 (2010-12) were used to assess the prevalence of risk factors and their association with conception in women younger than 18 years in women aged 18-24 years; and the prevalence of participation in education, work, and training in young mothers. FINDINGS: Conception rates in women younger than 18 years declined steadily from their peak in 1996-98 and more rapidly from 2007 onwards. More deprived areas and those receiving greater Teenage Pregnancy Strategy-related investment had higher rates of conception in 1994-98 and had greater declines to 2009-13. Regression analyses assessing the association between Teenage Pregnancy Strategy funding and decline in conception rates in women younger than 18 years showed an estimated reduction in the conception rate of 11.4 conceptions (95% CI 9.6-13.2; p<0.0001) per 1000 women aged 15-17 years for every £100 Teenage Pregnancy Strategy spend per head and a reduction of 8.2 conceptions (5.8-10.5; p<0.0001) after adjustment for socioeconomic deprivation and region. The association between conception in women younger than 18 years and lower socioeconomic status weakened slightly between Natsal-2 and Natsal-3. The prevalence of participation in education, work, or training among young women with a child conceived before age 18 years was low, but the odds of them doing so doubled between Natsal-2 and Natsal-3 (odds ratio 1.99, 95% CI 0.99-4.00). INTERPRETATION: A sustained, multifaceted policy intervention involving health and education agencies, alongside other social and educational changes, has probably contributed to a substantial and accelerating decline in conceptions in women younger than 18 years in England since the late 1990s. FUNDING: Medical Research Council, Wellcome Trust, Economic and Social Research Council, and Department of Health

On natural history collections, digitized and not: a response to Ferro and Flick

Ferro and Flick (2015) describe their efforts to estimate the distribution for a species of rove beetle via the study of specimens from entomological collections, and compare these results to digitally accessible open data. Their study provides an informed and accurate case study that contrasts targeted data capture with generalized public repositories of digital specimen data. However, we feel the conclusions on how global biodiversity data aggregation and publication work require clarification and correction of common misconceptions that we believe will interest those concerned with the future of natural history collections and taxonomy

Sexual function in Britain: findings from the third National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal-3).

BACKGROUND: Despite its importance to sexual health and wellbeing, sexual function is given little attention in sexual health policy. Population-based studies are needed to understand sexual function across the life course. METHODS: We undertook a probability sample survey (the third National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles [Natsal-3]) of 15,162 individuals aged 16-74 years who lived in Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales). Interviews were done between Sept 6, 2010, and Aug 31, 2012. We assessed the distribution of sexual function by use of a novel validated measure (the Natsal-SF), which assessed problems with individual sexual response, sexual function in a relationship context, and self-appraisal of sex life (17 items; 16 items per gender). We assess factors associated with low sexual function (defined as the lowest quintile of distribution of Natsal-SF scores) and the distribution of components of the measure. Participants reporting one or more sexual partner in the past year were given a score on the Natsal-SF (11,690 participants). 4122 of these participants were not in a relationship for all of the past year and we employed the full information maximum likelihood method to handle missing data on four relationship items. FINDINGS: We obtained data for 4913 men and 6777 women for the Natsal-SF. For men and women, low sexual function was associated with increased age, and, after age-adjustment, with depression (adjusted odds ratio 3·70 [95% CI 2·90-4·72] for men and 4·11 [3·36-5·04] for women) and self-reported poor health status (2·63 [1·73-3·98] and 2·41 [1·72-3·39]). Low sexual function was also associated with experiencing the end of a relationship (1·52 [1·18-1·95] and 1·77 [1·44-2·17]), inability to talk easily about sex with a partner (2·36 [1·94-2·88] and 2·82 [2·28-3·48]), and not being happy in the relationship (2·89 [2·32-3·61] and 4·10 [3·39-4·97]). Associations were also noted with engaging in fewer than four sex acts in the past 4 weeks (3·13 [2·58-3·79] and 3·38 [2·80-4·09]), having had same sex partners (2·28 [1·56-3·35] and 1·60 [1·16-2·20]), paying for sex (in men only; 2·62 [1·46-4·71]), and higher numbers of lifetime sexual partners (in women only; 2·12 [1·68-2·67] for ten or more partners). Low sexual function was also associated with negative sexual health outcomes such as experience of non-volitional sex (1·98 [1·14-3·43] and 2·18 [1·79-2·66]) and STI diagnosis (1·50 [1·06-2·11] and 1·83 [1·35-2·47]). Among individuals reporting sex in the past year, problems with sexual response were common (41·6% of men and 51·2% of women reported one or more problem) but self-reported distress about sex lives was much less common (9·9% and 10·9%). For individuals in a sexual relationship for the past year, 23·4% of men and 27·4% of women reported an imbalance in level of interest in sex between partners, and 18·0% of men and 17·1% of women said that their partner had had sexual difficulties. Most participants who did not have sex in the past year were not dissatisfied, distressed, or avoiding sex because of sexual difficulties. INTERPRETATION: Wide variability exists in the distribution of sexual function scores. Low sexual function is associated with negative sexual health outcomes, supporting calls for a greater emphasis on sexual function in sexual health policy and interventions. FUNDING: Grants from the UK Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust, with support from the Economic and Social Research Council and the Department of Health

Contribution of citizen science towards international biodiversity monitoring

AbstractTo meet collective obligations towards biodiversity conservation and monitoring, it is essential that the world's governments and non-governmental organisations as well as the research community tap all possible sources of data and information, including new, fast-growing sources such as citizen science (CS), in which volunteers participate in some or all aspects of environmental assessments. Through compilation of a database on CS and community-based monitoring (CBM, a subset of CS) programs, we assess where contributions from CS and CBM are significant and where opportunities for growth exist. We use the Essential Biodiversity Variable framework to describe the range of biodiversity data needed to track progress towards global biodiversity targets, and we assess strengths and gaps in geographical and taxonomic coverage. Our results show that existing CS and CBM data particularly provide large-scale data on species distribution and population abundance, species traits such as phenology, and ecosystem function variables such as primary and secondary productivity. Only birds, Lepidoptera and plants are monitored at scale. Most CS schemes are found in Europe, North America, South Africa, India, and Australia. We then explore what can be learned from successful CS/CBM programs that would facilitate the scaling up of current efforts, how existing strengths in data coverage can be better exploited, and the strategies that could maximise the synergies between CS/CBM and other approaches for monitoring biodiversity, in particular from remote sensing. More and better targeted funding will be needed, if CS/CBM programs are to contribute further to international biodiversity monitoring

Training Machines to Identify Species using GBIF-mediated Datasets

Advances in machine vision technology are rapidly enabling new and innovative uses within the field of biodiversity. Computers are now able to use images to identify tens of thousands of species across a wide range of taxonomic groups in real time, notably demonstrated by iNaturalist.org, which suggests species IDs to users (https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/computer_vision_demo) as they create observation records. Soon it will be commonplace to detect species in video feeds or use the camera in a mobile device to search for species-related content on the Internet. The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) has an important role to play in advancing and improving this technology, whether in terms of data, collaboration across teams, or citation practice. But in the short term, the most important role may relate to initiating a cultural shift in accepted practices for the use of GBIF-mediated data for training of artificial intelligence (AI). “Training datasets” play a critical role in achieving species recognition capability in any machine vision system. These datasets compile representative images containing the explicit, verifiable identifications of the species they include. High-powered computers run algorithms on these training datasets, analysing the imagery and building complex models that characterize defining features for each species or taxonomic group. Researchers can, in turn, apply the resulting models to new images, determining what species or group they likely contain. Current research in machine vision is exploring (a) the use of location and date information to further improve model results, (b) identification methods beyond species-level into attribute, character, trait, or part-level ID, with an eye toward human interpretability, and (c) expertise modeling for improved determination of “research grade” images and metadata. The GBIF community has amassed one of the largest datasets of labelled species images available on the internet: more than 33 million species occurrence records in GBIF.org have one or more images (https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/gallery). Machine vision models, when integrated into the data collection tools in use across the GBIF network, can improve the user experience. For example, in citizen science applications like iNaturalist, automated species suggestion helps even novice users contribute occurrence records to GBIF. Perhaps most importantly, GBIF has implemented uniform (and open) data licensing, established guidelines on citation and provided consistent methods for tracking data use through the Digital Object Identifiers (DOI) citation chain. GBIF would like to build on the lessons learned in these activities while striving to assist with this technology research and increase its power and availability. We envisage an approach as follows: To assist in developing and refining machine vision models, GBIF plans to provide training datasets, taking effort to ensure license and citation practice are respected. The training datasets will be issued with a DOI, and the contributing datasets will be linked through the DOI citation graph. To assist application developers, Google and Visipedia plan to build and publish openly-licensed models and tutorials for how to adapt them for localized use. Together we will strive to ensure that data is being used responsibly and transparently, to close the gap between machine vision scientists, application developers, and users and to share taxonomic trees capturing the taxon rank to which machine vision models can identify with confidence based on an image’s visual characteristics

Connecting data and expertise: a new alliance for biodiversity knowledge

There has been major progress over the last two decades in digitising historical knowledge of biodiversity and in making biodiversity data freely and openly accessible. Interlocking efforts bring together international partnerships and networks, national, regional and institutional projects and investments and countless individual contributors, spanning diverse biological and environmental research domains, government agencies and nongovernmental organisations, citizen science and commercial enterprise. However, current efforts remain inefficient and inadequate to address the global need for accurate data on the world's species and on changing patterns and trends in biodiversity. Significant challenges include imbalances in regional engagement in biodiversity informatics activity, uneven progress in data mobilisation and sharing, the lack of stable persistent identifiers for data records, redundant and incompatible processes for cleaning and interpreting data and the absence of functional mechanisms for knowledgeable experts to curate and improve data

The prevalence of unplanned pregnancy and associated factors in Britain: findings from the third National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal-3).

BACKGROUND: Unplanned pregnancy is a key public health indicator. We describe the prevalence of unplanned pregnancy, and associated factors, in a general population sample in Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales). METHOD: We did a probability sample survey, the third National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal-3), of 15,162 men and women aged 16-74 years in Britain, including 5686 women of child-bearing age (16-44 years) who were included in the pregnancy analysis, between Sept 6, 2010, and Aug 31, 2012. We describe the planning status of pregnancies with known outcomes in the past year, and report the annual population prevalence of unplanned pregnancy, using a validated, multicriteria, multi-outcome measure (the London Measure of Unplanned Pregnancy). We set the findings in the context of secular trends in reproductive health-related events, and patterns across the life course. FINDINGS: 9·7% of women aged 16-44 years had pregnancies with known outcome in the year before interview, of which 16·2% (95% CI 13·1-19·9) scored as unplanned, 29·0% (25·2-33·2) as ambivalent, and 54·8% (50·3-59·2) as planned, giving an annual prevalence estimate for unplanned pregnancy of 1·5% (1·2-1·9). Pregnancies in women aged 16-19 years were most commonly unplanned (45·2% [30·8-60·5]). However, most unplanned pregnancies were in women aged 20-34 years (62·4% [50·2-73·2]). Factors strongly associated with unplanned pregnancy were first sexual intercourse before 16 years of age (age-adjusted odds ratio 2·85 [95% CI 1·77-4·57], current smoking (2·47 [1·46-4·18]), recent use of drugs other than cannabis (3·41 [1·64-7·11]), and lower educational attainment. Unplanned pregnancy was also associated with lack of sexual competence at first sexual intercourse (1·90 [1·14-3·08]), reporting higher frequency of sex (2·11 [1·25-3·57] for five or more times in the past 4 weeks), receiving sex education mainly from a non-school-based source (1·84 [1·12-3·00]), and current depression (1·96 [1·10-3·47]). INTERPRETATION: The increasing intervals between first sexual intercourse, cohabitation, and childbearing means that, on average, women in Britain spend about 30 years of their life needing to avert an unplanned pregnancy. Our data offer scope for primary prevention aimed at reducing the rate of unplanned conceptions, and secondary prevention aimed at modification of health behaviours and health disorders in unplanned pregnancy that might be harmful for mother and child. FUNDING: Grants from the UK Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust, with support from the Economic and Social Research Council and the Department of Health