Historical Demography

This chapter of Beginning Population Studies (3rd edition) gives an overview of the subject of historical demography. There are other chapters on contemporary demography

Consensual Unions

This chapter of Beginning Population Studies (3rd edition) discusses non-marital unions in the context of demography. A separate chapter discusses marriage

Method and System for Purifying Charged Radioisotopes

The present invention provides a simple and inexpensive method for removing metal and other impurities in a radioisotope solution. The invention further includes the development of a new parent/daughter generator system for collecting the daughter isotope in a concentrated solution

Population data

This chapter of Beginning Population Studies (3rd edition) discusses sources of data for population studies, and their relative use and value. There are separate chapters in the book in which data sources for specific topics (eg. Mortality, Marriage) are discussed

Puberty timing associated with diabetes, cardiovascular disease and also diverse health outcomes in men and women: the UK Biobank study.

Early puberty timing is associated with higher risks for type 2 diabetes (T2D) and cardiovascular disease in women and therefore represents a potential target for early preventive interventions. We characterised the range of diseases and other adverse health outcomes associated with early or late puberty timing in men and women in the very large UK Biobank study. Recalled puberty timing and past/current diseases were self-reported by questionnaire. We limited analyses to individuals of White ethnicity (250,037 women; 197,714 men) and to disease outcomes with at least 500 cases (~ 0.2% prevalence) and we applied stringent correction for multiple testing (corrected threshold P < 7.48 × 10(-5)). In models adjusted for socioeconomic position and adiposity/body composition variables, both in women and men separately, earlier puberty timing was associated with higher risks for angina, hypertension and T2D. Furthermore, compared to the median/average group, earlier or later puberty timing in women or men was associated with higher risks for 48 adverse outcomes, across a range of cancers, cardio-metabolic, gynaecological/obstetric, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal, and neuro-cognitive categories. Notably, both early and late menarche were associated with higher risks for early natural menopause in women. Puberty timing in both men and women appears to have a profound impact on later health.This research has been conducted using the UK Biobank Resource. This work was supported by the Medical Research Council [Unit Programme number MC_UU_12015/2].This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from NPG via http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep1120

Protein Name Tagging Guidelines: Lessons Learned

Interest in information extraction from the biomedical literature is motivated by the need to speed up the creation of structured databases representing the latest scientific knowledge about specific objects, such as proteins and genes. This paper addresses the issue of a lack of standard definition of the problem of protein name tagging. We describe the lessons learned in developing a set of guidelines and present the first set of inter-coder results, viewed as an upper bound on system performance. Problems coders face include: (a) the ambiguity of names that can refer to either genes or proteins; (b) the difficulty of getting the exact extents of long protein names; and (c) the complexity of the guidelines. These problems have been addressed in two ways: (a) defining the tagging targets as protein named entities used in the literature to describe proteins or protein-associated or -related objects, such as domains, pathways, expression or genes, and (b) using two types of tags, protein tags and long-form tags, with the latter being used to optionally extend the boundaries of the protein tag when the name boundary is difficult to determine. Inter-coder consistency across three annotators on protein tags on 300 MEDLINE abstracts is 0.868 F-measure. The guidelines and annotated datasets, along with automatic tools, are available for research use

Variation in readmission and mortality following hospitalisation with a diagnosis of heart failure: prospective cohort study using linked data

BACKGROUND: Hospitalisation for heart failure is common and post-discharge outcomes, including readmission and mortality, are often poor and are poorly understood. The purpose of this study was to examine patient- and hospital-level variation in the risk of 30-day unplanned readmission and mortality following discharge from hospital with a diagnosis of heart failure. METHODS: Prospective cohort study using data from the Sax Institute's 45 and Up Study, linking baseline survey (Jan 2006-April 2009) to hospital and mortality data (to Dec 2011). Primary outcomes in those admitted to hospital with heart failure included unplanned readmission, mortality and combined unplanned readmission/mortality, within 30 days of discharge. Multilevel models quantified the variation in outcomes between hospitals and examined associations with patient- and hospital-level characteristics. RESULTS: There were 5074 participants with a heart failure admission discharged from 251 hospitals; 1052 (21%) had unplanned readmissions, 186 (3.7%) died, and 1146 (23%) had either/both outcomes within 30 days of discharge. Crude outcomes varied across hospitals, but between-hospital variation explained little of the total variation in outcomes (intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) after inclusion of patient factors: 30-day unplanned readmission ICC = 0.0125 (p = 0.24); death ICC = 0.0000 (p > 0.99); unplanned readmission/death ICC = 0.0266 (p = 0.07)). Patient characteristics associated with a higher risk of unplanned readmission included: being male (male vs female, adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 1.18, 95% CI: 1.00-1.37); prior hospitalisation for cardiovascular disease (aOR = 1.44, 1.08-1.91) and for anemia (aOR = 1.36, 1.14-1.63); comorbidities at admission (severe vs none: aOR = 1.26, 1.03-1.54); lower body-mass-index (obese vs normal weight: aOR = 0.77, 0.63-0.94); and lower social interaction scores. Similarly, risk of 30-day mortality was associated with patient- rather than hospital-level factors, in particular age (≥85y vs 45-< 75y: aOR = 3.23, 1.93-5.41) and comorbidity (severe vs none: aOR = 2.68, 1.82-3.94). CONCLUSIONS: The issue of high readmission and mortality rates in people with heart failure appear to be system-wide, with the variation in these outcomes essentially attributable to variation between patients rather than hospitals. The findings suggest that there are limitations in using these outcomes as hospital performance measures in this patient population and support the need for patient-centred strategies to optimise heart failure management and outcomes.This specific project was supported by NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation. Emily Banks is supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia

Infection control behavior at home during the COVID-19 pandemic: observational study of a web-based behavioral intervention (Germ defence)

Background: To control the COVID-19 pandemic, people should adopt protective behaviors at home (self-isolation, social distancing, putting shopping and packages aside, wearing face coverings, cleaning and disinfecting, and handwashing). There is currently limited support to help individuals conduct these behaviors. Objective: This study aims to report current household infection control behaviors in the United Kingdom and examine how they might be improved. Methods: This was a pragmatic cross-sectional observational study of anonymous participant data from Germ Defence between May 6-24, 2020. Germ Defence is an open-access fully automated website providing behavioral advice for infection control within households. A total of 28,285 users sought advice from four website pathways based on household status (advice to protect themselves generally, to protect others if the user was showing symptoms, to protect themselves if household members were showing symptoms, and to protect a household member who is at high risk). Users reported current infection control behaviors within the home and intentions to change these behaviors. Results: Current behaviors varied across all infection control measures but were between sometimes (face covering: mean 1.61, SD 1.19; social distancing: mean 2.40, SD 1.22; isolating: mean 2.78, SD 1.29; putting packages and shopping aside: mean 2.75, SD 1.55) and quite often (cleaning and disinfecting: mean 3.17, SD 1.18), except for handwashing (very often: mean 4.00, SD 1.03). Behaviors were similar regardless of the website pathway used. After using Germ Defence, users recorded intentions to improve infection control behavior across all website pathways and for all behaviors (overall average infection control score mean difference 0.30, 95% CI 0.29-0.31). Conclusions: Self-reported infection control behaviors other than handwashing are lower than is optimal for infection prevention, although handwashing is much higher. Advice using behavior change techniques in Germ Defence led to intentions to improve these behaviors. Promoting Germ Defence within national and local public health and primary care guidance could reduce COVID-19 transmission

Associations with photoreceptor thickness measures in the UK Biobank.

Spectral-domain OCT (SD-OCT) provides high resolution images enabling identification of individual retinal layers. We included 32,923 participants aged 40-69 years old from UK Biobank. Questionnaires, physical examination, and eye examination including SD-OCT imaging were performed. SD OCT measured photoreceptor layer thickness includes photoreceptor layer thickness: inner nuclear layer-retinal pigment epithelium (INL-RPE) and the specific sublayers of the photoreceptor: inner nuclear layer-external limiting membrane (INL-ELM); external limiting membrane-inner segment outer segment (ELM-ISOS); and inner segment outer segment-retinal pigment epithelium (ISOS-RPE). In multivariate regression models, the total average INL-RPE was observed to be thinner in older aged, females, Black ethnicity, smokers, participants with higher systolic blood pressure, more negative refractive error, lower IOPcc and lower corneal hysteresis. The overall INL-ELM, ELM-ISOS and ISOS-RPE thickness was significantly associated with sex and race. Total average of INL-ELM thickness was additionally associated with age and refractive error, while ELM-ISOS was additionally associated with age, smoking status, SBP and refractive error; and ISOS-RPE was additionally associated with smoking status, IOPcc and corneal hysteresis. Hence, we found novel associations of ethnicity, smoking, systolic blood pressure, refraction, IOPcc and corneal hysteresis with photoreceptor thickness