Impaired Glucose Metabolism among Those with and without Diagnosed Diabetes and Mortality: A Cohort Study Using Health Survey for England Data.

The extent that controlled diabetes impacts upon mortality, compared with uncontrolled diabetes, and how pre-diabetes alters mortality risk remain issues requiring clarification

Social inequalities in prevalence of diagnosed and undiagnosed diabetes and impaired glucose regulation in participants in the Health Surveys for England series

OBJECTIVES: To ascertain the extent of socioeconomic and health condition inequalities in people with diagnosed and undiagnosed diabetes and impaired glucose regulation (IGR) in random samples of the general population in England, as earlier diagnosis of diabetes and treatment of people with IGR can reduce adverse sequelae of diabetes. Various screening instruments were compared to identify IGR, in addition to undiagnosed diabetes. DESIGN: 5, annual cross-sectional health examination surveys; data adjusted for complex survey design. SETTING: Random selection of private homes across England, new sample annually 2009-2013. PARTICIPANTS: 5, nationally representative random samples of the general, free-living population: ≥1 adult interviewed in 24 254 of 36 889 eligible addresses selected. 18 399 adults had a valid glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) measurement and answered the diabetes questions. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Diagnosed diabetes, undiagnosed diabetes (HbA1c ≥48 mmol/mol), IGR (HbA1c 42-47 mmol/mol). RESULTS: Overall, 11% of the population had IGR, 2% undiagnosed and 6% diagnosed diabetes. Age-standardised prevalence was highest among Asian (19% (95% CI 16% to 23%), 3% (2% to 5%) and 12% (9% to 16%) respectively) and black participants (17% (13% to 21%), 2% (1% to 4%) and 14% (9% to 20%) respectively). These were also higher among people with lower income, less education, lower occupational class and greater deprivation. Education (OR 1.49 (95% CI 1.27 to 1.74) for no qualifications vs degree or higher) and income (1.35 (1.12 to 1.62) for lowest vs highest income quintile) remained significantly associated with IGR or undiagnosed diabetes on multivariate regression. The greatest odds of IGR or undiagnosed diabetes were with increasing age over 34 years (eg, OR 18.69 (11.53 to 30.28) aged 65-74 vs 16-24). Other significant associations were ethnic group (Asian (3.91 (3.02 to 5.05)), African-American (2.34 (1.62 to 3.38)) or 'other' (2.04 (1.07 to 3.88)) vs Caucasian); sex (OR 1.32(1.19 to 1.46) for men vs women); body mass index (3.54 (2.52 to 4.96) for morbidly obese vs not overweight); and waist circumference (2.00 (1.67 to 2.38) for very high vs low). CONCLUSIONS: Social inequalities in hyperglycaemia exist, additional to well-known demographic and anthropometric risk factors for diabetes and IGR

Associations between indoor temperature, self-rated health and socioeconomic position in a cross-sectional study of adults in England

Objective: Excess winter deaths are a major public health concern in England and Wales, with an average of 20 000 deaths per year since 2010. Feeling cold at home during winter is associated with reporting poor general health; cold and damp homes have greater prevalence in lower socioeconomic groups. Overheating in the summer also has adverse health consequences. This study evaluates the association between indoor temperature and general health and the extent to which this is affected by socioeconomic and household factors. / Design: Cross-sectional study. / Setting: England. / Participants: Secondary data of 74 736 individuals living in England that took part in the Health Survey for England (HSE) between 2003 and 2014. The HSE is an annual household survey which uses multilevel stratification to select a new, nationally representative sample each year. The study sample comprised adults who had a nurse visit; the analytical sample was adults who had observations for indoor temperature and self-rated health. / Results: Using both logistic and linear regression models to examine indoor temperature and health status, adjusting for socioeconomic and housing factors, the study found an association between poor health and higher indoor temperatures. Each one degree increase in indoor temperature was associated with a 1.4% (95% CI 0.5% to 2.3%) increase in the odds of poor health. After adjusting for income, education, employment type, household size and home ownership, the OR of poor health for each degree temperature rise increased by 19%, to a 1.7% (95% CI 0.7% to 2.6%) increase in odds of poor health with each degree temperature rise. / Conclusion: People with worse self-reported health had higher indoor temperatures after adjusting for household factors. People with worse health may have chosen to maintain warmer environments or been advised to. However, other latent factors, such as housing type and energy performance could have an effect

Associations between indoor temperature, self-rated health and socioeconomic position in a cross-sectional study of adults in England

Objective: Excess winter deaths are a major public health concern in England and Wales, with an average of 20 000 deaths per year since 2010. Feeling cold at home during winter is associated with reporting poor general health; cold and damp homes have greater prevalence in lower socioeconomic groups. Overheating in the summer also has adverse health consequences. This study evaluates the association between indoor temperature and general health and the extent to which this is affected by socioeconomic and household factors. / Design: Cross-sectional study. / Setting: England. / Participants: Secondary data of 74 736 individuals living in England that took part in the Health Survey for England (HSE) between 2003 and 2014. The HSE is an annual household survey which uses multilevel stratification to select a new, nationally representative sample each year. The study sample comprised adults who had a nurse visit; the analytical sample was adults who had observations for indoor temperature and self-rated health. / Results: Using both logistic and linear regression models to examine indoor temperature and health status, adjusting for socioeconomic and housing factors, the study found an association between poor health and higher indoor temperatures. Each one degree increase in indoor temperature was associated with a 1.4% (95% CI 0.5% to 2.3%) increase in the odds of poor health. After adjusting for income, education, employment type, household size and home ownership, the OR of poor health for each degree temperature rise increased by 19%, to a 1.7% (95% CI 0.7% to 2.6%) increase in odds of poor health with each degree temperature rise. / Conclusion: People with worse self-reported health had higher indoor temperatures after adjusting for household factors. People with worse health may have chosen to maintain warmer environments or been advised to. However, other latent factors, such as housing type and energy performance could have an effect

Measurement of bubble sizes in fluidised beds using electrical capacitance tomography

Electrical capacitance tomography (ECT) provides a means for non-invasively imaging multiphase flows, such as those in fluidised beds. Traditionally ECT images are reconstructed using the assumption that the distribution of permittivity varies smoothly throughout the sensor region. However, for many applications there are step changes in the permittivity, for example, between the bubble and particulate phases in a fluidised bed, and the assumption of smoothness is flawed. In this article a Total Variation Iterative Soft Thresholding (TV-IST) algorithm is used to reconstruct ECT images that allows for sharp transitions in the permittivity distribution. This new algorithm has been compared with established algorithms for ECT image reconstruction. It was found that the TV-IST algorithm reduced the sensitivity to the threshold level chosen when extracting measurements of bubble size from ECT data sets. Measurements of the bubble size distribution in the fluidised bed using the TV-IST algorithm agreed closely with established empirical correlations for the size of bubbles. The results demonstrate that ECT can provide accurate and high spatial resolution measurements of features such as bubbles in gas-solid fluidised beds.The authors would like to thank the EPSRC (Grants no. EP/K008218/1 and EP/F041772/1) and the Isaac Newton Trust for financial support.This paper was originally published in Chemical Engineering Science (Chandrasekera TC, Li Y, Moody D, Schnellmann MA, Dennis JS, Holland DJ, Chemical Engineering Science 2015, 126, 679–687, doi:10.1016/j.ces.2015.01.011)

Estimating population prevalence of potential airflow obstruction using different spirometric criteria: a pooled cross-sectional analysis of persons aged 40-95 years in England and Wales.

Consistent estimation of the burden of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has been hindered by differences in methods, including different spirometric cut-offs for impaired lung function. The impact of different definitions on the prevalence of potential airflow obstruction, and its associations with key risk factors, is evaluated using cross-sectional data from two nationally representative population surveys

GED: the method for group evolution discovery in social networks

The continuous interest in the social network area contributes to the fast development of this field. The new possibilities of obtaining and storing data facilitate deeper analysis of the entire network, extracted social groups and single individuals as well. One of the most interesting research topic is the dynamics of social groups, it means analysis of group evolution over time. Having appropriate knowledge and methods for dynamic analysis, one may attempt to predict the future of the group, and then manage it properly in order to achieve or change this predicted future according to specific needs. Such ability would be a powerful tool in the hands of human resource managers, personnel recruitment, marketing, etc. The social group evolution consists of individual events and seven types of such changes have been identified in the paper: continuing, shrinking, growing, splitting, merging, dissolving and forming. To enable the analysis of group evolution a change indicator - inclusion measure was proposed. It has been used in a new method for exploring the evolution of social groups, called Group Evolution Discovery (GED). The experimental results of its use together with the comparison to two well-known algorithms in terms of accuracy, execution time, flexibility and ease of implementation are also described in the paper.Comment: 14 pages, Social Network Analysis and Minin