Urban Health Indicators and Indices- Current Status,

Though numbers alone may be insufficient to capture the nuances of population health, they provide a common language of appraisal and furnish clear evidence of disparities and inequalities. Over the past 30 years, facilitated by high speed computing and electronics, considerable investment has been made in the collection and analysis of urban health indicators, environmental indicators, and methods for their amalgamation. Much of this work has been characterized by a perceived need for a standard set of indicators. We used publication databases (e.g. Medline) and web searches to identify compilations of health indicators and health metrics. We found 14 long-term large-area compilations of health indicators and determinants and seven compilations of environmental health indicators, comprising hundreds of metrics. Despite the plethora of indicators, these compilations have striking similarities in the domains from which the indicators are drawn—an unappreciated concordance among the major collections. Research with these databases and other sources has produced a small number of composite indices, and a number of methods for the amalgamation of indicators and the demonstration of disparities. These indices have been primarily used for large-area (nation, region, state) comparisons, with both developing and developed countries, often for purposes of ranking. Small area indices have been less explored, in part perhaps because of the vagaries of data availability, and because idiosyncratic local conditions require flexible approaches as opposed to a fixed format. One result has been advances in the ability to compare large areas, but with a concomitant deficiency in tools for public health workers to assess the status of local health and health disparities. Large area assessments are important, but the need for small area action requires a greater focus on local information and analysis, emphasizing method over prespecified content

Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli CS6 gene products and their roles in CS6 structural protein assembly and cellular adherence

Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) produces a variety of colonization factors necessary for attachment to the host cell, among which CS6 is one of the most prevalent in ETEC isolates from developing countries. The CS6 operon is composed of 4 genes, cssA, cssB, cssC, and cssD. The molecular mechanism of CS6 assembly and cell surface presentation, and the contribution of each protein to the attachment of the bacterium to intestinal cells remain unclear. In the present study, a series of css gene-deletion mutants of the CS6 operon were constructed in the ETEC genetic background, and their effect on adhesion to host cells and CS6 assembly was studied. Each subunit deletion resulted in a reduction in the adhesion to intestinal cells to the same level of laboratory E. coli strains, and this effect was restored by complementary plasmids, suggesting that the 4 proteins are necessary for CS6 expression. Bacterial cell fractionation and western blotting of the mutant strains suggested that the formation of a CssA–CssB–CssC complex is necessary for recognition by CssD and transport of CssA–CssB to the outer membrane as a colonization factor

Disaggregating Health Inequalities Within Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2002-2010, by Applying an Urban Health Inequality Index

An urban health index (UHI) was used to quantify health inequalities within Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the years 2002-2010. Eight main health indicators were generated at the ward level using mortality data. The indicators were combined to form the index. The distribution of the rank ordered UHI-values provides information on inequality among wards, using the ratio of the extremes and the gradient of the middle values. Over the decade the ratio of extremes in 2010 declined relative to 2002 (1.57 vs. 1.32) as did the slope of the middle values (0.23 vs. 0.16). A spatial division between the affluent south and the deprived north and east is still visible. The UHI correlated on an ecological ward-level with socioeconomic and urban environment indicators like square meter price of apartments (0.54, p \u3c 0.01), low education of mother (-0.61, p \u3c 0.01), low income (-0.62, p \u3c 0.01) and proportion of black ethnicity (-0.55, p \u3c 0.01). The results suggest that population health and equity have improved in Rio de Janeiro in the last decade though some familiar patterns of spatial inequality remain

Neurite Outgrowth of PC12 Mutant Cells Induced by Orange Oil and d-Limonene via the p38 MAPK Pathway

We studied the effects of natural essential oil on neurite outgrowth in PC12m3 neuronal cells to elucidate the mechanism underlying the action of the oils used in aromatherapy. Neurite outgrowth can be induced by nerve growth factor (NGF), where ERK and p38 MAPK among MAPK pathways play important roles in activating intracellular signal transduction. In this study, we investigated whether d-limonene, the major component of essential oils from oranges, can promote neurite outgrowth in PC12m3 cells, in which neurite outgrowth can be induced by various physical stimulations. We also examined by which pathways, the ERK, p38 MAPK or JNK pathway, d-limonene acts on PC12m3 cells. Our results showed that neurite outgrowth can be induced when the cells are treated with d-limonene. After treatment with d-limonene, we observed that p38 MAPK is strongly activated in PC12m3 cells, while ERK is weakly activated. In contrast, JNK shows little activity. A study using an inhibitor of p38 MAPK revealed that neurite outgrowth in PC12m3 cells is induced via the activation of p38 MAPK by d-limonene. The results thus indicate that d-limonene may promote neural cell differentiation mainly via activation of the p38 MAPK pathway

Development of a Highly Sensitive Method for the Detection of Cryptosporidium parvum Virus Type 1 (CSpV1)

Poster Session

Population Structure and Transmission Dynamics of Plasmodium vivax in the Republic of Korea Based on Microsatellite DNA Analysis

Vivax malaria is widely prevalent, mainly in Asia and South America with 390 million reported cases in 2009. Worldwide, in the same year, 2.85 billion people were at risk. Plasmodium vivax is prevalent not only in tropical and subtropical areas but also in temperate areas where there are no mosquitoes in cold seasons. While most malaria researchers are focusing their studies on the parasite in tropical areas, we examined the characteristics of P. vivax in South Korea (temperate area) temporally, using 10 highly polymorphic microsatellite DNA (a short tandem repeat DNA sequence) in the parasite genome, and highlighted the differences between the tropical and temperate populations. We found that the South Korean P. vivax population had low genetic diversity and low recombination rates in comparison to tropical P. vivax populations that had been reported. We also found that some of the parasite clones in the population were changing from 1994 to 2008, evidence suggesting the continual introduction of the parasite from other populations, probably from North Korea. Polymorphic DNA markers of the P. vivax parasite are useful tools for estimating the situation of its transmission in endemic areas