Examining the mortality effects of the Irish National Smoking Ban.

Secondhand smoke causes disease and death in those exposed, with cardiovascular and respiratory problems as the most likely outcomes. The purpose of this study was to examine the mortality effects of the Irish national smoking ban of 2004

Effect of air pollution controls on black smoke and sulfur dioxide concentrations across Ireland

During the 1980s Ireland experienced severe pollution episodes, principally because of domestic coal burning. In 1990, the Irish government introduced a ban on the marketing, sale, and distribution of coal in Dublin. They extended the ban to Cork in 1995 and to ten other communities in 1998 and 2000. We previously reported declines in particulate (black smoke [BS]) and sulfur dioxide (SO2) concentrations in Dublin following the 1990 coal ban. We now explore and compare the effectiveness of these sequential bans in 1990, 1995, 1998, and 2000. Daily BS and total gaseous acidity (502) measurements were compiled between 1980 and 2004. We calculated descriptive statistics for the pre-ban (5 yr before ban) and post-ban (5 yr after ban) periods for BS and SO2 concentrations and for season-specific periods. Mean BS levels fell in all centers post-ban compared with the pre-ban period, with decreases ranging; from 4 to 35 mu g.m(-3) (-45 to -70%). These reductions were smallest in the summer and largest in the winter. These BS, reductions were sustained in all centers until the end of the study period. We observed no clear pattern in SO2 changes associated with the coal bans. The 1990, 1995, 1998, and 2000 Irish coal sale bans resulted in immediate and sustained decreases in particulate levels in centers, with the largest declines in the winter. In contrast, we did not observe consistent declines in total acidity as a measure of SO2. It may be that coal was not the major source. of SO2. Simple legislation was very effective at improving ambient air quality in Irish cities with varying populations, geography/topography, and meteorological conditions

Excess mortality during heat waves in Ireland

Ireland is not known for having extreme high temperatures, with values above 30C uncommon. Ireland has significant excess winter mortality compared to summer. The objective of this study is to estimate the impact of nation-wide heat waves on the total, cardiovascular and respiratory relationship, for the period 1981–2003, to determine if there are any periods of excess summer mortality

In vitro biocompatibility of a new hydrogel with Crocin, powerful antioxidant found in Crocus Sativus L. flowers

Recently, attention has been paid to the identification of natural antioxidants from the petals of Crocus S. flowers that are normally considered waste[1]. The antioxidant activities are mainly attributed to carotenoid compounds, like crocin. Scientific evidences demonstrate that this kind of compounds are among the most important natural plant sources of antioxidant activity in the human diet, protecting the body against damages caused by reactive oxygen species (ROS). This antioxidant was extracted using methanol and ethanol. In this experiment, it was used a new hydrogel consisting of three polymers - Polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP), Agar and Polyethylene glycol (PEG) – and Crocin, mixed, reticulated and then sterilized by gamma irradiation at 25 kGy. For the in vitro experimental protocol, it was used a primary culture of fibroblasts taken from the subcutaneous tissue of a newborn mice, seeding the cells on a little square (1cm2 area) of both kinds of hydrogel. As the ISO protocol prescribes, the experiments were repeated 3 times for each kind of hydrogel, stopping the culture at the 3rd, 7th and 14th day after the seeding. For all steps, 3 Petri dishes were used as controls without biomaterials. At fixed deadline, all Petri dishes were stained, using the Wright method for cell counting and morphological evaluations. The microscopic analysis revealed the complete biocompatibility of the hydrogel. The Petri dishes with this kind of new hydrogel has an overproduction of collagen from the fibroblasts. The presence of this natural important compound in saffron petals, now offers new possibilities for the best use of the hole flower. This study is still in progress.http://www.fupress.net/index.php/ijae/article/view/1495

Reductions in cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, and respiratory mortality following the national Irish smoking ban: Interrupted time-series analysis

Copyright @ 2013 Stallings-Smith et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Background: Previous studies have shown decreases in cardiovascular mortality following the implementation of comprehensive smoking bans. It is not known whether cerebrovascular or respiratory mortality decreases post-ban. On March 29, 2004, the Republic of Ireland became the first country in the world to implement a national workplace smoking ban. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of this policy on all-cause and cause-specific, non-trauma mortality. Methods: A time-series epidemiologic assessment was conducted, utilizing Poisson regression to examine weekly age and gender-standardized rates for 215,878 non-trauma deaths in the Irish population, ages ≥35 years. The study period was from January 1, 2000, to December 31, 2007, with a post-ban follow-up of 3.75 years. All models were adjusted for time trend, season, influenza, and smoking prevalence. Results: Following ban implementation, an immediate 13% decrease in all-cause mortality (RR: 0.87; 95% CI: 0.76-0.99), a 26% reduction in ischemic heart disease (IHD) (RR: 0.74; 95% CI: 0.63-0.88), a 32% reduction in stroke (RR: 0.68; 95% CI: 0.54-0.85), and a 38% reduction in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (RR: 0.62; 95% CI: 0.46-0.83) mortality was observed. Post-ban reductions in IHD, stroke, and COPD mortalities were seen in ages ≥65 years, but not in ages 35-64 years. COPD mortality reductions were found only in females (RR: 0.47; 95% CI: 0.32-0.70). Post-ban annual trend reductions were not detected for any smoking-related causes of death. Unadjusted estimates indicate that 3,726 (95% CI: 2,305-4,629) smoking-related deaths were likely prevented post-ban. Mortality decreases were primarily due to reductions in passive smoking. Conclusions: The national Irish smoking ban was associated with immediate reductions in early mortality. Importantly, post-ban risk differences did not change with a longer follow-up period. This study corroborates previous evidence for cardiovascular causes, and is the first to demonstrate reductions in cerebrovascular and respiratory causes

Kinetic characterization of GES-22 beta-lactamase harboring the M169L clinical mutation

The class A p-lactamase GES-22 has been identified in Acinetobacter baumannii isolates in Turkey, and subsequently shown to differ from GES-11 by a single substitution (M169L). Because M169 is part of the omega loop, a structure that is known to have major effects on substrate selectivity in class A beta-lactamases, we expressed, purified and kinetically characterized this novel variant. Our results show that compared with GES-11(6xHis), GES-22(6xHis) displays more efficient hydrolysis of penicillins, and aztreonam, but a loss of efficiency against ceftazidime. In addition, the M169L substitution confers on GES-22 more efficient hydrolysis of the mechanistic inhibitors clavulanic acid and sulbactam. These effects are highly similar to other mutations at the homologous position in other class A beta-lactamases, suggesting that this methionine has a key structural role in aligning active site residues and in substrate selectivity across the class.Recep Tayyip Erdogan University:BAP-2013.102.03.12 Turkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Arastirma Kurumu (TUBITAK): TUBITAK-113Z054 United States Department of Health & Human Services National Institutes of Health (NIH) - USA 1R15AI082416 Turkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Arastirma Kurumu (TUBITAK) 2214-

On the importance of primary and community healthcare in relation to global health and environmental threats:Lessons from the COVID-19 crisis

In the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become clear that primary healthcare systems play a critical role in clinical care, such as patient screening, triage, physical and psychological support and also in promoting good community advice and awareness in coordination with secondary healthcare and preventive care. Because of the role of social and environmental factors in COVID-19 transmission and burden of disease, it is essential to ensure that there is adequate coordination of population-based health services and public health interventions. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the primary and community healthcare (PCHC) system's weaknesses worldwide. In many instances, PCHC played only a minor role, the emphasis being on hospital and intensive care beds. This was compounded by political failures, in supporting local community resilience. Placing community building, social cohesion and resilience at the forefront of dealing with the COVID-19 crisis can help align solutions that provide a vision of a € planetary health'. This can be achieved by involving local well-being and participation in the face of any pervasive health and environmental crisis, including other epidemics and large-scale ecological crises. This paper proposes that PCHC should take on two critical roles: first, to support local problem-solving efforts and to serve as a partner in innovative approaches to safeguarding community well-being; and second, to understand the local environment and health risks in the context of the global health perspective. We see this as an opportunity of immediate value and broad consequence beyond the control of the COVID-19 pandemic.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Efficiency of two-phase methods with focus on a planned population-based case-control study on air pollution and stroke

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>We plan to conduct a case-control study to investigate whether exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) increases the risk of stroke. In case-control studies, selective participation can lead to bias and loss of efficiency. A two-phase design can reduce bias and improve efficiency by combining information on the non-participating subjects with information from the participating subjects. In our planned study, we will have access to individual disease status and data on NO₂exposure on group (area) level for a large population sample of Scania, southern Sweden. A smaller sub-sample will be selected to the second phase for individual-level assessment on exposure and covariables. In this paper, we simulate a case-control study based on our planned study. We develop a two-phase method for this study and compare the performance of our method with the performance of other two-phase methods.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A two-phase case-control study was simulated with a varying number of first- and second-phase subjects. Estimation methods: <it>Method 1</it>: Effect estimation with second-phase data only. <it>Method 2</it>: Effect estimation by adjusting the first-phase estimate with the difference between the adjusted and unadjusted second-phase estimate. The first-phase estimate is based on individual disease status and residential address for all study subjects that are linked to register data on NO₂-exposure for each geographical area. <it>Method 3</it>: Effect estimation by using the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm without taking area-level register data on exposure into account. <it>Method 4</it>: Effect estimation by using the EM algorithm and incorporating group-level register data on NO₂-exposure.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The simulated scenarios were such that, unbiased or marginally biased (< 7%) odds ratio (OR) estimates were obtained with all methods. The efficiencies of method 4, are generally higher than those of methods 1 and 2. The standard errors in method 4 decreased further when the case/control ratio is above one in the second phase. For all methods, the standard errors do not become substantially reduced when the number of first-phase controls is increased.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In the setting described here, method 4 had the best performance in order to improve efficiency, while adjusting for varying participation rates across areas.</p