Systematic review of mass media interventions designed to improve public recognition of stroke symptoms, emergency response and early treatment

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Mass media interventions have been implemented to improve emergency response to stroke given the emergence of effective acute treatments, but their impact is unclear.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Systematic review of mass media interventions aimed at improving emergency response to stroke, with narrative synthesis and review of intervention development.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Ten studies were included (six targeted the public, four both public and professionals) published between 1992 and 2010. Only three were controlled before and after studies, and only one had reported how the intervention was developed. Campaigns aimed only at the public reported significant increase in awareness of symptoms/signs, but little impact on awareness of need for emergency response. Of the two controlled before and after studies, one reported no impact on those over 65 years, the age group at increased risk of stroke and most likely to witness a stroke, and the other found a significant increase in awareness of two or more warning signs of stroke in the same group post-intervention. One campaign targeted at public and professionals did not reduce time to presentation at hospital to within two hours, but increased and sustained thrombolysis rates. This suggests the campaign had a primary impact on professionals and improved the way that services for stroke were organised.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Campaigns aimed at the public may raise awareness of symptoms/signs of stroke, but have limited impact on behaviour. Campaigns aimed at both public and professionals may have more impact on professionals than the public. New campaigns should follow the principles of good design and be robustly evaluated.</p

Prevalence of mental disorders from adolescence through early adulthood in American Indian and First Nations communities

Indigenous communities lack representation in psychiatric epidemiology despite disproportionate exposure to risk factors. We document the cumulative and 12-month prevalence of psychiatric disorders across the early life course among a sample of Indigenous young adults and compare prospective and retrospective reporting of lifetime mental disorders. This community-based participatory research includes data from 735 Indigenous people from 8 reservations/reserves. Personal interviews were conducted between 2002–2010 and 2017–2018 totaling 9 waves; diagnostic assessments of DSM-IV-TR alcohol abuse/dependence, marijuana use/dependence, other substance abuse/dependence, generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, dysthymic disorder, and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder occurred at waves 1 (mean age = 11.1 years), 4 (mean age = 14.3 years), 6 (mean age = 16.2 years), 8 (mean age = 18.3 years), and 9 (mean age = 26.3 years). Cumulative lifetime psychiatric disorders reached 77.3% and lifetime comorbidity 56.4% by wave 9. Past-year prevalence and comorbidity at wave 9 were 28.7% and 6.7%, respectively. Substance use disorders (SUDs) were most common with peak past-year prevalence observed when participants were on average 16.3 years old then declining thereafter. Trends in early life course psychiatric disorders in this study with Indigenous participants highlight cultural variations in psychiatric epidemiology including surprisingly low rates of internalizing disorders in the face of risk factors, disproportionately high rates of early-onset and lifetime SUD, and lower rates of past-year SUD in early adulthood compared with prior research.Peer reviewedSociolog

Introduction—Food Security and Food Waste Reduction: A Social Innovation Approach to Current Social, Environmental, and Political Concerns

This chapter presents the research rationale underpinning the book. It addresses the intertwining challenges of food security and surplus food management, discussing recent data and literature. It also presents how social innovation is conceptualized in the book as the theoretical framework to analyse partnerships between business and non-profit organisations in managing food surplus. The methodology of the research is also detailed, along with the book structure

Social media for health promotion and weight management: A critical debate

© 2018 The Author(s). Background: In 2016 an estimated 1.9 billion adults world-wide were either overweight or obese. The health consequences of obesity are responsible for 2.8 million preventable deaths per year. The WHO now considers obesity as a global epidemic and recommends population-wide health promotion strategies to address this issue. Weight gain is caused by increased energy intake and physical inactivity, so treatment should focus on changes to behaviour regarding diet and physical activity. Discussion: The WHO has also recognised the importance of social resources as a valuable agent for behaviour change in health promotion. Social resources are translated at the community level as support provided by significant others such as family, partners and peers, in the form of information, material aid and encouragement. Social support has been shown to improve health and well-being, whereas social isolation has been shown to have a negative impact on health outcomes. Social support provided by peers has been shown to be a useful strategy to employ in weight management programmes. The documented increased use of ICT and social media has presented health promoters with a potentially useful medium to increase social support for weight management. Conclusion: While the use of social media for health promotion is an emerging field of investigation, preliminary research suggests that it increases participant engagement, and may provide a cost-effective tool to provide social support for individuals participating in weight management programmes. With stringent privacy protocols in place, social media may be a useful, cost-effective accompaniment to multifactorial weight management programmes. However more research is needed to identify how to make the best use of social media as health promotion tool

The TGF-β/Smad pathway induces breast cancer cell invasion through the up-regulation of matrix metalloproteinase 2 and 9 in a spheroid invasion model system

Transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) has opposing roles in breast cancer progression by acting as a tumor suppressor in the initial phase, but stimulating invasion and metastasis at later stages. In contrast to the mechanisms by which TGF-beta induces growth arrest, the pathways that mediate tumor invasion are not well understood. Here, we describe a TGF-beta-dependent invasion assay system consisting of spheroids of MCF10A1 normal breast epithelial cells (M1) and RAS-transformed (pre-)malignant derivatives (M2 and M4) embedded in collagen gels. Both basal and TGF-beta-induced invasion of these cell lines was found to correlate with their tumorigenic potential; M4 showing the most aggressive behavior and M1 showing the least. Basal invasion was strongly inhibited by the TGF-beta receptor kinase inhibitor SB-431542, indicating the involvement of autocrine TGF-beta or TGF-beta-like activity. TGF-beta-induced invasion in premalignant M2 and highly malignant M4 cells was also inhibited upon specific knockdown of Smad3 or Smad4. Interestingly, both a broad spectrum matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) inhibitor and a selective MMP2 and MMP9 inhibitor mitigated TGF-beta-induced invasion of M4 cells, while leaving basal invasion intact. In line with this, TGF-beta was found to strongly induce MMP2 and MMP9 expression in a Smad3- and Smad4-dependent manner. This collagen-embedded spheroid system therefore offers a valuable screening model for TGF-beta/Smad- and MMP2- and MMP9-dependent breast cancer invasion.Urolog

Shearwater Foraging in the Southern Ocean: The Roles of Prey Availability and Winds

Background Sooty (Puffinus griseus) and short-tailed (P. tenuirostris) shearwaters are abundant seabirds that range widely across global oceans. Understanding the foraging ecology of these species in the Southern Ocean is important for monitoring and ecosystem conservation and management. Methodology/Principal Findings Tracking data from sooty and short-tailed shearwaters from three regions of New Zealand and Australia were combined with at-sea observations of shearwaters in the Southern Ocean, physical oceanography, near-surface copepod distributions, pelagic trawl data, and synoptic near-surface winds. Shearwaters from all three regions foraged in the Polar Front zone, and showed particular overlap in the region around 140°E. Short-tailed shearwaters from South Australia also foraged in Antarctic waters south of the Polar Front. The spatial distribution of shearwater foraging effort in the Polar Front zone was matched by patterns in large-scale upwelling, primary production, and abundances of copepods and myctophid fish. Oceanic winds were found to be broad determinants of foraging distribution, and of the flight paths taken by the birds on long foraging trips to Antarctic waters. Conclusions/Significance The shearwaters displayed foraging site fidelity and overlap of foraging habitat between species and populations that may enhance their utility as indicators of Southern Ocean ecosystems. The results highlight the importance of upwellings due to interactions of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current with large-scale bottom topography, and the corresponding localised increases in the productivity of the Polar Front ecosystem

Studies of jet mass in dijet and W/Z plus jet events

This is the pre-print version of the final published paper that is available from the link below.Invariant mass spectra for jets reconstructed using the anti-kT and Cambridge-Aachen algorithms are studied for different jet “grooming” techniques in data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5 fb-1, recorded with the CMS detector in proton-proton collisions at the LHC at a center-of-mass energy of 7TeV. Leading-order QCD predictions for inclusive dijet and W/Z+jet production combined with parton-shower Monte Carlo models are found to agree overall with the data, and the agreement improves with the implementation of jet grooming methods used to distinguish merged jets of large transverse momentum from softer QCD gluon radiation

Pooled analysis of WHO Surgical Safety Checklist use and mortality after emergency laparotomy

Background The World Health Organization (WHO) Surgical Safety Checklist has fostered safe practice for 10 years, yet its place in emergency surgery has not been assessed on a global scale. The aim of this study was to evaluate reported checklist use in emergency settings and examine the relationship with perioperative mortality in patients who had emergency laparotomy. Methods In two multinational cohort studies, adults undergoing emergency laparotomy were compared with those having elective gastrointestinal surgery. Relationships between reported checklist use and mortality were determined using multivariable logistic regression and bootstrapped simulation. Results Of 12 296 patients included from 76 countries, 4843 underwent emergency laparotomy. After adjusting for patient and disease factors, checklist use before emergency laparotomy was more common in countries with a high Human Development Index (HDI) (2455 of 2741, 89.6 per cent) compared with that in countries with a middle (753 of 1242, 60.6 per cent; odds ratio (OR) 0.17, 95 per cent c.i. 0.14 to 0.21, P <0001) or low (363 of 860, 422 per cent; OR 008, 007 to 010, P <0.001) HDI. Checklist use was less common in elective surgery than for emergency laparotomy in high-HDI countries (risk difference -94 (95 per cent c.i. -11.9 to -6.9) per cent; P <0001), but the relationship was reversed in low-HDI countries (+121 (+7.0 to +173) per cent; P <0001). In multivariable models, checklist use was associated with a lower 30-day perioperative mortality (OR 0.60, 0.50 to 073; P <0.001). The greatest absolute benefit was seen for emergency surgery in low- and middle-HDI countries. Conclusion Checklist use in emergency laparotomy was associated with a significantly lower perioperative mortality rate. Checklist use in low-HDI countries was half that in high-HDI countries.Peer reviewe