16 research outputs found
Lifestyles and socio-cultural factors among children aged 6-8 years from five Italian towns: The MAPEC-LIFE study cohort
Background: Lifestyles profoundly determine the quality of an individual’s health and life since his childhood.
Many diseases in adulthood are avoidable if health-risk behaviors are identified and improved at an early stage of
life. The aim of the present research was to characterize a cohort of children aged 6–8 years selected in order to
perform an epidemiological molecular study (the MAPEC_LIFE study), investigate lifestyles of the children that
could have effect on their health status, and assess possible association between lifestyles and socio-cultural factors.
Methods: A questionnaire composed of 148 questions was administered in two different seasons to parents of
children attending 18 primary schools in five Italian cities (Torino, Brescia, Pisa, Perugia and Lecce) to obtain
information regarding the criteria for exclusion from the study, demographic, anthropometric and health
information on the children, as well as some aspects on their lifestyles and parental characteristics. The results
were analyzed in order to assess the frequency of specific conditions among the different seasons and cities and
the association between lifestyles and socio-economic factors.
Results: The final cohort was composed of 1,164 children (50.9 boys, 95.4% born in Italy). Frequency of some
factors appeared different in terms of the survey season (physical activity in the open air, the ways of cooking
certain foods) and among the various cities (parents’ level of education and rate of employment, sport, traffic
near the home, type of heating, exposure to passive smoking, ways of cooking certain foods). Exposure to
passive smoking and cooking fumes, obesity, residence in areas with heavy traffic, frequency of outdoor play and
consumption of barbecued and fried foods were higher among children living in families with low educational
and/or occupational level while children doing sports and consuming toasted bread were more frequent in families
with high socio-economic level.
Conclusions: The socio-economic level seems to affect the lifestyles of children enrolled in the study including
those that could cause health effects. Many factors are linked to the geographical area and may depend on
environmental, cultural and social aspects of the city of residence
A web search on environmental topics: what is the role of ranking?
5Background: Although the Internet is easy to use, the mechanisms
and logic behind a Web search are often unknown. Reliable information
can be obtained, but it may not be visible as the Web site is
not located in the first positions of search results. The possible risks
of adverse health effects arising from environmental hazards are
issues of increasing public interest, and therefore the information
about these risks, particularly on topics for which there is no scientific
evidence, is very crucial. The aim of this study was to investigate
whether the presentation of information on some
environmental health topics differed among various search engines,
assuming that the most reliable information should come from institutional
Web sites. Materials and Methods: Five search engines
were used: Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Ask, and AOL. The following topics
were searched in combination with the word ‘‘health’’: ‘‘nuclear
energy,’’ ‘‘electromagnetic waves,’’ ‘‘air pollution,’’ ‘‘waste,’’ and
‘‘radon.’’ For each topic three key words were used. The first 30
search results for each query were considered. The ranking variability
among the search engines and the type of search results were
analyzed for each topic and for each key word. The ranking of institutional
Web sites was given particular consideration. Results:
Variable results were obtained when surfing the Internet on different
environmental health topics. Multivariate logistic regression analysis
showed that, when searching for radon and air pollution topics, it
is more likely to find institutional Web sites in the first 10 positions
compared with nuclear power (odds ratio = 3.4, 95% confidence
interval 2.1–5.4 and odds ratio = 2.9, 95% confidence interval 1.8–
4.7, respectively) and also when using Google compared with Bing
(odds ratio = 3.1, 95% confidence interval 1.9–5.1). Conclusions:
The increasing use of online information could play an important
role in forming opinions. Web users should become more aware of
the importance of finding reliable information, and health institutions
should be able to make that information more visible.nonenoneCOVOLO L; FILISETTI B; MASCARETTI S; LIMINA RM; GELATTI UCovolo, Loredana; Filisetti, Barbara; Mascaretti, Silvia; Limina, Rosa Maria; Gelatti, Umbert
Cancer incidence in people with AIDS in Italy
People with HIV/AIDS (PWHA) have increased risk of some cancers. The introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapies (HAART) has improved their life expectancy, exposing them to the combined consequences of aging and of a prolonged exposure to cancer risk factors. The aim of this study was to estimate incidence rates (IR) in PWHA in Italy, before and after the introduction of HAART, after adjusting for sex and age through direct standardization. An anonymous record linkage between Italian AIDS Registry (21,951 cases) and Cancer Registries (17.3 million, 30% of Italian population) was performed. In PWHA, crude IR, sex- and age-standardized IR and age-specific IR were estimated. The standardized IR for Kaposi sarcoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma greatly declined in the HAART period. Although the crude IR for all non-AIDS-defining cancers increased in the HAART period, standardized IR did not significantly differ in the 2 periods (352 and 379/100,000, respectively). Increases were seen only for cancer of the liver (IR ratio = 4.6, 95% CI: 1.3–17.0) and lung (IR ratio = 1.8, 95% CI: 1.0–3.2). Age-specific IRs for liver and lung cancers, however, largely overlapped in the 2 periods pointing to the strong influence of the shift in the age distribution of PWHA on the observed upward trends. In conclusion, standardized IRs for non-AIDS-defining cancers have not risen in the HAART period, even if crude IRs of these cancers increased. This scenario calls, however, for the intensification of cancer-prevention strategies, notably smoking cessation and screening programs, in middle-aged HIV-patients