Regional inequalities in self-reported conditions and non-communicable diseases in European countries: Findings from the European Social Survey (2014) special module on the social determinants of health

Background: Within the European Union (EU), substantial efforts are being made to achieve economic and social cohesion, and the reduction of health inequalities between EU regions is integral to this process. This paper is the first to examine how self-reported conditions and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) vary spatially between and within countries. Methods: Using 2014 European Social Survey (ESS) data from 20 countries, this paper examines how regional inequalities in self-reported conditions and NCDs vary for men and women in 174 regions (levels 1 and 2 Nomenclature of Statistical Territorial Units, ‘NUTS’). We document absolute and relative inequalities across Europe in the prevalence of eight conditions: general health, overweight/obesity, mental health, heart or circulation problems, high blood pressure, back, neck, muscular or joint pain, diabetes and cancer. Results: There is considerable inequality in self-reported conditions and NCDs between the regions of Europe, with rates highest in the regions of continental Europe, some Scandinavian regions and parts of the UK and lowest around regions bordering the Alps, in Ireland and France. However, for mental health and cancer, rates are highest in regions of Eastern European and lowest in some Nordic regions, Ireland and isolated regions in continental Europe. There are also widespread and consistent absolute and relative regional inequalities in all conditions within countries. These are largest in France, Germany and the UK, and smallest in Denmark, Sweden and Norway. There were higher inequalities amongst women. Conclusion: Using newly available harmonized morbidity data from across Europe, this paper shows that there are considerable regional inequalities within and between European countries in the distribution of self-reported conditions and NCDs

The Monarch Initiative in 2019: an integrative data and analytic platform connecting phenotypes to genotypes across species.

In biology and biomedicine, relating phenotypic outcomes with genetic variation and environmental factors remains a challenge: patient phenotypes may not match known diseases, candidate variants may be in genes that haven\u27t been characterized, research organisms may not recapitulate human or veterinary diseases, environmental factors affecting disease outcomes are unknown or undocumented, and many resources must be queried to find potentially significant phenotypic associations. The Monarch Initiative (https://monarchinitiative.org) integrates information on genes, variants, genotypes, phenotypes and diseases in a variety of species, and allows powerful ontology-based search. We develop many widely adopted ontologies that together enable sophisticated computational analysis, mechanistic discovery and diagnostics of Mendelian diseases. Our algorithms and tools are widely used to identify animal models of human disease through phenotypic similarity, for differential diagnostics and to facilitate translational research. Launched in 2015, Monarch has grown with regards to data (new organisms, more sources, better modeling); new API and standards; ontologies (new Mondo unified disease ontology, improvements to ontologies such as HPO and uPheno); user interface (a redesigned website); and community development. Monarch data, algorithms and tools are being used and extended by resources such as GA4GH and NCATS Translator, among others, to aid mechanistic discovery and diagnostics

Therapeutische residentiële hulp voor kinderen en jongeren : een consensusverklaring van de Internationale Werkgroep Therapeutische Residentiële Zorg

In many developed countries around the world residential care interventions for children and adolescents have come under increasing scrutiny. Against this background an international summit was organised in England (spring 2016) with experts from 13 countries to reflect on therapeutic residential care (TRC). The following working definition of TRC was leading: "Therapeutic residential care involves the planful use of a purposefully constructed, multi-dimensional living environment designed to enhance or provide treatment, education, socialization, support, and protection to children and youth with identified mental health or behavioural needs in partnership with their families and in collaboration with a full spectrum of community based formal and informal helping resources". The meeting was characterised by exchange of information and evidence, and by preparing an international research agenda. In addition, the outlines of a consensus statement on TRC were discussed. This statement, originally published in English and now reproduced in a Dutch translation, comprises inter alia five basic principles of care that according to the Work Group on Therapeutic Residential Care should be guiding for residential youth care provided at any time

Is trade policy a missing piece to a public health puzzle?

Health outcomes vary across different welfare state arrangements (Bergqvist et al., 2013). Strikingly, while overall health is typically better in social democratic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden), these countries do not always have the smallest health inequalities. A range of potential explanations has been put forth to explain this ‘Nordic Paradox’ (Bambra, 2011a). A commonly invoked one is that the welfare state itself plays a major role in determining health inequalities as welfare states both distribute major determinants of health (such as income, education, and employment) and mediate their health impact (Beckfield et al., 2015). Global processes have also been acknowledged as important influences on these broader, social determinants of health (Blouin et al., 2009; McNamara, 2017), but little is known about how global processes interact with welfare state policies to influence health inequalities (see also Huijts and McNamara, 2018). It has been found that social policies can both moderate the health impact of trade liberalization and influence the type of health-related pathways resulting from it (McNamara, 2015), but we lack studies on whether global processes might influence how social policies shape health. This is the focus of this article which specifically asks whether the persistence of health inequalities in Nordic states can be partly seen as a failure of welfare states to compensate for the impacts of greater global market integration. Two trade-related mechanisms that may in part explain the Nordic paradox are explored with the aim of laying the ground work for a more in-depth investigation and bringing a global perspective into the fold of health inequality research