Assessing the Current Integration of Multiple Personalised Wearable Sensors for Environment and Health Monitoring

The ever-growing development of sensor technology brings new opportunities to investigate impacts of the outdoor environment on human health at the individual level. However, there is limited literature on the use of multiple personalized sensors in urban environments. This review paper focuses on examining how multiple personalized sensors have been integrated to enhance the monitoring of co-exposures and health effects in the city. Following PRISMA guidelines, two reviewers screened 4898 studies from Scopus, Web of Science, ProQuest, Embase, and PubMed databases published from January 2010 to April 2021. In this case, 39 articles met the eligibility criteria. The review begins by examining the characteristics of the reviewed papers to assess the current situation of integrating multiple sensors for health and environment monitoring. Two main challenges were identified from the quality assessment: choosing sensors and integrating data. Lastly, we propose a checklist with feasible measures to improve the integration of multiple sensors for future studies

Impacts of Road Traffic Network and Socioeconomic Factors on the Diffusion of 2009 Pandemic Influenza A (H1N1) in Mainland China

The 2009 pandemic influenza virus caused the majority of the influenza A virus infections in China in 2009. It arrived in several Chinese cities from imported cases and then spread as people travelled domestically by all means of transportation, among which road traffic was the most commonly used for daily commuting. Spatial variation in socioeconomic status not only accelerates migration across regions but also partly induces the differences in epidemic processes and in responses to epidemics across regions. However, the roles of both road travel and socioeconomic factors have not received the attention they deserve. Here, we constructed a national highway network for and between 333 cities in mainland China and extracted epidemiological variables and socioeconomic factors for each city. We calculated classic centrality measures for each city in the network and proposed two new measures (SumRatio and Multicenter Distance). We evaluated the correlation between the centrality measures and epidemiological features and conducted a spatial autoregression to quantify the impacts of road network and socioeconomic factors during the outbreak. The results showed that epidemics had more significant relationships with both our new measures than the classic ones. Higher population density, higher per person income, larger SumRatio and Multicenter Distance, more hospitals and college students, and lower per person GDP were associated with higher cumulative incidence. Higher population density and number of slaughtered pigs were found to advance epidemic arrival time. Higher population density, more colleges and slaughtered pigs, and lower Multicenter Distance were associated with longer epidemic duration. In conclusion, road transport and socioeconomic status had significant impacts and should be considered for the prevention and control of future pandemics

Combining satellite-derived products and geo-spatial health information for assessing the impacts of drought conditions on children's respiratory diseases in the Brazilian Amazon

It is generally acknowledged that climate change will have an impact on human health, however within a region as vast as the Amazon; research on the topic is scarce. This study analyses the impacts of the 2005 drought on respiratory diseases in children under five years of age. Satellite observations of rainfall, active fires and aerosol were used to assess the extent of the drought, and hospitalisation data was used to establish general trends and changes during the drought. We identified critical areas of the 2005 drought, and established the peak period of respiratory diseases over a ten year period (2001-2010).Throughout the basin respiratory diseases for children under five years of age peaked at the end of the wet season. The 2005 drought affected south-west Amazonia; during this period increases in active fires were recorded. In Acre in 2005 the peak of respiratory diseases shifted to later in the year corresponding with the peak of the drought. Critical areas of drought were explored in more detail at a micro-region and municipality level. Aerosol is the main driver influencing respiratory disease hospitalisations during July, August, September period of 2005. During this period hospitalisations for respiratory diseases in children under five years of age increased 54% in Acre, 99% in Rio Branco, & 195% in Porto Acre in relation to the ten year mean.Pages: 8568-857

Spatial implications of covariate adjustment on patterns of risk: Respiratory hospital admissions in Christchurch, New Zealand

Epidemiological studies that examine the relationship between environmental exposures and health often address other determinants of health that may influence the relationship being studied by adjusting for these factors as covariates. While disease surveillance methods routinely control for covariates such as deprivation, there has been limited investigative work on the spatial movement of risk at the intraurban scale due to the adjustment. It is important that the nature of any spatial relocation be well understood as a relocation to areas of increased risk may also introduce additional localised factors that influence the exposure-response relationship. This paper examines the spatial patterns of relative risk and clusters of hospitalisations based on an illustrative small-area example from Christchurch, New Zealand. A four-stage test of the spatial relocation effects of covariate adjustment was performed. First, relative risks for respiratory hospitalisations from 1999 to 2004 at the census area unit level were adjusted for age and sex. In three subsequent tests, admissions were adjusted for annual exposure to particulate matter less than 10[mu]m in diameter (PM10), then for a deprivation index, and finally for both PM10 and deprivation. Spatial patterns of risk, disease clusters and cold and hot spots were generated using a spatial scan statistic and a Getis-Ord Gi* statistic. In all disease groups tested (except the control disease), adjustment for chronic PM10 exposure and deprivation modified the position of clusters substantially, as well as notably shifting patterns and hot/cold spots of relative risk. Adjusting for PM10 and/or for deprivation shifted clusters in a similar spatial fashion. In Christchurch, the resulting shift relocated the cluster from a purely residential area to a mixed residential/industrial area, possibly introducing new environmental exposures. Researchers should be aware of the potential spatial effects inherent in adjusting for covariates when considering study design and interpreting results.Spatial epidemiology GIS methods Covariates cluster Hospital admissions Respiratory disease New Zealand

Association of childhood exposure to nitrogen dioxide and polygenic risk score for schizophrenia with the risk of developing schizophrenia

Importance: Schizophrenia is a highly heritable psychiatric disorder, and recent studies have suggested that exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) during childhood is associated with an elevated risk of subsequently developing schizophrenia. However, it is not known whether the increased risk associated with NO2 exposure is owing to a greater genetic liability among those exposed to highest NO2 levels. Objective: To examine the associations between childhood NO2 exposure and genetic liability for schizophrenia (as measured by a polygenic risk score), and risk of developing schizophrenia. Design, Setting, and Participants: Population-based cohort study including individuals with schizophrenia (International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Tenth Revision code F20) and a randomly selected subcohort. Using national registry data, all individuals born in Denmark between May 1, 1981, and December 31, 2002, were followed up from their 10th birthday until the first occurrence of schizophrenia, emigration, death, or December 31, 2012, whichever came first. Statistical analyses were conducted between October 24, 2018, and June 17, 2019. Exposures: Individual exposure to NO2 during childhood estimated as mean daily exposure to NO2 at residential addresses from birth to the 10th birthday. Polygenic risk scores were calculated as the weighted sum of risk alleles at selected single-nucleotide polymorphisms based on genetic material obtained from dried blood spot samples from the Danish Newborn Screening Biobank and on the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium genome-wide association study summary statistics file. Main Outcomes and Measures: The main outcome was schizophrenia. Weighted Cox proportional hazards regression models were fitted to estimate adjusted hazard ratios (AHRs) for schizophrenia with 95% CIs according to the exposures. Results: Of a total of 23 355 individuals, 11 976 (51.3%) were male and all had Danish-born parents. During the period of the study, 3531 were diagnosed with schizophrenia. Higher polygenic risk scores were correlated with higher childhood NO2 exposure (ρ = 0.0782; 95% CI, 0.065-0.091; P