SAFEST Project

publishersversionpublishe

The influence of oral health conditions, socioeconomic status and home environment factors on schoolchildren's self-perception of quality of life

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Background: The objective this study was to investigate the influence of clinical conditions, socioeconomic status, home environment, subjective perceptions of parents and schoolchildren about general and oral health on schoolchildren's oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL). Methods: A sample of 515 schoolchildren, aged 12 years was randomly selected by conglomerate analysis from public and private schools in the city of Juiz de Fora, Brazil. The schoolchildren were clinically examined for presence of caries lesions (DMFT and dmft index), dental trauma, enamel defects, periodontal status (presence/absence of bleeding), dental treatment and orthodontic treatment needs (DAI). The SiC index was calculated. The participants were asked to complete the Brazilian version of Child Perceptions Questionnaire (CPQ(11-14)) and a questionnaire about home environment. Questions were asked about the presence of general diseases and children's self-perception of their general and oral health status. In addition, a questionnaire was sent to their parents inquiring about their socioeconomic status (family income, parents' education level, home ownership) and perceptions about the general and oral health of their school-aged children. The chi-square test was used for comparisons between proportions. Poisson's regression was used for multivariate analysis with adjustment for variances. Results: Univariate analysis revealed that school type, monthly family income, mother's education, family structure, number of siblings, use of cigarettes, alcohol and drugs in the family, parents' perception of oral health of schoolchildren, schoolchildren's self perception their general and oral health, orthodontic treatment needs were significantly associated with poor OHRQoL (p < 0.001). After adjusting for potential confounders, variables were included in a Multivariate Poisson regression. It was found that the variables children's self perception of their oral health status, monthly family income, gender, orthodontic treatment need, mother's education, number of siblings, and household overcrowding showed a strong negative effect on oral health-related quality of life. Conclusions: It was concluded that the clinical, socioeconomic and home environment factors evaluated exerted a negative impact on the oral health-related quality of life of schoolchildren, demonstrating the importance of health managers addressing all these factors when planning oral health promotion interventions for this population.10Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)FAPESP [2009/06081-7

Prognostic value of neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin in acute heart failure

Background: The identification of patients at risk for worse outcome is still a challenge. We hypothesized that cystatin C, a marker of renal function, and neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL), a marker of acute renal injury, would have a role in the prognostic stratification of these patients. Methods: We prospectively evaluated 121 patients admitted for acute HF. Serum NGAL and cystatin C levels were measured on the first morning after admission. The outcome measures used were the occurrence of death from all causes, and the combined endpoint defined as the first occurrence of either death or hospital admission. Patients were followed for up to 3 months. Results: The variables associated with a higher occurrence of death in a univariate approach were older age and higher levels of BNP, cystatin C and NGAL, and those associated with the occurrence of the combined endpoint were older age, Diabetes mellitus, lower GFR, type 1 cardio-renal syndrome, BNP, cystatin C and NGAL. BNP and NGAL remained independent predictors of the occurrence of both all-cause death and the combined endpoint. NGAL levels in the 75th percentile (> 167.5 ng/mL) were associated with a 2.7-fold increase in the risk of death and a 2.9-fold increase in the risk of the first occurrence of either death or hospitalization. Conclusions: Serum NGAL, a marker of acute renal injury, is an independent predictor of worse short term prognosis in patients with acute HF. This suggests a role of renal damage, apart from renal function, in the prognosis of these patients

Estimating retention benchmarks for salvage logging to protect biodiversity

S.T. was supported by the Humboldt-Foundation and by the MOST (Ministry of Science and Technology) Taiwan Research Fellowship to work with A.C. at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. S.T. received funds from the Gregor Louisoder Environmental Foundation. A.B.L. received funds from the Humboldt-Foundation.Forests are increasingly affected by natural disturbances. Subsequent salvage logging, a widespread management practice conducted predominantly to recover economic capital, produces further disturbance and impacts biodiversity worldwide. Hence, naturally disturbed forests are among the most threatened habitats in the world, with consequences for their associated biodiversity. However, there are no evidence-based benchmarks for the proportion of area of naturally disturbed forests to be excluded from salvage logging to conserve biodiversity. We apply a mixed rarefaction/extrapolation approach to a global multi-taxa dataset from disturbed forests, including birds, plants, insects and fungi, to close this gap. We find that 75 ± 7% (mean ± SD) of a naturally disturbed area of a forest needs to be left unlogged to maintain 90% richness of its unique species, whereas retaining 50% of a naturally disturbed forest unlogged maintains 73 ± 12% of its unique species richness. These values do not change with the time elapsed since disturbance but vary considerably among taxonomic groups.Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEA

The HepHIV 2023 Madrid conference: A call to action for political leadership in reaching the sustainable development goals on earlier testing and linkage to care for HIV, viral hepatitis, and sexually transmitted infections

Introduction and Objectives: The HepHIV 2023 Conference, held in Madrid in November 2023, highlighted how Europe is not on track to meet the United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals and Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) targets. This article presents the outcomes of the conference, which focus on ways to improve testing and linkage to care for HIV, viral hepatitis, and other sexually transmitted infections. HIV-related stigma and discrimination, a major barrier to progress, was a key concept of the conference and on the agenda of the Spanish Presidency of the European Union. Methods: The HepHIV 2023 organizing committee, alongside the Spanish Ministry of Health, oversaw the conference organization and prepared the scientific programme based on abstract rankings. Key outcomes are derived from conference presentations and discussions. Results: Conference presentations covered the obstacles that HIV-related stigma and discrimination continue to pose to access to services, models for data collection to better monitor progress in the future, and examples of legislative action that can be taken at national levels. Diversification of testing approaches was also highlighted, to reach key populations, (e.g. migrant populations), to increase testing offered in healthcare settings (e.g. emergency departments), and to account for different stages of epidemics across the region. Conclusion: With a strong call for intensified action to address the impact of HIV-related stigma and discrimination on testing uptake, the conference concluded that strengthened collaboration is required between governments and implementers around testing and linkage to care. There is also an ongoing need to ensure sustainable political commitment and appropriate resource allocation to address gaps and inequalities in access for key populations and to focus on the implementation of integrated responses to HIV, viral hepatitis, and sexually transmitted infections. © 2024 The Author(s). HIV Medicine published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British HIV Association

Scenario-based requirements elicitation for user-centric explainable AI

Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) develops technical explanation methods and enable interpretability for human stakeholders on why Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) models provide certain predictions. However, the trust of those stakeholders into AI models and explanations is still an issue, especially domain experts, who are knowledgeable about their domain but not AI inner workings. Social and user-centric XAI research states it is essential to understand the stakeholder’s requirements to provide explanations tailored to their needs, and enhance their trust in working with AI models. Scenario-based design and requirements elicitation can help bridge the gap between social and operational aspects of a stakeholder early before the adoption of information systems and identify its real problem and practices generating user requirements. Nevertheless, it is still rarely explored the adoption of scenarios in XAI, especially in the domain of fraud detection to supporting experts who are about to work with AI models. We demonstrate the usage of scenario-based requirements elicitation for XAI in a fraud detection context, and develop scenarios derived with experts in banking fraud. We discuss how those scenarios can be adopted to identify user or expert requirements for appropriate explanations in his daily operations and to make decisions on reviewing fraudulent cases in banking. The generalizability of the scenarios for further adoption is validated through a systematic literature review in domains of XAI and visual analytics for fraud detection