1,721,035 research outputs found
Can Twitter be a source of information on allergy? Correlation of pollen counts with tweets reporting symptoms of allergic rhinoconjunctivitis and names of antihistamine drugs
Get PDFPollen forecasts are in use everywhere to inform therapeutic decisions for patients with allergic rhinoconjunctivitis (ARC). We exploited data derived from Twitter in order to identify tweets reporting a combination of symptoms consistent with a case definition of ARC and those reporting the name of an antihistamine drug. In order to increase the sensitivity of the system, we applied an algorithm aimed at automatically identifying jargon expressions related to medical terms. We compared weekly Twitter trends with National Allergy Bureau weekly pollen counts derived from US stations, and found a high correlation of the sum of the total pollen counts from each stations with tweets reporting ARC symptoms (Pearson's correlation coefficient: 0.95) and with tweets reporting antihistamine drug names (Pearson's correlation coefficient: 0.93). Longitude and latitude of the pollen stations affected the strength of the correlation. Twitter and other social networks may play a role in allergic disease surveillance and in signaling drug consumptions trends
Sviluppo neuropsicologico 10 anni dopolâ€TMimmunizzazione in età infantile con vaccini contenenti thimerosal
No full textE’ stata espressa preoccupazione circa il possibile effetto neurotossico del thimerosal, un composto del mercurio utilizzato come conservante per i vaccini somministrati durante l’infanzia. Abbiamo confrontato lo sviluppo neuropsicologico di due gruppi di bambini che avevano ricevuto differenti quantità di thimerosal attraverso le vaccinazioni durante i primi 12 mesi di vita. Abbiamo selezionato un sottogruppo dei soggetti arruolati originariamente in un clinical trial randomizzato sull’efficacia dei vaccini acellulari contro la pertosse iniziato nel 1992-93. Durante il clinical trial i bambini randomizzati a diversi vaccini risultavano esposti in modo casuale a una dose cumulativa di 62.5 o 137.5 mcg di etilmercurio nel primo anno di vita. Abbiamo confrontato l’outcome di 11 test neuropsicologici standardizzati che venivano somministrate ai bambini durante l’orario scolastico. Sono stati analizzati i punteggi medi dei test neuropsicologici nei domini della memoria e dell’apprendimento, attenzione, funzioni esecutive, funzioni visuo spaziali, linguaggio e abilità motoria per dose di esposizione al thimerosal e sesso. Per valutare l’effetto dell’esposizione al thimerosal abbiamo applicato una regressione lineare multipla ed abbiamo calcolato i coefficienti di regressione standardizzati. Hanno partecipato allo studio 1403 bambini. Solo due degli outcome neuropsicologici esaminati sono risultati associati in modo significativo all’esposizione a thimerosal. Le bambine con una esposizione a dosi maggiori di thimerosal avevano punteggi più bassi al test del finger tapping e al Boston naming test. Le associazioni significative trovate non sono coerenti con quelle trovate da altri studi e sono comunque relative a piccole differenze. La rilevanza clinica di questi risultati è incerta rimane da determinare
Seasonal and pandemic influenza vaccine: recommendations to families of at-risk children during the 2009-10 season
No full textWe performed a study in three Italian regions to evaluate the association between provided recommendations and immunization uptake of the two influenza vaccines in children with chronic diseases. We interviewed families of 119 at-risk children, collecting information regarding recommendations and immunizations against pandemic and seasonal influenza. In total 60.5% of children had received seasonal influenza vaccine, 38.7% had received pandemic influenza vaccine and 33.6% had not been vaccinated. The majority of immunized children had received specific recommendations by a physician. Physicians involved in the management of children with chronic diseases should actively recommend influenza immunization
MRSA Nasal Colonization in Children: Prevalence Meta-analysis, Review of Risk Factors and Molecular Genetics
No full textBackground: We report a meta-analysis of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) nasal colonization prevalence in children and a review of the risk factors as well as molecular genetic characterization. Methods: All relevant studies reporting prevalence data on MRSA nasal colonization in children published between January 2000 and August 2010 were retrieved from the MEDLINE database and analyzed. Results: After screening 544 studies, 50 studies were included. We obtained an estimate of MRSA prevalence of 2.7% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.2-3.1); of 5.2% (95% CI: 3.1-7.3) in children with underlying conditions and of 2.3% (95% CI: 1.8-2.7) in healthy children; 5.4% (95% CI: 3.1-7.7) in children recruited in hospitals and 3% (95% CI: 2.4-3.6) in children recruited in the community. Staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec type IV is the most diffused cassette globally. Conclusion: The hospital remains the environment where the microorganism circulates most. Children with underlying conditions could act as vectors of microorganisms between the hospital and the community. MRSA prevention strategies should be tailored to each specific institution, taking into account the nosocomial prevalence of MRSA nasal colonization and infections, and the prevalence of nasal colonization in the community that refers to the specific health care center
Global seroprevalence of rubella among pregnant and childbearing age women: a meta-analysis
No full textClose encounters between infants and household members measured through wearable proximity sensors
Get PDFDescribing and understanding close proximity interactions between infant and family members can provide key information on transmission opportunities of respiratory infections within households. Among respiratory infections, pertussis represents a public health priority. Pertussis infection can be particularly harmful to young, unvaccinated infants and for these patients, family members represent the main sources of transmission. Here, we report on the use of wearable proximity sensors based on RFID technology to measure face-to-face proximity between family members within 16 households with infants younger than 6 months for 2–5 consecutive days of data collection. The sensors were deployed over the course of approximately 1 year, in the context of a national research project aimed at the improvement of infant pertussis prevention strategies. We investigated differences in close-range interactions between family members and we assessed whether demographic variables or feeding practices affect contact patterns between parents and infants. A total of 5,958 contact events were recorded between 55 individuals: 16 infants, 4 siblings, 31 parents and 4 grandparents. The aggregated contact networks, obtained for each household, showed a heterogeneous distribution of the cumulative time spent in proximity with the infant by family members. Contact matrices defined by age and by family role showed that most of the contacts occurred between the infant and other family members (70%), while 30% of contacts was among family members (infants excluded). Many contacts were observed between infants and adults, in particular between infant and mother, followed by father, siblings and grandparents. A larger number of contacts and longer contact durations between infant and other family members were observed in families adopting exclusive breastfeeding, compared to families in which the infant receives artificial or mixed feeding. Our results demonstrate how a high-resolution measurement of contact matrices within infants’ households is feasible using wearable proximity sensing devices. Moreover, our findings suggest the mother is responsible for the large majority of the infant’s contact pattern, thus being the main potential source of infection for a transmissible disease. As the contribution to the infants’ contact pattern by other family members is very variable, vaccination against pertussis during pregnancy is probably the best strategy to protect young, unvaccinated infants
La promozione della salute materno-infantile inizia prima della gravidanza
No full textIntroduzione. La Global Consensus Conference on Preconception Health tenutasi
recentemente all’OMS ha chiaramente indicato che un sensibile miglioramento della salute
materno-infantile si ottiene se le cure materno-infantili si estendono al periodo che precede
la gravidanza: salute riproduttiva, salute preconcezionale e inter-concezionale.
Metodi. In Italia l’ICBD, WHO Collaborating Centre, insieme a colleghi di altre
istituzioni (GLISP), ha promosso iniziative per aumentare l’attenzione sulla promozione
della salute preconcezionale:
− “Pensiamoci Prima”, progetto finanziato dal CCM del Ministero della Salute;
− il “Mese della Prevenzione dei Difetti Congeniti e della Prematurità”;
− il Comitato “Donne Portatrici di Salute”.
Risultati. Pensiamoci Prima (www.pensiamociprima.net) ha prodotto materiale per
operatori sanitari (pacchetti formativi di aggiornamento, raccomandazioni per il counseling
preconcezionale, scheda di valutazione dei rischi preconcezionali) e per le donne/coppie in
età fertile (videoclip, manuale e schede informativi, opuscoli, locandina); ha ispirato
“Mamma InForma”, indagine dell’Ospedale Pediatrico Bambino Gesù sull’efficacia di
consigli preconcezionali personalizzati forniti via internet (www.mammainforma.it); ha
promosso l’attivazione di ambulatori “Pensiamoci Prima” e l’ “Indagine sulla Prevalenza
dei Fattori di Rischio Preconcezionale e loro Determinanti” in alcune strutture ospedaliere.
Il “Mese della Prevenzione dei Difetti Congeniti e della Prematurità” (aprile 2012) prevede
la realizzazione di un sito web: www.primadellagravidanza.it per informare la cittadinanza,
e l’invito a realizzare eventi di sensibilizzazione. Il Comitato “Donne Portatrici di Salute”
utilizza il metodo Peer to Peer Education per disseminare informazioni sulla promozione
della salute delle donne. Il tema del 2012 è la promozione della salute delle donne in età
fertile e/o in vista di una gravidanza.
Conclusioni. Le attività e gli interventi in Italia per la promozione della salute maternoinfantile
sin da prima del concepimento sono ampi ed articolati, tali da includerla tra i Paesi
più avanzati in questo settore. Questi interventi potranno migliorare ulteriormente negli
305
anni a venire la salute materno-infantile. Si auspicano studi di valutazione dell’efficacia di
tali interventi
An infectious disease model on empirical networks of human contact: bridging the gap between dynamic network data and contact matrices
No full textBackground: The integration of empirical data in computational frameworks designed to model the spread of infectious diseases poses a number of challenges that are becoming more pressing with the increasing availability of high-resolution information on human mobility and contacts. This deluge of data has the potential to revolutionize the computational efforts aimed at simulating scenarios, designing containment strategies, and evaluating outcomes. However, the integration of highly detailed data sources yields models that are less transparent and general in their applicability. Hence, given a specific disease model, it is crucial to assess which representations of the raw data work best to inform the model, striking a balance between simplicity and detail. Methods: We consider high-resolution data on the face-to-face interactions of individuals in a pediatric hospital ward, obtained by using wearable proximity sensors. We simulate the spread of a disease in this community by using an SEIR model on top of different mathematical representations of the empirical contact patterns. At the most detailed level, we take into account all contacts between individuals and their exact timing and order. Then, we build a hierarchy of coarse-grained representations of the contact patterns that preserve only partially the temporal and structural information available in the data. We compare the dynamics of the SEIR model across these representations. Results: We show that a contact matrix that only contains average contact durations between role classes fails to reproduce the size of the epidemic obtained using the high-resolution contact data and also fails to identify the most at-risk classes. We introduce a contact matrix of probability distributions that takes into account the heterogeneity of contact durations between (and within) classes of individuals, and we show that, in the case study presented, this representation yields a good approximation of the epidemic spreading properties obtained by using the high-resolution data. Conclusions: Our results mark a first step towards the definition of synopses of high-resolution dynamic contact networks, providing a compact representation of contact patterns that can correctly inform computational models designed to discover risk groups and evaluate containment policies. We show in a typical case of a structured population that this novel kind of representation can preserve in simulation quantitative features of the epidemics that are crucial for their study and management
Adolescenti ed infezione da HIV. Uno studio su conoscenza, attitudine e comportamenti dei giovani.
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