Articles

Has Latin America achieved universal health coverage yet? Lessons from four countries

Seven years after the commitment to United Nations’ call for Universal Health Coverage, healthcare services in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico are generally accessible and affordable; but they still strugg...

Authors: Ramiro E. Gilardino, Pilar Valanzasca and Susan B. Rifkin

Changes of health related quality of life during pregnancy based on pregnancy context: a prospective study

The significance of planned pregnancy is an accepted principle for improving the health of pregnant women; and quality of life, as one of the important indicators of women’s health, is reduced in high-risk pre...

Authors: Ashraf Kazemi, Aazam Dadkhah and Fatemeh Torabi

The use of disaggregate data in evaluations of public health interventions: cross-sectional dependence can bias inference

Higher availability of administrative data and better infrastructure for electronic surveys allow for large sample sizes in evaluations of national and other large scale policies. Although larger datasets have...

Authors: Torleif Halkjelsvik, Antonio Gasparrini and Rannveig Kaldager Hart

Spatial epidemiology of skin cancer in Iran: separating sun-exposed and non-sun-exposed parts of the body

Skin cancer is among the most common cancer types with an increasing global trend of incidence rate. This study explores the spatial distribution of skin cancer, considering body sites exposed and not exposed ...

Authors: Behzad Kiani, Parinaz Tabari, Alireza Mohammadi, Sayyed Mostafa Mostafavi, Mohsen Moghadami, Mitra Amini and Abbas Rezaianzadeh

Effect of perinatal depression on birth and infant health outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies from Africa

Antenatal depression is associated with intrauterine growth retardation, preterm birth, and low birth weight. Infants born to mothers with postnatal depression also may suffer from malnutrition and other healt...

Authors: Abel Fekadu Dadi, Temesgen Yihunie Akalu, Haileab Fekadu Wolde and Adhanom Gebreegziabher Baraki

Spontaneous reporting of adverse drug reaction among health professionals in Ghana

Spontaneous reporting of adverse drug reactions (ADR) is an effective means of ensuring postmarketing surveillance of drugs, and health professionals play a cardinal role through voluntary reporting of ADR. Ho...

Authors: Morrison Asiamah, Kwadwo Owusu Akuffo, Pricillia Nortey, Nina Donkor and Anthony Danso-Appiah

Prevalence and characterization of forgoing care: comparison of two prospective multicentre cohorts between pre-COVID-19 era and a lockdown period

Little is known about patients who forego healthcare, although it is an important provider of unfavorable health-related outcomes. Forgoing healthcare characterizes situations in which people do not initiate o...

Authors: Delphine Douillet, Clémence Dupont, Noémie Leloup, Grégory Ménager, Maud Delori, Caroline Soulie, François Morin, Thomas Moumneh, Dominique Savary, Pierre-Marie Roy and Aurore Armand

Non-emergent care visits in a turkish tertiary care emergency department after 2008 health policy changes: review and analysis

The Turkish government liberalized national healthcare policies in 2008 enabling Turkish citizens to seek general care in hospital emergency departments (ED). The number of ED visits has exceeded the total pop...

Authors: Cihad Dundar and Seydanur Dal Yaylaoglu

Locally structured correlation (LSC) plots describe inhomogeneity in normally distributed correlated bivariate variables

The association between bivariate variables may not necessarily be homogeneous throughout the whole range of the variables. We present a new technique to describe inhomogeneity in the association of bivariate ...

Authors: Rebekka Mumm, Christiane Scheffler and Michael Hermanussen

Integrating technical and political views for a sustainable European Distributed Infrastructure on Population Health

Non-Communicable diseases (NCD) are the main contributors to mortality and burden of disease. There is no infrastructure in Europe that could provide health information (HI) on Public Health monitoring and Hea...

Authors: Alicia Padron-Monedero, Rodrigo Sarmiento Suárez, Petronille Bogaert, Linda Abboud, Herman Van Oyen, Hanna Tolonen, Mariken J. Tijhuis, Luigi Palmieri, Romana Haneef, Anne Gallay, Luis Lapao, Paulo Jorge Nogueira, Thomas Ziese, Stefanie Seeling, Jakov Vukovic and Isabel Noguer-Zambrano

Nurses’ eating habits in Lebanon during the economic and health crises: a cross-sectional study

Nurses face multiple stressors that can influence their lifestyle, thus affecting their health status. Scarce are the scientific data on the nutritional status of nurses, especially during health crises. The a...

Authors: Rita Georges Nohra, Elissa Naim, Taghrid Chaaban and Monique Rothan-Tondeur

Barriers and determinants of postpartum family planning uptake among postpartum women in Western Ethiopia: a facility-based cross-sectional study

Despite Ethiopia’s efforts to avail postpartum family planning (PPFP) services, the unmet need for family planning among postpartum women remains high. Therefore, this study is aimed to assess barriers and det...

Authors: Temesgen Tilahun, Tariku Tesfaye Bekuma, Motuma Getachew, Rut Oljira and Assefa Seme

Causes and age of neonatal death and associations with maternal and newborn care characteristics in Nepal: a verbal autopsy study

In Nepal, neonatal mortality fell substantially between 2000 and 2018, decreasing 50% from 40 to 20 deaths per 1,000 live births. Nepal’s success has been attributed to a decreasing total fertility rate, impro...

Authors: Daniel J. Erchick, Johanna B. Lackner, Luke C. Mullany, Nitin N. Bhandari, Purusotam R. Shedain, Sirjana Khanal, Jyoti R. Dhakwa and Joanne Katz

Prioritizing health information for national health reporting - a Delphi study of the Joint Action on Health Information (InfAct)

Health information (HI) strategies exist in several EU Member States, however, they mainly focus on technical issues and improving governance rather than on content-related priority setting. There is also litt...

Authors: Angela Fehr, Stefanie Seeling, Anselm Hornbacher, Martin Thißen, Petronille Bogaert, Marie Delnord, Ronan A. Lyons, Mariken J. Tijhuis, Peter Achterberg and Thomas Ziese

A program evaluation of the Innovative Teen Pregnancy Prevention Programs (iTP₃) Project

Teen pregnancy prevention in the United States has traditionally focused on the development, testing, and subsequent implementation of a set of evidence-based programs (EBPs), recommended nationally. However, ...

Authors: Kristen M. Garcia, Christi H. Esquivel, Whitney R. Garney, Kelly L. Wilson and Jennifer Farmer

Mapping European research networks providing health data: results from the InfAct Joint Action on health information

Research networks offer multidisciplinary expertise and promote information exchange between researchers across Europe. They are essential for the European Union’s (EU) health information system as providers o...

Authors: Brigid Unim, Elsi Haverinen, Eugenio Mattei, Flavia Carle, Andrea Faragalli, Rosaria Gesuita, Martin Thissen, Linda Abboud, Tiziana Grisetti, Petronille Bogaert and Luigi Palmieri

Using a stochastic continuous-time Markov chain model to examine alternative timing and duration of the COVID-19 lockdown in Kuwait: what can be done now?

Kuwait had its first COVID-19 in late February, and until October 6, 2020 it recorded 108,268 cases and 632 deaths. Despite implementing one of the strictest control measures-including a three-week complete lo...

Authors: Mustafa Al-Zoughool, Tamer Oraby, Harri Vainio, Janvier Gasana, Joseph Longenecker, Walid Al Ali, Mohammad AlSeaidan, Susie Elsaadany and Michael G. Tyshenko

Survival analysis of neonatal mortality in Ghana using three population-based surveys

Neonatal mortality in many low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) remains high despite global efforts at addressing this challenge. Tackling neonatal death in LMICs is further complicated by lack of reliable ...

Authors: David Teye Doku

“I always prefer to withdraw than use a condom”: contextualising condomless sex among East Asian and sub-Saharan African international students in Sydney

Incidence and prevalence of blood-borne viruses and sexually transmissible infections among young people continue to necessitate population-based studies to understand how contextualised sexual health services...

Authors: Sylvester R. Okeke

Under-nutrition and associated factors among children infected with human immunodeficiency virus in sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review and meta-analysis

In the developing world, such as the sub-Saharan African region, HIV/AIDS has worsened the impact of under-nutrition in children. HIV infected children are highly vulnerable to under-nutrition. Therefore, the ...

Authors: Jemberu Nigussie, Bekahegn Girma, Alemayehu Molla, Moges Mareg and Esmelealem Mihretu

Vaccination dropout rates among children aged 12-23 months in Democratic Republic of the Congo: a cross-sectional study

Overall, 1.8 million children fail to receive the 3-dose series for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis each year in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Currently, an emergency plan targeting 9 provinces...

Authors: Harry-César Kayembe-Ntumba, Felly Vangola, Papy Ansobi, Germain Kapour, Eric Bokabo, Bien-Aimé Mandja and Didier Bompangue

Health data collection methods and procedures across EU member states: findings from the InfAct Joint Action on health information

Health-related data are collected from a variety of sources for different purposes, including secondary use for population health monitoring (HM) and health system performance assessment (HSPA). Most of these ...

Authors: Brigid Unim, Eugenio Mattei, Flavia Carle, Hanna Tolonen, Enrique Bernal-Delgado, Peter Achterberg, Metka Zaletel, Stefanie Seeling, Romana Haneef, Anne-Charlotte Lorcy, Herman Van Oyen and Luigi Palmieri

How COVID-19 affects the use of evidence informed policymaking among iranian health policymakers and managers

The COVID-19 pandemic increased the need for new valid scientific evidence to support urgent clinical and policy decision making; as well as improved processes for the rapid synthesis, uptake and application o...

Authors: Peivand Bastani, Jamshid Bahmaei, Ebrahim Kharazinejad, Mahnaz Samadbeik, Zhanming Liang and Carmen Huckel Schneider

COVID-19: information access, trust and adherence to health advice among migrants in Norway

Migrants in Norway bear a higher burden of COVID-19 infections and hospitalization as compared to non-migrants. The aim of our study was to understand how migrants perceive their own health risk, how they acce...

Authors: Ahmed A. Madar, Pierina Benavente, Elżbieta Czapka, Raquel Herrero-Arias, Jasmin Haj-Younes, Wegdan Hasha, George Deeb, Kathy A. Møen, Gaby Ortiz-Barreda and Esperanza Diaz

Research lessons during the COVID-19 pandemic: collecting longitudinal physical and mental health outcomes

Participant enrolment, assessment and/or delivery of intervention in many clinical trials during the COVID-19 pandemic were severely impacted by public health measures limiting physical contact. This report de...

Authors: Kristen Grove, Megan Harrold, Sheeraz Mohd, Varsha Natarajan, Elizabeth Hurn, Jane Pearce, Vinicius Cavalheri, Carol Watson and Dale W. Edgar

Decomposition of factors associated with housing material inequality in under-five deaths in low and middle-income countries

Low-and Medium-Income Countries (LMIC) continue to record a high burden of under-five deaths (U5D). There is a gap in knowledge of the factors contributing to housing materials inequalities in U5D. This study ...

Authors: Oyewale Mayowa Morakinyo, Adeniyi Francis Fagbamigbe and Ayo Stephen Adebowale

Determinants of adverse birth outcomes among women delivered in public hospitals of Ethiopia, 2020

Adverse birth outcome is a common health problem consisting of several health effects involving pregnancy and the newborn infant. Infants with one or more adverse birth outcomes are at greater risk for mortali...

Authors: Muktar Abadiga, Getu Mosisa, Reta Tsegaye, Adugna Oluma, Eba Abdisa and Tilahun Bekele

Predictors of mortality among TB-HIV co-infected children attending anti-retroviral therapy clinics of selected public hospitals in southern, Ethiopia: retrospective cohort study

Co-infection of tuberculosis and HIV has a significant impact on public health. TB is the most common opportunistic infection and the leading cause of death in HIV-positive children worldwide. But there is pau...

Authors: Jifare Gemechu, Bereket Gebremichael, Tewodros Tesfaye, Alula Seyum and Desta Erkalo

Trends of limb amputation considering type, level, sex and age in Saskatchewan, Canada 2006–2019: an in-depth assessment

Most epidemiologic reports focus on lower extremity amputation (LEA) caused specifically by diabetes mellitus. However, narrowing scope disregards the impact of other causes and types of limb amputation (LA) d...

Authors: Samuel Kwaku Essien, David Kopriva, A. Gary Linassi and Audrey Zucker-Levin

Methodological guidelines to estimate population-based health indicators using linked data and/or machine learning techniques

The capacity to use data linkage and artificial intelligence to estimate and predict health indicators varies across European countries. However, the estimation of health indicators from linked administrative ...

Authors: Romana Haneef, Mariken Tijhuis, Rodolphe Thiébaut, Ondřej Májek, Ivan Pristaš, Hanna Tolenan and Anne Gallay

COVID-19 denial in Turkmenistan veiling the real situation

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) emerged in late 2019, with the first case identified in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, on 12 December 2019. In order to perceive the comprehensive impact of this pandemi...

Authors: Hashim Talib Hashim, Ahed El Abed El Rassoul, John Bchara, Attaullah Ahmadi and Don Eliseo Lucero-Prisno III

Assessing neo-natal mortality trends in Pakistan: an insight using equity lens

Almost 2.5 million neonates died in the first year of life in the year 2017. These account for almost half of the total deaths of children under the age of 5 years. Overall, child mortality has declined over t...

Authors: Zainab Dawood and Naeem Majeed

Generating comprehensive functioning and disability data worldwide: development process, data analyses strategy and reliability of the WHO and World Bank Model Disability Survey

Data on functioning and disability collected at population level is essential to complement mortality and morbidity, to estimate rehabilitation needs of countries and regions and to monitor the Convention on t...

Authors: Carla Sabariego, Carolina Fellinghauer, Lindsay Lee, Kaloyan Kamenov, Aleksandra Posarac, Jerome Bickenbach, Nenad Kostanjsek, Somnath Chatterji and Alarcos Cieza

Effect of checklist based box system interventions on improving institutional delivery among reproductive age women in Northwest Ethiopia: generalized structural equation modeling

Previous studies have shown that there is low utilization of institutional delivery in Ethiopia, as well as various factors contributing to this low utilization. Notably, there is paucity around interventions ...

Authors: Netsanet Belete Andargie and Gurmesa Tura Debelew

Concordance of the cardiovascular patient education with the principles of Andragogy model

Patient education is a critical aspect of patient care and is considered a vital part of self-care (especially in patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD)) and health promotion. The literature supports incor...

Authors: Negin Niksadat, Sakineh Rakhshanderou, Reza Negarandeh, Ali Ramezankhani, Ali Vasheghani Farahani and Mohtasham Ghaffari

Evaluating the long-term care insurance policy from medical expenses and health security equity perspective: evidence from China

Since the national long-term care (LTCI) policy pilot in 2016 of China, the LTCI policy has had significant impact on the residents in the pilot area.

Authors: Huan Liu and Tiantian Hu

What explains gender inequality in HIV infection among high-risk people? A Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition

Despite clear evidence on role of gender in vulnerability and exposure to HIV infection, information on gender-related inequalities in HIV and related factors are rarely documented. The aim of this study was t...

Authors: Mansour Sajadipour, Satar Rezaei, Seyed Fahim Irandoost, Mohammadreza Ghaumzadeh, Mohamadreza Salmani nadushan, Mohammad Gholami, Yahya Salimi and Zahra Jorjoran Shushtari

Changes in sedentary behavior patterns during the transition from childhood to adolescence and their association with adiposity: a prospective study based on compositional data analysis

To date, no longitudinal study using a compositional approach has examined sedentary behavior (SB) patterns in relation to adiposity in the pediatric population. Therefore, our aims were to (1) investigate the...

Authors: Lukáš Rubín, Aleš Gába, Jana Pelclová, Nikola Štefelová, Lukáš Jakubec, Jan Dygrýn and Karel Hron

Promoting outdoor recreation among older adults in Sweden – a theoretical and empirical foundation for the development of an intervention

Disengagement from outdoor recreation may diminish the positive benefits on health and well-being in old age. The purpose of this study is to present a contextual, theoretical, and empirical rationale for an i...

Authors: Magnus Zingmark, Rosemarie Ankre and Sandra Wall-Reinius

Comparison of metabolic syndrome prevalence using four different definitions – a population-based study in Finland

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a public health problem in Europe, affecting all age groups. Several MetS definitions are available. The aim of this study was to compare four different MetS definitions in the Fin...

Authors: Elsi Haverinen, Laura Paalanen, Luigi Palmieri, Alicia Padron-Monedero, Isabel Noguer-Zambrano, Rodrigo Sarmiento Suárez and Hanna Tolonen

Willingness of dentists in the United Arab Emirates to perform restorative and surgical treatments for patients infected with hepatitis C

Dentists’ refusal to treat patients infected with hepatitis C (HCV) continues to raise ethical concerns, particularly in countries where HCV is prevalent. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to assess de...

Authors: Suhail H Al-Amad

Overview of national health reporting in the EU and quality criteria for public health reports – results of the Joint Action InfAct

Health reporting shall provide up-to-date health-related data to inform policy-makers, researchers and the public. To this end, health reporting formats should be tailored to the needs and competencies of the ...

Authors: Martin Thissen, Stefanie Seeling, Peter Achterberg, Angela Fehr, Luigi Palmieri, Mariken J. Tijhuis, Brigid Unim and Thomas Ziese

Maternity waiting home as a potential intervention for reducing the maternal mortality ratio in El Salvador: an observational case study

El Salvador is recognized as a country that has effectively reduced its Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR). While health indicators, such as total fertility rate, adolescent fertility rate, skilled birth attendanc...

Authors: Hee sang Yoon and Chong-Sup Kim

An integrative model of patients’ perceived value of healthcare service quality in North Cyprus

Improving healthcare quality has become an essential objective for all health institutions worldwide to address the need to improve services, manage costs and satisfy patient expectations about the quality of ...

Authors: Mert Sanıl and Fehiman Eminer

Interpreting a standardized and normalized measure of neighborhood socioeconomic status for a better understanding of health differences

Standardization and normalization of continuous covariates are used to ease the interpretation of regression coefficients. Although these scaling techniques serve different purposes, they are sometimes used in...

Authors: Masayoshi Oka

Proceedings of the Simulation Congress 2021

Authors:

Differences between health technology assessment topics in high- and middle-income countries: a scoping review

The Health Technology Assessment (HTA) has encountered different issues and challenges over the last two decades. The main purpose of this research is to review the issues and challenges in high- and middle-in...

Authors: Sepehr Ghazinoory, Basireh Majidi, Shohreh Nasri, Ehsan Zandi, Hosein Farrokhi, Majid Javedani and Majid Barzanouni

Knowledge, attitude, performance, and determinant factors of Vitamin D deficiency prevention behaviours among Iranian pregnant women

Pregnancy is a high-risk period for vitamin D (Vit D) deficiency, and there is a direct relationship between Vit D deficiency during this period and maternal and fetal complications. Therefore, this study aime...

Authors: Farideh Aghaei, Alireza Heidarnia, Hamid Allahverdipour, Mohammad Eslami and Saeideh Ghaffarifar

Impact of COVID-19 on maternal healthcare in Africa and the way forward

The impact of COVID-19 is weighing heavily on many African countries. As of November 14th 2021, 6,109,722 cases had been recorded with 151,173 deaths and 2.5% case fatality rate. Studies reveal substantial mor...

Authors: Edward Kwabena Ameyaw, Bright Opoku Ahinkorah, Abdul-Aziz Seidu and Carolyne Njue

Coping with interoperability in the development of a federated research infrastructure: achievements, challenges and recommendations from the JA-InfAct

Information for Action! is a Joint Action (JA-InfAct) on Health Information promoted by the EU Member States and funded by the European Commission within the Third EU Health Programme (2014–2020) to create and...

Authors: Juan González-García, Francisco Estupiñán-Romero, Carlos Tellería-Orriols, Javier González-Galindo, Luigi Palmieri, Andrea Fagaralli, Ivan Pristās, Jakov Vuković, Janis Misinš, Irisa Zile and Enrique Bernal-Delgado