Descriptive Epidemiological Methods

IntroductionThe early years are critical. Early nurturing care can lay the foundation for human capital accumulation with lifelong benefits. Conversely, early adversity undermines brain development, learning and future earning.Slums are among the most challenging places to spend those early years and are difficult places to care for a child. Shifting family and work structures mean that paid, largely informal, childcare seems to be becoming the ‘new normal’ for many preschool children growing up in rapidly urbanising Africa. However, little is known about the quality of this childcare.AimsTo build a rigorous understanding what childcare strategies are used and why in a typical Nairobi slum, with a particular focus on provision and quality of paid childcare. Through this, to inform evaluation of quality and design and implementation of interventions with the potential to reach some of the most vulnerable children at the most critical time in the life course.Methods and analysisMixed methods will be employed. Qualitative research (in-depth interviews and focus group discussions) with parents/carers will explore need for and decision-making about childcare. A household survey (of 480 households) will estimate the use of different childcare strategies by parents/carers and associated parent/carer characteristics. Subsequently, childcare providers will be mapped and surveyed to document and assess quality of current paid childcare. Semistructured observations will augment self-reported quality with observable characteristics/practices. Finally, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with childcare providers will explore their behaviours and motivations. Qualitative data will be analysed through thematic analysis and triangulation across methods. Quantitative and spatial data will be analysed through epidemiological methods (random effects regression modelling and spatial statistics).Ethics and disseminationEthical approval has been granted in the UK and Kenya. Findings will be disseminated through journal publications, community and government stakeholder workshops, policy briefs and social media content.

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Saturated Fat Consumption and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease and Ischemic Stroke: A Science Update

Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism ◽

10.1159/000455681 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 70 (1) ◽

pp. 26-33 ◽

Cited By ~ 42

Author(s):

Joyce A. Nettleton ◽

Ingeborg A. Brouwer ◽

Johanna M. Geleijnse ◽

Gerard Hornstra

Keyword(s):

Coronary Heart Disease ◽

Heart Disease ◽

Ischemic Stroke ◽

Saturated Fat ◽

The Body ◽

Epidemiological Methods ◽

Risk Markers ◽

Fat Consumption ◽

Chd Risk ◽

Important Health

At a workshop to update the science linking saturated fatty acid (SAFA) consumption with the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) and ischemic stroke, invited participants presented data on the consumption and bioavailability of SAFA and their functions in the body and food technology. Epidemiological methods and outcomes were related to the association between SAFA consumption and disease events and mortality. Participants reviewed the effects of SAFA on CHD, causal risk factors, and surrogate risk markers. Higher intakes of SAFA were not associated with higher risks of CHD or stroke apparently, but studies did not take macronutrient replacement into account. Replacing SAFA by cis-polyunsaturated fatty acids was associated with significant CHD risk reduction, which was confirmed by randomized controlled trials. SAFA reduction had little direct effect on stroke risk. Cohort studies suggest that the food matrix and source of SAFA have important health effects.

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Social Psychiatry and Sociology of Mental Health: A View on Their Past and Future Relevance

Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry ◽

10.3109/00048679209068313 ◽

1992 ◽

Vol 26 (1) ◽

pp. 91-97 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Jerzy Krupinski

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Mental Illness ◽

World War Ii ◽

Industrial Revolution ◽

Psychiatric Morbidity ◽

Daily Practice ◽

Social Psychiatry ◽

Epidemiological Methods ◽

World War ◽

Urban Decay

The origins of social psychiatry can be traced to the age of enlightenment and to the effects of the industrial revolution. Social psychiatry deals with social factors associated with psychiatric morbidity, social effects of mental illness, psycho-social disorders and social approaches to psychiatric care. Since the end of World War II up to the early seventies it has been claimed that social psychiatry should concentrate on the fight against war, poverty, racial discrimination, urban decay and all other social ills affecting people's mental health, and that the psychiatrist should be responsible for the mental health of the society. In contrast, sociology of mental health questioned the expertise of the psychiatrist and the very existence of mental illness, claiming that it covers deviant behaviour rejected by the society. The paper refutes this approach indicating that not the existence but the perception and presentation of psychiatric illness are socially determined. Acknowledging the contribution of sociology and social sciences to psychiatry, it is suggested that the heroic period of social psychiatry and the iconoclastic approach of sociology of mental health are over. However, social psychiatry, enriched by the use of epidemiological methods, has still much to offer to the daily practice of psychiatry.

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Mass spectrometry-based metabolomics for the discovery of candidate markers of flavonoid and polyphenolic intake in adults

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-021-85190-w ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

David Charles ◽

Lee A. Gethings ◽

James F. Potts ◽

Peter G. J. Burney ◽

Vanessa Garcia-Larsen

Keyword(s):

Mass Spectrometry ◽

Methyl Ester ◽

Vegetable Intake ◽

Dietary Exposure ◽

Polyphenolic Compounds ◽

Epidemiological Methods ◽

Potential Candidate ◽

Serum Samples ◽

Serum Profiling ◽

The Uk

AbstractRobust biological markers of dietary exposure are essential in improving the understanding of the link between diet and health outcomes. Polyphenolic compounds, including flavonoids, have been proposed to mitigate the risk of chronic diseases where oxidative stress and inflammation play a central role. Biomarkers can provide objective measurement of the levels of polyphenolic compounds. In this study, we provide methodology to identify potential candidate markers of polyphenol intake in human serum. Seventeen participants from the UK arm of the Global Allergy and Asthma Network of Excellence (GA2LEN) had their dietary intake estimated using a validated food frequency questionnaire, and serum samples were assessed using mass spectrometry to identify potential candidate markers. 144 features were assigned identities, of these we identified four biologically relevant compounds (rhamnazin 3-rutinoside, 2-galloyl-1,4-galactarolactone methyl ester, 2″,32″-di-O-p-coumaroylafzelin and cyclocommunin), which were significantly increased in the serum of participants with high predicted level of fruit and vegetable intake. 2-galloyl-1,4-galactarolactone methyl ester was strongly correlated with total flavonoids (r = 0.62; P = 0.005), flavan-3-ols (r = 0.67; P = 0.002) as well as with other four subclasses. Rhamnazin 3-rutinoside showed strong correlation with pro-anthocyanidins (r = 0.68; P = 0.001), flavones (r = 0.62; P = 0.005). Our results suggest that serum profiling for these compounds might be an effective way of establishing the relative intake of flavonoids and could contribute to improve the accuracy of epidemiological methods to ascertain flavonoid intake.

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Using Google Trends to Examine the Spatio-Temporal Incidence and Behavioral Patterns of Dengue Disease: A Case Study in Metropolitan Manila, Philippines

Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease ◽

10.3390/tropicalmed3040118 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 3 (4) ◽

pp. 118 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Howell T. Ho ◽

Thaddeus M. Carvajal ◽

John Robert Bautista ◽

Jayson Dale R. Capistrano ◽

Katherine M. Viacrusis ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Thematic Analysis ◽

Cross Correlation ◽

Google Trends ◽

Health Concern ◽

Epidemiological Methods ◽

Health Seeking ◽

Health Seeking Behavior ◽

Search Queries ◽

Seeking Behavior

Dengue is a major public health concern and an economic burden in the Philippines. Despite the country’s improved dengue surveillance, it still suffers from various setbacks and needs to be complemented with alternative approaches. Previous studies have demonstrated the potential of Internet-based surveillance such as Google Dengue Trends (GDT) in supplementing current epidemiological methods for predicting future dengue outbreaks and patterns. With this, our study has two objectives: (1) assess the temporal relationship of weekly GDT and dengue incidence in Metropolitan Manila from 2009–2014; and (2) examine the health-seeking behavior based on dengue-related search queries of the population. The study collated the population statistics and reported dengue cases in Metropolitan Manila from respective government agencies to calculate the dengue incidence (DI) on a weekly basis for the entire region and annually per city. Data processing of GDT and dengue incidence was performed by conducting an ‘adjustment’ and scaling procedures, respectively, and further analyzed for correlation and cross-correlation analyses using Pearson’s correlation. The relative search volume of the term ‘dengue’ and top dengue-related search queries in Metropolitan Manila were obtained and organized from the Google Trends platform. Afterwards, a thematic analysis was employed, and word clouds were generated to examine the health behavior of the population. Results showed that weekly temporal GDT pattern are closely similar to the weekly DI pattern in Metropolitan Manila. Further analysis showed that GDT has a moderate and positive association with DI when adjusted or scaled, respectively. Cross-correlation analysis revealed a delayed effect where GDT leads DI by 1–2 weeks. Thematic analysis of dengue-related search queries indicated 5 categories namely; (a) dengue, (b) sign and symptoms of dengue, (c) treatment and prevention, (d) mosquito, and (e) other diseases. The majority of the search queries were classified in ‘signs and symptoms’ which indicate the health-seeking behavior of the population towards the disease. Therefore, GDT can be utilized to complement traditional disease surveillance methods combined with other factors that could potentially identify dengue hotspots and help in public health decisions.

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Epidemiological methods for research with drug misusers: review of methods for studying prevalence and morbidity

Revista de Saúde Pública ◽

10.1590/s0034-89101999000200013 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 33 (2) ◽

pp. 206-215 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

John Dunn ◽

Cleusa P. Ferri

Keyword(s):

Drug Users ◽

Epidemiological Studies ◽

Drug Misuse ◽

Contact Tracing ◽

Epidemiological Methods ◽

Snowball Sampling ◽

Sampling Frame ◽

Lack Of Information ◽

Random Samples ◽

Capture Recapture

Epidemiological studies of drug misusers have until recently relied on two main forms of sampling: probability and convenience. The former has been used when the aim was simply to estimate the prevalence of the condition and the latter when in depth studies of the characteristics, profiles and behaviour of drug users were required, but each method has its limitations. Probability samples become impracticable when the prevalence of the condition is very low, less than 0.5% for example, or when the condition being studied is a clandestine activity such as illicit drug use. When stratified random samples are used, it may be difficult to obtain a truly representative sample, depending on the quality of the information used to develop the stratification strategy. The main limitation of studies using convenience samples is that the results cannot be generalised to the whole population of drug users due to selection bias and a lack of information concerning the sampling frame. New methods have been developed which aim to overcome some of these difficulties, for example, social network analysis, snowball sampling, capture-recapture techniques, privileged access interviewer method and contact tracing. All these methods have been applied to the study of drug misuse. The various methods are described and examples of their use given, drawn from both the Brazilian and international drug misuse literature.

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