Community‐level prevalence of a forest pathogen, not individual‐level disease risk, declines with tree diversity

Abstract Background The burden of low coverage of exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) has a significant impact on the health of a newborn and also on the family and social economy in the long term. Even though the prevalence of EBF practices in Ethiopia is low, the practices in the pastoral communities, in particular, are significantly low and affected by individual and community-level factors. Besides, its adverse outcomes are mostly unrecognised. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the individual and community-level factors of low coverage of EBF practices in the emerging regions of Ethiopia. Methods In this analysis, data from 2016 Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) were used. A two-stage stratified sampling technique was used to identify 1406 children aged 0 to 23 months in the emerging regions of Ethiopia. A multilevel mixed-effect binary logistic regression analysis was used to determine the individual and community level factors associated with exclusive breastfeeding practices. In the final model, variables with a p-value of < 0.05 and Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) with 95% Confidence Interval (CI) were found to be statistically significant factors that affect exclusive breastfeeding practices. Results Overall, 17.6% (95% CI: 15.6–19.6) of the children aged 0 to 23 months have received exclusive breastfeeding. Employed mothers (AOR: 0.33, 95% CI: 0.21–0.53), richer household wealth status (AOR: 0.39, 95% CI: 0.16–0.96), mothers undecided to have more children (AOR: 2.29, 95% CI: 1.21–4.29), a child with a history of diarrhoea (AOR: 0.31, 95% CI: 0.16–0.61) were the individual-level factors, whereas Benishangul region (AOR: 2.63, 95% CI: 1.44–4.82) was the community-level factors associated with the exclusive breastfeeding practices. Conclusions Less than one-fifth of the mothers have practised exclusive breastfeeding in the emerging regions of Ethiopia. The individual-level factors such as mother’s employment status, household wealth status, desire for more children, presence of diarrhoea and community-level factors such as region have contributed to the low coverage of exclusive breastfeeding. Therefore, the federal and regional health bureaus and other implementers should emphasise to those emerging regions by creating awareness and strengthening the existing community-based health extension program to enhance exclusive breastfeeding practices.

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Using a Digital Neuro Signature to measure longitudinal individual-level change in Alzheimer’s disease: the Altoida large cohort study

npj Digital Medicine ◽

10.1038/s41746-021-00470-z ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Irene B. Meier ◽

Max Buegler ◽

Robbert Harms ◽

Azizi Seixas ◽

Arzu Çöltekin ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Alzheimer’S Disease ◽

Alzheimer's Disease ◽

Cognitive Impairment ◽

Mild Cognitive Impairment ◽

Disease Risk ◽

Intraindividual Variability ◽

Cognitive Test ◽

Individual Level ◽

Level Change ◽

Neuropsychological Assessments

AbstractConventional neuropsychological assessments for Alzheimer’s disease are burdensome and inaccurate at detecting mild cognitive impairment and predicting Alzheimer’s disease risk. Altoida’s Digital Neuro Signature (DNS), a longitudinal cognitive test consisting of two active digital biomarker metrics, alleviates these limitations. By comparison to conventional neuropsychological assessments, DNS results in faster evaluations (10 min vs 45–120 min), and generates higher test-retest in intraindividual assessment, as well as higher accuracy at detecting abnormal cognition. This study comparatively evaluates the performance of Altoida’s DNS and conventional neuropsychological assessments in intraindividual assessments of cognition and function by means of two semi-naturalistic observational experiments with 525 participants in laboratory and clinical settings. The results show that DNS is consistently more sensitive than conventional neuropsychological assessments at capturing longitudinal individual-level change, both with respect to intraindividual variability and dispersion (intraindividual variability across multiple tests), across three participant groups: healthy controls, mild cognitive impairment, and Alzheimer’s disease. Dispersion differences between DNS and conventional neuropsychological assessments were more pronounced with more advanced disease stages, and DNS-intraindividual variability was able to predict conversion from mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer’s disease. These findings are instrumental for patient monitoring and management, remote clinical trial assessment, and timely interventions, and will hopefully contribute to a better understanding of Alzheimer’s disease.

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Auxological perspectives on ‘growth’ in DOHaD

Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease ◽

10.1017/s2040174415001403 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 6 (5) ◽

pp. 390-398 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

M. Lampl ◽

A. Mummert ◽

M. Schoen

Keyword(s):

Disease Risk ◽

Environmental Influences ◽

Functional Anatomy ◽

Biological Clocks ◽

Maternal Condition ◽

Future Health ◽

Individual Level ◽

Targeted Interventions ◽

Specificity And Sensitivity ◽

Multiple Variables

David Barker established growth as a seminal link between early development and later health attainment and disease risk. This was nothing less than a paradigm shift in health and medicine, turning the focus of disease causality away from contemporary environmental influences to earliest growth as a time when functional anatomy and physiology sets in place critical structures and function for a lifetime.Barker’s prodigious work investigated time- and place-specific interactions between maternal condition and exogenous environmental influences, focusing on how growth unfolds across development to function as a mechanistic link to ensuing health. Subsequent applications do not always attend to the specificity and sensitivity issues included in his original work, and commonly overlook the long-standing methods and knowledge base of auxology. Methodological areas in need of refinement include enhanced precision in how growth is represented and assessed. For example, multiple variables have been used as a referent for ‘growth,’ which is problematic because different body dimensions grow by different biological clocks with unique functional physiologies. In addition, categorical clinical variables obscure the spectrum of variability in growth experienced at the individual level. Finally, size alone is a limited measure as it does not capture how individuals change across age, or actually grow.The ground-breaking notion that prenatal influences are important for future health gave rise to robust interest in studying the fetus. Identifying the many pathways by which size is realized permits targeted interventions addressing meaningful mechanistic links between growth and disease risk to promote health across the lifespan.

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Perceived Service Need After Hurricane Sandy in a Representative Sample of Survivors: The Roles of Community-Level Damage and Individual-Level Stressors

Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness ◽

10.1017/dmp.2016.66 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 428-435 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Laura Sampson ◽

Sarah R. Lowe ◽

Oliver Gruebner ◽

Gregory H. Cohen ◽

Sandro Galea

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Mental Health Services ◽

Health Services ◽

Task Force ◽

Demographic Data ◽

Hurricane Sandy ◽

Building Damage ◽

Community Level ◽

Individual Level ◽

Service Need

AbstractObjectiveWe aimed to explore how individually experienced disaster-related stressors and collectively experienced community-level damage influenced perceived need for mental health services in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.MethodsIn a cross-sectional study we analyzed 418 adults who lived in the most affected areas of New York City at the time of the storm. Participants indicated whether they perceived a need for mental health services since the storm and reported on their exposure to disaster-related stressors (eg, displacement, property damage). We located participants in communities (n=293 census tracts) and gathered community-level demographic data through the US Census and data on the number of damaged buildings in each community from the Federal Emergency Management Agency Modeling Task Force.ResultsA total of 7.9% of participants reported mental health service need since the hurricane. Through multilevel binomial logistic regression analysis, we found a cross-level interaction (P=0.04) between individual-level exposure to disaster-related stressors and community-level building damage. Individual-level stressors were significantly predictive of individual service needs in communities with building damage (adjusted odds ratio: 2.56; 95% confidence interval: 1.58-4.16) and not in communities without damage.ConclusionIndividuals who experienced individual stressors and who lived in more damaged communities were more likely to report need for services than were other persons after Hurricane Sandy. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2016;10:428–435)

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Barriers and Facilitators of HIV and Hepatitis C Care Among People Who Inject Drugs in Nairobi, Kenya: A Qualitative Study with Peer Educators

10.21203/rs.3.rs-744969/v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Natasha Ludwig-Barron ◽

Brandon L Guthrie ◽

Loice Mbogo ◽

David Bukusi ◽

William Sinkele ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Hepatitis C ◽

Law Enforcement ◽

Harm Reduction ◽

People Who Inject Drugs ◽

Community Level ◽

Barriers And Facilitators ◽

Peer Educators ◽

Prevention Education ◽

Individual Level ◽

Policy Level

Abstract Background: In Kenya, people who inject drugs (PWID) are disproportionately affected by HIV and hepatitis C (HCV) epidemics, including HIV-HCV coinfections; however, few have assessed factors affecting their access to and engagement in care through the lens of harm reduction specialists. This qualitative study leverages the personal and professional experiences of peer educators to help identify HIV and HCV barriers and facilitators to care among PWID in Nairobi, including resource recommendations to improve service uptake. Methods: We recruited peer educators from two harm reduction facilities in Nairobi, Kenya, using random and purposive sampling techniques. Semi-structured interviews explored circumstances surrounding HIV and HCV service access, prevention education and resource recommendations. A thematic analysis was conducted using the Modified Social Ecological Model (MSEM) as an underlying framework, with illustrative quotes highlighting emergent themes. Results: Twenty peer educators participated, including six women, with 2 months to 6 years of harm reduction service. Barriers to HIV and HCV care were organized by (a) individual-level themes including competing needs of addiction and misinterpreted symptoms; (b) network-level themes including social isolation and drug pusher interactions; (c) community-level themes including transportation, mental and rural healthcare services, and limited HCV resources; and (d) policy-level themes including nonintegrated services, clinical administration, and law enforcement. Stigma, an overarching barrier, was highlighted throughout the MSEM. Facilitators to HIV and HCV care were comprised of (a) individual-level themes including concurrent care, personal reflections, and religious beliefs; (b) network-level themes including community recommendations, navigation services, family commitment, and employer support; (c) community-level themes including quality services, peer support, and outreach; and (d) policy-level themes including integrated services and medicalized approaches within law enforcement. Participant resource recommendations include (i) additional medical, social and ancillary support services, (ii) national strategies to address stigma and violence and (iii) HCV prevention education. Conclusions : Peer educators provided intimate knowledge of PWID barriers and facilitators to HIV and HCV care that were described at each level of the MSEM, and should be given careful consideration when developing future initiatives. Recommendations emphasized policy and community-level interventions including educational campaigns and program suggestions to supplement existing HIV and HCV services.

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Abstract P447: Index of Concentration at the Extremes and Diabetes Prevalence: The Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (regards) Study

Circulation ◽

10.1161/circ.141.suppl_1.p447 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 141 (Suppl_1) ◽

Author(s):

Gargya Malla ◽

D. Leann Long ◽

Nyesha C Black ◽

Sha Zhu ◽

Jalal Uddin ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Racial Differences ◽

Community Level ◽

Diabetes Prevalence ◽

Median Income ◽

Census Tracts ◽

Individual Level ◽

Black And White ◽

The Us ◽

Regards Study ◽

Increase Diabetes Risk

Background: Stark regional and racial disparities in diabetes prevalence exist in the US. Community-level factors (e.g., median income) have been associated with higher diabetes prevalence. However, few studies have investigated how community-level spatial polarization, specifically in race and income, may relate to diabetes burden. Objective: To investigate the association between the Index of Concentration at the Extremes (ICE), a measure that reflects polarization in race and income at the community-level, and individual-level diabetes prevalence. Methods: This analysis included 24,752 Black and White adults age ≥ 45 years at baseline (2003-2007) from the REGARDS Study. The ICE measure quantifies the concentration of community affluence and poverty in a census tract using both income and race jointly, with values ranging from -1 (most deprived) to +1 (most privileged). Diabetes was defined as fasting glucose ≥ 126 mg/dL or random glucose ≥ 200 mg/dL or use of diabetes medication. Modified Poisson regression was used to obtain prevalence ratios and 95% CI for the association of ICE quartiles with prevalent diabetes. Results: The overall prevalence of diabetes was 21% and was highest for adults living in the most deprived census tracts (28.3%) and lowest for those living in the most privileged census tracts (12.5%). The association between ICE and prevalent diabetes was graded in crude analyses but attenuated after adjustment for individual-level sociodemographic, lifestyle and clinical factors (Table). Conclusion: Communities with greater polarization in race and income had a higher burden of diabetes. This association was mostly explained by individual-level socioeconomic and lifestyle factors. Further investigation of community-level attributes and how they relate to individual-level factors that increase diabetes risk is needed.

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Task-Layer Multiplicity as a Measure of Community Level Health

Complexity ◽

10.1155/2019/1082412 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 2019 ◽

pp. 1-8

Author(s):

P. Fraundorf

Keyword(s):

Belief Systems ◽

Well Being ◽

Community Level ◽

Behavioral Measure ◽

Policy Changes ◽

Web Searches ◽

Individual Level ◽

Broken Symmetries ◽

Attention Focus ◽

The Impact

The insights of many disciplines, and of commonsense, about individual-level well-being might be strengthened by a shift in focus to community-level well-being in a way that respects belief systems as well as the power of each individual. We start with the jargon of complex systems and the possibility that a small number of broken symmetries, marked by the edges of a hierarchical series of physical subsystem types, underlie the delicate correlation-based complexity of life on our planet’s surface. We show that an information-theory-inspired model of attention-focus on correlation layers, which looks in/out from the boundaries of skin, family, and culture, predicts that behaviorally diverse communities may tend toward a characteristic task-layer multiplicity per individual of only e29/20≅ 4.26 of the six correlation layers that comprise that community. This behavioral measure of opportunity may help us to (i) go beyond GDP in quantifying the impact of policy changes and disasters, (ii) manage electronic idea-streams in ways that strengthen community networks, and (iii) leverage our paleolithic shortcomings toward the enhancement of community-level task-layer diversity. Empirical methods for acquiring task-layer multiplicity data are in their infancy, although for human communities a great deal of potential lies in the analysis of web searches and asynchronous experience sampling similar to that used by “flu near you.”

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Individual-level and community-level factors associated with the family planning use among pastoralist community of Ethiopia: a community-based cross-sectional study

BMJ Open ◽

10.1136/bmjopen-2019-036519 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (9) ◽

pp. e036519 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Mussie Alemayehu ◽

Araya Abrha Medhanyie ◽

Elizabeth Reed ◽

Afework Mulugeta

Keyword(s):

Family Planning ◽

Cross Sectional Study ◽

Married Women ◽

Community Level ◽

Sectional Study ◽

Community Based ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Individual Level ◽

Pastoralist Community ◽

The Individual

ObjectiveThe study aimed to identify the effects of the individual-level and community-level factors on the use of family planning (FP) among married women in the pastoralist community of Ethiopia.DesignA community-based cross-sectional study was conducted in September 2018. Data were analysed using R software. To determine the fixed effect of individual-level and community-level factors of FP use, a two-level mixed-effects logistic regression was used. The result was described using the Adjusted OR (AOR), and the variance partition coefficient.Setting and participantsAfar, Ethiopia (2018; n=891) married women of reproductive age (15–49) years.Primary outcome measuresFP use or non-use.ResultsThe current use of FP was 18.7% (16.31%–21.43%). Women who need to walk 1 hour and more to the nearest health facility (AOR 0.14, 95% CI 0.05 to 0.3), have ANC visit of 4 and above (AOR 6.02, 95% CI 1.74 to 20.8), had their last birth at a health facility (AOR 2.71 95% CI 1.27 to 5.81), have five and more children (AOR 4.71, 95% CI 1.86 to 11.9), have high knowledge on FP (AOR 2.74, 95% CI 1.11 to 6.74) and had high intentions to use FP (AOR 10.3, 95% CI 3.85 to 27.6) were more likely to report FP use. The magnitude of the effect of for FP use was smaller than that of 9 of the 13 individual factors. Apart from this 19.4% of the total variance in the odds of using FP attributed to between community difference (intraclass correlation coefficient=0.194). Regarding the community-level characteristics, clusters of having higher electronic media possession (AOR 2.84, 95% CI 1.2 to 6.72) and higher women decision making on FP (AOR 8.35, 95% CI 2.7 to 27.1) were significantly associated with increased FP use compared with clusters with lower reports of these aspects.ConclusionFP use among the pastoralist community is influenced by both individual cluster/community-level characteristics or factors. Even though the effect of clustering in FP use was large in comparison with the unexplained between-cluster variation, it was lower than the individual-level factors.Trail registrtion numberNCT03450564

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Game of hypocrites: Beurs break silence in Faïza Guène’s Kiffe kiffe demain

French Cultural Studies ◽

10.1177/0957155819861039 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 30 (4) ◽

pp. 335-346

Author(s):

Nour Seblini

Keyword(s):

Community Level ◽

Immigrant Community ◽

Individual Level ◽

French Culture ◽

Cultural Crisis ◽

Younger Generation ◽

The Individual

This article analyses the cultural crisis of beur youth by calling attention, in Faïza Guène’s novel, Kiffe kiffe demain (2004), to how Maghrebi immigrants as well as the French state attempt to manipulate young bodies and minds. The struggle that underlies the narrative is an exploitation of Islam within France’s Moroccan immigrant community to preserve honneur at the immigrant community level, while enjoying bonheur at the individual level. As religion is used to subjugate the younger generation, Islam loses credibility in the eyes of beurs. I also seek to explore how la laïcité of French culture marginalises individuals who do not accept assimilation into a superior racist system that is based on an exclusionary notion of citizenship. Who falls victim in the end? It is the young beur, who cannot tolerate the extremism of either French Orientalist views or their parents’ Occidentalist views.

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Crown structural properties, wood density, and liana load: influence on growth and mortality in subtropical forests

Canadian Journal of Forest Research ◽

10.1139/cjfr-2020-0002 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 51 (1) ◽

pp. 111-121

Author(s):

Sabrina A. Rodríguez ◽

Piedad M. Cristiano ◽

Oscar A. Lezcano ◽

Teresa M. Suirezs ◽

M. Virginia E. Díaz Villa ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Structural Properties ◽

Wood Density ◽

Community Level ◽

Individual Level ◽

Explanatory Variables ◽

Canopy Tree ◽

Canopy Position ◽

The Individual ◽

Demographic Patterns ◽

Architectural Traits

Wood density (WD) and other wood mechanical and structural properties may have a strong functional relationship with demographic patterns and allometry of trees. We analyzed the influence of WD, structural properties, architectural traits, and community-level attributes on growth rates (GRs) and mortality modes of canopy tree species in a subtropical forest of Argentina. Stem WD and the WD, strength, stiffness, toughness, and hardness of branches were measured in 10 canopy species. Architectural traits and liana load were also determined. Strength and hardness of branches were linearly correlated to branch WD, and GRs were linearly correlated to stem WD across species. At the individual level, trees with greater hardness and toughness in branches died mostly uprooted, and trees with greater branch stiffness and susceptibility to colonization by lianas were mostly broken. At the community level, the suppressed trees died mostly broken. The dominant trees with high local tree density died mostly broken, whereas more isolated trees died mostly uprooted. Mortality modes were determined not only by mechanical properties, but also by community properties such as liana load, crown canopy position, and number of neighboring trees. Other biophysical traits besides WD are important explanatory variables when dry wood is used to describe functional characteristics of trees.

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