scholarly journals Hospitalization Rates for Respiratory Diseases After L’Aquila Earthquake

Author(s):  
Francesco D’Aloisio ◽  
Pierpaolo Vittorini ◽  
Anna Rita Giuliani ◽  
Maria Scatigna ◽  
Jacopo Del Papa ◽  
...  

The study aims to investigate the impact of the earthquake on public health, in terms of hospitalizations for respiratory diseases in the Abruzzo region, focusing on the area damaged by the earthquake “Crater”. We collected data of hospitalizations of residents in Abruzzo between 2009 and 2015. Hospital Discharge Records (HDRs) with a primary diagnosis of respiratory disease were included and divided into pneumonia, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), and respiratory insufficiency. Absolute frequencies and standardized hospitalization rates were calculated to perform both a short-term and a medium-long term analysis. A linear regression was performed using standardized hospitalization rates and the time. A total of 108.669 respiratory-related records were collected and the most frequent subgroup was respiratory insufficiency. Standardized Hospitalization Rates (SHRs) for respiratory diseases resulted higher in the non-Crater than Crater area, but the short-term analysis showed a significant increase in hospitalizations for pneumonia and respiratory insufficiency in the Crater area. The medium-long term analysis reported a significant difference on the slope decrease of hospitalizations for acute and chronic respiratory diseases in the Crater versus the non-Crater area. The earthquake may have played a triggering role in the increased detection of respiratory diseases. A temporal relationship between the quake and an increase in admissions was found although it is not yet possible to detect a direct cause-effect relationship.

Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 1060
Author(s):  
Karyn Morrissey ◽  
Ivy Chung ◽  
Andrew Morse ◽  
Suhanya Parthasarath ◽  
Margaret M. Roebuck ◽  
...  

This study assesses the impact of a decrease in air quality and the risk of hospital admissions to a public hospital for chronic respiratory diseases for residents of Petaling Jaya, a city in the Greater Kuala Lumpur area in Malaysia. Data on hospital admissions for asthma, bronchitis, emphysema and other chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, weather conditions and the Malaysian Air Pollution Index, a composite indicator of air quality, were collated. An unconstrained distributed lag model to obtain risk of hospitalization for a 10 μg/m3 increase in the API. The lag cumulative effect for a 10 μg/m3 increase in the API was calculated to test for harvesting in the short term. Findings indicate that after an initial decrease in admissions (days 3 and 4), admissions increased again at day 7 and 8 and this relationship was significant. We therefore conclude that a 10 μg/m3 increase has a greater effect on admissions for respiratory health in the short term than a harvesting effect alone would suggest. These results suggest that while air quality is improving in the Greater Kuala Lumpur area, no level of air pollution can be deemed safe.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 175346662096303
Author(s):  
Hayoung Choi ◽  
Hyun Lee ◽  
Jiin Ryu ◽  
Sung Jun Chung ◽  
Dong Won Park ◽  
...  

Background: Long-term corticosteroid (CS) use is associated with increased mortality in patients with asthma, and comorbid bronchiectasis is also associated with frequent asthma exacerbation and increased healthcare use. However, there is limited information on whether bronchiectasis further increases mortality in patients with CS-dependent asthma. This study examined the impact of bronchiectasis on mortality in patients with CS-dependent asthma. Methods: A retrospective cohort of patients with CS-dependent asthma ⩾18 years old was established using records from the Korean National Health Insurance Service database from 2005 to 2015. Patients with CS-dependent asthma with and without bronchiectasis were matched by age, sex, type of insurance, and Charlson comorbidity index. We evaluated the hazard ratio (HR) for all-cause mortality in patients with bronchiectasis compared with those without bronchiectasis. Results: The study cohort included 754 patients with CS-dependent asthma with bronchiectasis and 3016 patients with CS-dependent asthma without bronchiectasis. Patients with CS-dependent asthma with bronchiectasis had a higher all-cause mortality than those without bronchiectasis (8429/100,000 versus 6962/100,000 person-years, p < 0.001). The adjusted HR for mortality in patients with CS-dependent asthma with bronchiectasis relative to those without bronchiectasis was 1.33 (95% confidence interval, 1.18–1.50), and the association was primarily significant for respiratory diseases (subdistribution HR = 1.65, 95% confidence interval, 1.42–1.92). Conclusions: Bronchiectasis further increases all-cause mortality in patients with CS-dependent asthma, a trend that was especially associated with respiratory diseases including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Strategies to improve treatment outcomes in patients with CS-dependent asthma with bronchiectasis are urgently needed to improve long-term survival. The reviews of this paper are available via the supplemental material section.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 15-47
Author(s):  
Simona Maria Ţîrcă ◽  
Marius Sorin Ciontea ◽  
Elena Vlad ◽  
Florin Dumitru Mihălţan

Abstract Medications prescribed for chronic diseases such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or asthma-COPD overlap (ACO) syndrome should be administered in the long term and compliance becomes a health care concern. Noncompliance adversely affects the outcome of treatment and results in the consumption of human and material resources. The aim of our study was to identify the factors that cause non-compliance with treatment in children, adolescents, and adults with asthma/COPD/ACO in Romania, the methods by which these factors can be understood and corrected, and the evaluation of symptoms. To achieve the goal, regular visits were carried out with symptom control questionnaires (Asthma Control Test (ACT), COPD Assessment Test (CAT)) and FEV1 evaluation using spirometry. The results obtained indicate low long-term compliance (12.35%) due to patients’ abstinence from regular check-ups. In conclusion, we can say that the factors related to doctors have been successfully corrected, but it remains a challenge in correcting the factors related to patients and the health regime.


2019 ◽  
Vol 95 (12) ◽  
pp. 1160-1163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena A. Beygel ◽  
E. V. Katamanova ◽  
S. F. Shayakhmetov ◽  
O. V. Ushakova ◽  
N. A. Pavlenko ◽  
...  

It was found that the appearance of respiratory diseases among workers was established to be associated with the impact of aerosols with the complex chemical composition, exceeding corresponding MAC. Among respiratory diseases in workers there were detected predominantly chronic non-obstructive bronchitis - 59.15%, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) - in 35.2% of cases. In the analysis of spirometric indices of examined patients the vast majority (76.3%) of them showed disturbances of the bronchial patency of mild to moderate degree of the pronouncement. As a result of the implementation offlexible bronchoscopy there was established the presence of a diffuse lesion of bronchi with a predominance of subatrophic and atrophic processes in the mucosa. It was found that under the increase of the concentration of HF in the air of industrial premises the probability of bronchial obstruction and deterioration of the tracheobronchial patency in aluminum smelter workers was established to elevate.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 326-327
Author(s):  
Lauren Fredriksen ◽  
Renee’ Zucchero ◽  
Brock Partlow ◽  
Ruth Infante ◽  
Janie Taylor ◽  
...  

Abstract This study examined the impact of memory stereotype threat on memory duration (e.g., short-term and long-term) and modality (e.g., verbal and non-verbal), and memory self-efficacy in older adults who live independently (Mage = 77 years). Participants (N= 66) were randomly assigned to a group that received either neutral instructions or memory stereotype threat inducing instructions. All participants completed the California Verbal Memory Test-Second Edition (CVLT-2), the Rey Complex Figure Test (RCFT), a memory self-efficacy measure, and a demographics survey. An independent samples t-test indicated participants in the stereotype threat group reported significantly lower memory self-efficacy than participants in the neutral group. The main effect of the within-subjects factor of a 2x2 mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated that participants performed significantly better on short-term non-verbal memory than long-term non-verbal memory. There was no significant difference between the neutral and stereotype threat groups in memory modality or duration. These results may indicate that the instructions used to induce memory stereotype threat were not phrased strongly enough to elicit poorer performance on the CVLT-2 and RCFT in the memory stereotype threat group. Additionally, participants reported having a high level of education (i.e., a master’s degree was the modal educational level), which may have served as a buffer for memory stereotype threat. The findings call for future research to explore the impact of level of education on memory self-efficacy in older adults. Also, future research may focus on the impact of the strength of memory stereotype threat on memory performance.


2016 ◽  
Vol 88 (9) ◽  
pp. 17-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
D S Polyakov ◽  
I V Fomin ◽  
F Yu Valikulova ◽  
A R Vaisberg ◽  
N Kraiem

Aim. To evaluate the impact of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) on short-term and long-term prognosis in patients hospitalized with signs of chronic decompensated heart failure (CDHF). Subjects and methods. A total of 852 cases were admitted to therapy/cardiology hospital with signs of CDHF during a year. Results. Among the patients hospitalized with signs of CDHF, the prevalence of CAP was 16.5%. This indicator did not depend on the age of hospitalized patients. Among the multisystem disorders, hypertension, different forms of coronary heart disease, diabetes mellitus, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were more common in the patients with CAP. The presence of the latter in a patient with CDHF statistically significantly increased the length of hospital stay (13.1 versus 11.9 days; p = 0.009) and also the probability of rehospitalization during a year (odds ratio (OR) 1.9; p = 0.02). The presence of CAP in a patient with CDHF resulted in an increase in mortality rates (OR 13.5; p < 0.001); moreover, the highest risk of a fatal outcome was noted on day 1 of hospitalization (12.7%). During one-year follow-up, the risk of death in patients hospitalized with CDHF and concomitant pneumonia proved to be higher (OR 4.8; p < 0.001) than in those without pneumonia.


Psibernetika ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Devina Calista ◽  
Garvin Garvin

<p><em>Child abuse by parents is common in households. The impact of violence on children will bring short-term effects and long-term effects that can be attributed to their various emotional, behavioral and social problems in the future; especially in late adolescence that will enter adulthood. Resilience factors increase the likelihood that adolescents who are victims of childhood violence recover from their past experiences</em><em>,</em><em> become more powerful individuals and have a better life. The purpose of this study was to determine the source of resilience in late adolescents who experienced violence from parents in their childhood. This research uses qualitative research methods with in-depth interviews as a method of data collection. The result shows that the three research participants have the aspects of "I Have", "I Am", and "I Can"; a participant has "I Can" aspects as a source of resilience, and one other subject has no source of resilience. The study concluded that parental affection and acceptance of the past experience have role to the three sources of resilience (I Have, I Am, and I Can)</em></p><p><em> </em></p><p><strong><em>Keyword : </em></strong><em>Resilience, adolescence, violence, parents</em></p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 333-346
Author(s):  
Sadiya Bi Shaikh ◽  
Yashodhar Prabhakar Bhandary

Respiratory diseases are one of the prime topics of concern in the current era due to improper diagnostics tools. Gene-editing therapy, like Clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeats- associated nuclease 9 (CRISPR/Cas9), is gaining popularity in pulmonary research, opening up doors to invaluable insights on underlying mechanisms. CRISPR/Cas9 can be considered as a potential gene-editing tool with a scientific community that is helping in the advancement of knowledge in respiratory health and therapy. As an appealing therapeutic tool, we hereby explore the advanced research on the application of CRISPR/Cas9 tools in chronic respiratory diseases such as lung cancer, Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and cystic fibrosis (CF). We also address the urgent need to establish this gene-editing tool in various other lung diseases such as asthma, Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). The present review introduces CRISPR/Cas9 as a worthy application in targeting epithelial-mesenchymal transition and fibrinolytic system via editing specific genes. Thereby, based on the efficiency of CRISPR/Cas9, it can be considered as a promising therapeutic tool in respiratory health research.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (7) ◽  
pp. 921-928 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sadiya Bi Shaikh ◽  
Ashwini Prabhu ◽  
Yashodhar Prabhakar Bhandary

Background: Interleukin-17A (IL-17A) is a pro-inflammatory cytokine that has gained a lot of attention because of its involvement in respiratory diseases. Interleukin-17 cytokine family includes six members, out of which, IL-17A participates towards the immune responses in allergy and inflammation. It also modulates the progression of respiratory disorders. Objective: The present review is an insight into the involvement and contributions of the proinflammatory cytokine IL-17A in chronic respiratory diseases like Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF), Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Distress (COPD), asthma, pneumonia, obliterative bronchiolitis, lung cancer and many others. Conclusion: IL-17A is a major regulator of inflammatory responses. In all the mentioned diseases, IL- 17A plays a prime role in inducing the diseases, whereas the lack of this pro-inflammatory cytokine reduces the severity of respective respiratory diseases. Thereby, this review suggests IL-17A as an instrumental target in chronic respiratory diseases.


Author(s):  
Gavin H. West ◽  
Laura S. Welch

This chapter describes the hazards for construction workers, with a particular focus on injuries as well as exposures to hazardous chemicals and dusts. A section describes hazardous exposures to lead and other heavy metals. Another section describes noise exposure. The impact of musculoskeletal disorders among construction workers is then discussed. A section on respiratory diseases focuses on asbestosis, silicosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and asthma. Exposures known to cause dermatitis and cancer are reviewed. There is a discussion of engineered nanomaterials as a potential emerging hazard. Various approaches to prevention and control, including regulations and health services, are described.


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