The Sharp Rise in the Use of Low- and No-Calorie Sweeteners in Non-Alcoholic Beverages in Slovenia: An Update Based on 2020 Data

Reducing added sugars in non-alcoholic beverages is an important public health goal, which can result in increased use of low- and no-calorie sweeteners (LNCS). The aim of this study was to investigate recent changes in the use of LNCS in non-alcoholic beverages in the Slovenian food supply. The national branded foods dataset was updated with beverages available in 2020, and compared with previous datasets. The data were extracted from food labels. In 2020, N = 1,650 unique beverages were found in shops from five different retailers, covering the majority of the national market. The use of LNCS increased from 13.2% in 2017 and 15.5% in 2019 to 20.2% in 2020, with a major growth in soft drinks (16.8, 19.6, and 26.7%, respectively). We observed a significant growth of beverages containing both LNCS and added sugar. Results were also consistent with sales data, which showed that increased offer of beverages with LNCS also resulted in similarly increased sales of such beverages. The average energy and total sugar content in non-alcoholic beverages decreased, which reflects both the higher percentage of beverages with LNCS, and also the reduction of the sugar content in beverages with only added sugar. Analyses of product-specific reformulation practices highlighted reduced sugar content in 16.8% of products, and in 3.6% with the use of LNCS. The most commonly used LNCS are acesulfame K, sucralose, and aspartame. Typically, combinations are used, however steviol glycosides, sucralose and saccharin are also used alone, in most cases combined with added sugar. The results indicated rapid changes in the use of LNCS in non-alcoholic beverages in the Slovenian food supply, making further monitoring of this area highly relevant.

Developing Resources for Staff and Adapting Programing During COVID-19 at Fred Victor

Fred Victor is an organization that supports those experiencing poverty and homelessness in Toronto. As a practicum student in the Health Promotions department at Fred Victor, I gained experience working on health promotion projects and was able to work directly with the community. Throughout the practicum, I worked on several projects to adapt Fred Victor’s services during COVID-19. First, I worked to develop a resilience toolkit for Fred Victor staff. COVID-19 has led to higher levels of stress. This prompted Fred Victor to develop tools to support their staff. I designed a toolkit that instructs managers on how to promote resilience in their supervision sessions and team meetings. This toolkit provided information on what resilience is, as well as practical actions that managers can take to promote resilience in staff. This project involved knowledge translation to convey the research on resilience to Fred Victor staff in an accessible way. Additionally, I worked to support the development of online peer support groups. Typically, Fred Victor runs weekly in-person peer support groups for community members. However, due to COVID-19, these groups had to move to an online format. I helped facilitate this transition by developing a guide for facilitating online group programming. This guide included information on the best platforms to run online programming, how to create a safety agreement, and best practices for facilitating the group. I then conducted outreach to community members to ask for their input on the format and content of the groups. These projects are important to public health as they work to meet the public health goal to improve quality of life by promoting and encouraging healthy behaviours. These projects played an important role in promoting the health of Fred Victor staff and clients during COVID-19 by providing them with support and tools to manage their mental health.

Older Women’s Experiences of a Community-Led Walking Programme Using Activity Trackers

Promoting physical activity amongst older adults represents a major public health goal and community-led exercise programmes present benefits in promoting active lifestyles. Commercial activity trackers potentially encourage positive behaviour change with respect to physical exercise. This qualitative study investigated the experiences and attitudes of older adults following a 6-week community-led walking programme utilising activity trackers. Eleven community-dwelling older women aged 60+ completed individual phone interviews following their involvement in the programme. The programme, codesigned with a group of senior citizens, equipped participants with wrist-worn activity trackers and included biweekly check-in sessions with a researcher to monitor progress and support motivation. Interviews explored participants’ experiences of the programme and of using activity trackers for the purpose of becoming more active. A thematic analysis produced three main themes: ‘programme as a source of motivation’, ‘user experiences with the technology’ and ‘views on social dimension of the programme’. Overall, participants highlighted the self-monitoring function of activity trackers as most beneficial for their exercise levels. This study provides insights into the personal and social factors perceived by older adults in relation to being part of a community-led programme using activity trackers. It highlights the role of the programme and trackers in maintaining motivation to stay active.

COVID-19 Forecasting: A Statistical Approach

Background: SARS-coronavirus-2 is a new virus infecting people and causing COVID-19 disease. The disease is causing a worldwide pandemic. Although some people never develop any signs or symptoms of disease when they are infected, other people are at very high risk for severe disease and death. Objective: If we’re able to intervene to prevent even some transmission, we can dramatically reduce the number of cases. And this is the public health goal for controlling COVID-19. Methods: This article initializes an approach for comparatively accurate values prediction of new cases and deaths for a particular day in order to be considered for preventive measures. The three statistical analysis methods considered for forecasting are Fbprophet, Moving average and the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average algorithm. Results: The results obtained are in-line with the past and present trend of COVID-19 data collected from WHO website. Conclusion: The output is satisfactory for further consideration. Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science Vol.20(5) 2021 p.85-96

A live olfactory MCMV vaccine attenuated for systemic spread, protects against superinfection.

Vaccination against the β-herpesvirus, human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a public health goal. However, HCMV has proved difficult to vaccinate against. Vaccination against single HCMV determinants has not worked, suggesting that immunity to a wider antigenic profile may be required. Live attenuated vaccines provide the best prospects for protection, but the question remains as to how to balance vaccine virulence with safety. Animal models of HCMV infection provide insights into identifying targets for virus attenuation and understanding how host immunity blocks natural, mucosal infection. Here we evaluated the vaccine potential of a mouse cytomegalovirus (MCMV) vaccine deleted of a viral G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR), designated M33, that renders it attenuated for systemic spread. A single non-invasive olfactory ΔM33 MCMV vaccine replicated locally, but as a result of the loss of the M33 GPCR, it failed to spread systemically and was attenuated for latent infection. Vaccination did not prevent host entry of a superinfecting MCMV but spread from the mucosa was blocked. This approach to vaccine design may provide a viable alternative for a safe and effective β-herpesvirus vaccine. IMPORTANCE Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is the most common cause of congenital infection for which a vaccine is not yet available. Subunit vaccine candidates have failed to achieve licensure. A live HCMV vaccine may prove more efficacious, but it faces safety hurdles which include its propensity to persist and to establish latency. Understanding how pathogens infect guide rational vaccine design. However, HCMV infections are asymptomatic and thus difficult to capture. Animal models of experimental infection provide insight. Here we investigated the vaccine potential of a MCMV attenuated for systemic spread and latency. We used olfactory vaccination and virus challenge to mimic its natural acquisition. We provide proof-of-concept that a single olfactory MCMV that is deficient in systemic spread, can protect against wild type MCMV superinfection and dissemination. This approach of deleting functional counterpart genes in HCMV may provide safe and effective vaccination against congenital HCMV disease.

A Psychosocial Exploration of Body Dissatisfaction: A Narrative Review With a Focus on India During COVID-19

COVID-19 has been an unprecedented global crisis. Besides the public health impact, the pandemic necessitated measures, such as quarantine, travel restrictions, and lockdown, that have had a huge effect on digital screen time, dietary habits, lifestyle measures, and exposure to food-related advertising. At the same time, a reduction in physical activity, an increase of social media consumption, and an increase in fitness tutorials during the lockdown have contributed to body image issues. Emerging evidence from India suggests that peer conversations about appearance as negative body talk (fat talk) is particularly salient in contributing to body dissatisfaction and body perception ideals, which are more prevalent in women. Even though there has been an increase in research on the psychosocial impact of COVID-19, its influence on body image perceptions and consequent distress have been stigmatized and classified as under-spoken areas. With this background, this article reviews research on the biopsychosocial factors that influence body dissatisfaction among women, particularly the role of media. It also highlights the development of body image concerns in India, one of the worst-hit countries in the pandemic, through liberalization, importing Western notions of body instrumentality, demographic shift, and resultant social changes. Finally, the psychosocial strategies for positive body image ideas to prevent and mitigate the adverse effects of body dissatisfaction are discussed, particularly those that focus on cognitive behavioral techniques (CBTs) from the perspectives of positive psychology, media literacy programs, and involvement of the media. Interventions and further research to address body dissatisfaction among women, especially in the post-COVID aftermath, need to be a recognized as a public health goal.

Placement of long-acting reversible contraception for minors who are mothers should not require parental consent

Decreasing unintended teenage pregnancy, especially repeat teenage pregnancy, is an important public health goal. Unfortunately, legal barriers in the USA impede this goal as all minors are unable to consent for birth control in 24 states, and only 10 of those states allow consent after the minor has given birth according to state statutory law. Placement of long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) is one of the most effective methods of preventing rapid repeat pregnancies. However, restrictions are placed on adolescents who may not have the option of parental consent if the parents are unwilling, or not present, to give consent. A predicament arises when healthcare professionals are willing to place the contraceptive for the patient, but cannot due to the restrictions and guidelines outlined by each state. Even though these adolescents are legally viewed as minors, adolescent mothers should be able to consent to the placement of LARC. Notably, adolescents have the legal ability to give consent for the healthcare of their child starting in the prenatal period. I argue that this ability should be extended to include adolescent consent for their own healthcare. Additionally, the procedure to place LARC is relatively low risk and highly effective, which is an opportune situation to allow minors to consent. Allowing adolescents to consent to LARC after delivery is a simple and effective way to decrease rapid repeat pregnancy rates in the USA.

What is public health? public goods, publicized goods, and the conversion problem

Public health programs began as an attempt to fight infectious diseases that are difficult to address without collective action. But the concept and practice of public health has ballooned to encompass an expanding list of controversial public policy goals ranging from reducing obesity to raising self-esteem. As the list of controversial goals expands, support for “public health” measures contracts. I’ll briefly defend the view that we should define public health as the provision of health-related public goods. I’ll then show that being a health-related public good is not a sufficient condition for counting as a public health goal, since virtually any private good can be converted into a public good by government fiat. This is the conversion problem, which challenges the way we ordinarily think about public goods and public health.

Rethinking COVID-19 Policies: Ten Recommendations for Where to Go from Here

We offer recommendations, based on the latest evidence, for refining ten key COVID-19 policy and strategy areas. While remarkably effective vaccines usher in great hope, we call for revisiting some widely held assumptions regarding current approaches to inform more context-sensitive, evidence-based policies. We address: the expansion of equitable vaccine distribution; the far-reaching consequences of blunt lockdowns and school closures; the need to encourage outdoor activities and to gradually ease restrictions as vaccination rollout is expanded; the advantages of emphasizing education and harm reduction approaches over coercive and punitive measures; the excessive focus on surface disinfection and other ineffective or misplaced measures; the need to reassess testing practices; and the importance of increased access to effective outpatient therapies. Although COVID-19 will require ongoing mitigation for the foreseeable future, especially as potentially challenging genetic variants continue to emerge, maintaining a constant state of emergency until the pandemic is eradicated is not a viable strategy. A more realistic public health goal during mass vaccination is to adjust current mitigation goals to minimize unintended harms associated with unfocused or largely irrelevant control efforts. We present these suggestions in the expectation of vaccines allowing greater control of COVID-19 within the relatively near future, especially if there is widespread, global access to this life-saving intervention.

Overview on Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act and its implementation: current update

Tobacco use- a major public health issue in India has an enormous effect on the lower SES population. . There is an evident link between tobacco use or consumption and poverty. The widespread use of almost all forms of tobacco among the Indian population can be attributed to the social and cultural acceptance in the country. Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003 (COTPA) is the legislation that regulates tobacco in India. The prime objective of this review is to compile the literature with information about the laws regulating tobacco use and the status of implementation of tobacco control provisions covered under COTPA. Since effective tobacco control measures involve multi-stakeholders i.e public health, law, trade and commerce, industry, consumer, human rights and child development, coordinated efforts are required to successful enforcement. The outcome of the current literature is bridging the gaps to make the tobacco control a very important public health goal and thereby protect the population from the consequent morbidity and mortality due to tobacco use.