| 1. |
- Mishra, A, et al.
(författare)
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Diminishing benefits of urban living for children and adolescents' growth and development
- 2023
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1476-4687 .- 0028-0836. ; 615:7954, s. 874-883
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Optimal growth and development in childhood and adolescence is crucial for lifelong health and well-being1–6. Here we used data from 2,325 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight from 71 million participants, to report the height and body-mass index (BMI) of children and adolescents aged 5–19 years on the basis of rural and urban place of residence in 200 countries and territories from 1990 to 2020. In 1990, children and adolescents residing in cities were taller than their rural counterparts in all but a few high-income countries. By 2020, the urban height advantage became smaller in most countries, and in many high-income western countries it reversed into a small urban-based disadvantage. The exception was for boys in most countries in sub-Saharan Africa and in some countries in Oceania, south Asia and the region of central Asia, Middle East and north Africa. In these countries, successive cohorts of boys from rural places either did not gain height or possibly became shorter, and hence fell further behind their urban peers. The difference between the age-standardized mean BMI of children in urban and rural areas was <1.1 kg m–2 in the vast majority of countries. Within this small range, BMI increased slightly more in cities than in rural areas, except in south Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and some countries in central and eastern Europe. Our results show that in much of the world, the growth and developmental advantages of living in cities have diminished in the twenty-first century, whereas in much of sub-Saharan Africa they have amplified.
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| 2. |
- Barber, R. M., et al.
(författare)
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Healthcare access and quality index based on mortality from causes amenable to personal health care in 195 countries and territories, 1990-2015 : A novel analysis from the global burden of disease study 2015
- 2017
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Ingår i: The Lancet. - : Lancet Publishing Group. - 0140-6736 .- 1474-547X. ; 390:10091, s. 231-266
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background National levels of personal health-care access and quality can be approximated by measuring mortality rates from causes that should not be fatal in the presence of effective medical care (ie, amenable mortality). Previous analyses of mortality amenable to health care only focused on high-income countries and faced several methodological challenges. In the present analysis, we use the highly standardised cause of death and risk factor estimates generated through the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) to improve and expand the quantification of personal health-care access and quality for 195 countries and territories from 1990 to 2015. Methods We mapped the most widely used list of causes amenable to personal health care developed by Nolte and McKee to 32 GBD causes. We accounted for variations in cause of death certification and misclassifications through the extensive data standardisation processes and redistribution algorithms developed for GBD. To isolate the effects of personal health-care access and quality, we risk-standardised cause-specific mortality rates for each geography-year by removing the joint effects of local environmental and behavioural risks, and adding back the global levels of risk exposure as estimated for GBD 2015. We employed principal component analysis to create a single, interpretable summary measure-the Healthcare Quality and Access (HAQ) Index-on a scale of 0 to 100. The HAQ Index showed strong convergence validity as compared with other health-system indicators, including health expenditure per capita (r=0·88), an index of 11 universal health coverage interventions (r=0·83), and human resources for health per 1000 (r=0·77). We used free disposal hull analysis with bootstrapping to produce a frontier based on the relationship between the HAQ Index and the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a measure of overall development consisting of income per capita, average years of education, and total fertility rates. This frontier allowed us to better quantify the maximum levels of personal health-care access and quality achieved across the development spectrum, and pinpoint geographies where gaps between observed and potential levels have narrowed or widened over time. Findings Between 1990 and 2015, nearly all countries and territories saw their HAQ Index values improve; nonetheless, the difference between the highest and lowest observed HAQ Index was larger in 2015 than in 1990, ranging from 28·6 to 94·6. Of 195 geographies, 167 had statistically significant increases in HAQ Index levels since 1990, with South Korea, Turkey, Peru, China, and the Maldives recording among the largest gains by 2015. Performance on the HAQ Index and individual causes showed distinct patterns by region and level of development, yet substantial heterogeneities emerged for several causes, including cancers in highest-SDI countries; chronic kidney disease, diabetes, diarrhoeal diseases, and lower respiratory infections among middle-SDI countries; and measles and tetanus among lowest-SDI countries. While the global HAQ Index average rose from 40·7 (95% uncertainty interval, 39·0-42·8) in 1990 to 53·7 (52·2-55·4) in 2015, far less progress occurred in narrowing the gap between observed HAQ Index values and maximum levels achieved; at the global level, the difference between the observed and frontier HAQ Index only decreased from 21·2 in 1990 to 20·1 in 2015. If every country and territory had achieved the highest observed HAQ Index by their corresponding level of SDI, the global average would have been 73·8 in 2015. Several countries, particularly in eastern and western sub-Saharan Africa, reached HAQ Index values similar to or beyond their development levels, whereas others, namely in southern sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and south Asia, lagged behind what geographies of similar development attained between 1990 and 2015. Interpretation This novel extension of the GBD Study shows the untapped potential for personal health-care access and quality improvement across the development spectrum. Amid substantive advances in personal health care at the national level, heterogeneous patterns for individual causes in given countries or territories suggest that few places have consistently achieved optimal health-care access and quality across health-system functions and therapeutic areas. This is especially evident in middle-SDI countries, many of which have recently undergone or are currently experiencing epidemiological transitions. The HAQ Index, if paired with other measures of health-system characteristics such as intervention coverage, could provide a robust avenue for tracking progress on universal health coverage and identifying local priorities for strengthening personal health-care quality and access throughout the world. Copyright © The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.
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| 3. |
- Lozano, Rafael, et al.
(författare)
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Measuring progress from 1990 to 2017 and projecting attainment to 2030 of the health-related Sustainable Development Goals for 195 countries and territories: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017
- 2018
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Ingår i: The Lancet. - : Elsevier. - 1474-547X .- 0140-6736. ; 392:10159, s. 2091-2138
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Efforts to establish the 2015 baseline and monitor early implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) highlight both great potential for and threats to improving health by 2030. To fully deliver on the SDG aim of “leaving no one behind”, it is increasingly important to examine the health-related SDGs beyond national-level estimates. As part of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2017 (GBD 2017), we measured progress on 41 of 52 health-related SDG indicators and estimated the health-related SDG index for 195 countries and territories for the period 1990–2017, projected indicators to 2030, and analysed global attainment. Methods: We measured progress on 41 health-related SDG indicators from 1990 to 2017, an increase of four indicators since GBD 2016 (new indicators were health worker density, sexual violence by non-intimate partners, population census status, and prevalence of physical and sexual violence [reported separately]). We also improved the measurement of several previously reported indicators. We constructed national-level estimates and, for a subset of health-related SDGs, examined indicator-level differences by sex and Socio-demographic Index (SDI) quintile. We also did subnational assessments of performance for selected countries. To construct the health-related SDG index, we transformed the value for each indicator on a scale of 0–100, with 0 as the 2·5th percentile and 100 as the 97·5th percentile of 1000 draws calculated from 1990 to 2030, and took the geometric mean of the scaled indicators by target. To generate projections through 2030, we used a forecasting framework that drew estimates from the broader GBD study and used weighted averages of indicator-specific and country-specific annualised rates of change from 1990 to 2017 to inform future estimates. We assessed attainment of indicators with defined targets in two ways: first, using mean values projected for 2030, and then using the probability of attainment in 2030 calculated from 1000 draws. We also did a global attainment analysis of the feasibility of attaining SDG targets on the basis of past trends. Using 2015 global averages of indicators with defined SDG targets, we calculated the global annualised rates of change required from 2015 to 2030 to meet these targets, and then identified in what percentiles the required global annualised rates of change fell in the distribution of country-level rates of change from 1990 to 2015. We took the mean of these global percentile values across indicators and applied the past rate of change at this mean global percentile to all health-related SDG indicators, irrespective of target definition, to estimate the equivalent 2030 global average value and percentage change from 2015 to 2030 for each indicator. Findings: The global median health-related SDG index in 2017 was 59·4 (IQR 35·4–67·3), ranging from a low of 11·6 (95% uncertainty interval 9·6–14·0) to a high of 84·9 (83·1–86·7). SDG index values in countries assessed at the subnational level varied substantially, particularly in China and India, although scores in Japan and the UK were more homogeneous. Indicators also varied by SDI quintile and sex, with males having worse outcomes than females for non-communicable disease (NCD) mortality, alcohol use, and smoking, among others. Most countries were projected to have a higher health-related SDG index in 2030 than in 2017, while country-level probabilities of attainment by 2030 varied widely by indicator. Under-5 mortality, neonatal mortality, maternal mortality ratio, and malaria indicators had the most countries with at least 95% probability of target attainment. Other indicators, including NCD mortality and suicide mortality, had no countries projected to meet corresponding SDG targets on the basis of projected mean values for 2030 but showed some probability of attainment by 2030. For some indicators, including child malnutrition, several infectious diseases, and most violence measures, the annualised rates of change required to meet SDG targets far exceeded the pace of progress achieved by any country in the recent past. We found that applying the mean global annualised rate of change to indicators without defined targets would equate to about 19% and 22% reductions in global smoking and alcohol consumption, respectively; a 47% decline in adolescent birth rates; and a more than 85% increase in health worker density per 1000 population by 2030. Interpretation: The GBD study offers a unique, robust platform for monitoring the health-related SDGs across demographic and geographic dimensions. Our findings underscore the importance of increased collection and analysis of disaggregated data and highlight where more deliberate design or targeting of interventions could accelerate progress in attaining the SDGs. Current projections show that many health-related SDG indicators, NCDs, NCD-related risks, and violence-related indicators will require a concerted shift away from what might have driven past gains—curative interventions in the case of NCDs—towards multisectoral, prevention-oriented policy action and investments to achieve SDG aims. Notably, several targets, if they are to be met by 2030, demand a pace of progress that no country has achieved in the recent past. The future is fundamentally uncertain, and no model can fully predict what breakthroughs or events might alter the course of the SDGs. What is clear is that our actions—or inaction—today will ultimately dictate how close the world, collectively, can get to leaving no one behind by 2030.
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| 4. |
- Wang, Yutao, et al.
(författare)
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Moving towards an ecologically sound society? Starting from green universities and environmental higher education
- 2013
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Ingår i: Journal of Cleaner Production. - : Elsevier BV. - 0959-6526. ; 61, s. 1-5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Moving towards an ecologically sound society requires strong support from higher educational institutions. During the past decade, the Journal of Cleaner Production has published more than 150 articles that have highlighted advances in academic efforts on sustainability in higher education, that were focused upon education, research, outreach and greening of campus operations in universities from many regions of the world. However, most of them were conducted in the context of developed countries, and there was no Special Volume (SV) focused upon Green University Initiatives and Education for Sustainable Development (EfSD) in developing and emerging countries. Thus, for this SV, we challenged the academic world to provide us with their wisdom, intelligence and experiences on building Green Universities and in promoting EfSD in developing and emerging countries. In the resultant sixteen articles, the authors evaluated the roles of Green Universities and EfSD with different methodologies at different scales, and they presented information about their practices and methodologies of incorporating Green Universities Initiatives and EfSD in primary and in higher education. The differences and similarities between develop countries and the emerging countries were documented. The authors found the main difference is that economic-development related classification cannot be applied simplistically to environmental performance. evaluations when it comes to environmental behavior. Some similarities were also identified by the authors including the importance of motivation, perceived effectiveness, formal education and knowledge of environmental issues, and gender factors. The authors also concluded that support from university leadership, safeguarding of long-term funding, development of appropriate supervisory capacity and integration of Sustainable Development (SD) into existing academic structures and administrative processes were critical factors for the success of the program in the short and longer-term. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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| 5. |
- Lumley, Mark A., et al.
(författare)
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The Relationship of Chronic and Momentary Work Stress to Cardiac Reactivity in Female Managers : Feasibility of a Smart Phone-Assisted Assessment System
- 2014
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Ingår i: Psychosomatic Medicine. - : Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. - 0033-3174 .- 1534-7796. ; 76:7, s. 512-518
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Objectives: To evaluate a wireless smart phone-assisted (SPA) system that assesses ongoing heart rate (HR) and HR-triggered participant reports of momentary stress when HR is elevated during daily life. This SPA system was used to determine the independent and interactive roles of chronic and momentary work stress on HR reactivity among female managers. Methods: A sample of 40 female managers reported their chronic work stress and wore the SPA system during a regular workday. They provided multiple reports of their momentary stress, both when triggered by increased HR and at random times. Relationships among chronic stress, momentary stress, and HR were analyzed with hierarchical linear modeling. Results: Both chronic work stress (b = 0.08, standard error [SE] = 0.03, p = .003) and momentary work stress (b = 1.25, SE = 0.62, p = .052) independently predicted greater HR reactivity, adjusting for baseline HR, age, smoking, caffeine, alcohol use, and momentary physical activity levels. More importantly, chronic and momentary stress significantly interacted (b = 1.00, SE = 0.04, p = .036); high momentary stress predicted elevated HR only in the context of high chronic stress. Conclusions: Female managers who experience chronic work stress displayed elevated cardiac reactivity during momentary stress at work. The joint assessment of chronic stress and momentary stress and their relationship to physiological functioning during work clarifies the potential health risks associated with work stress. Moreover, this wireless SPA system captures the immediate subjective context of individuals when physiological arousal occurs, which may lead to tailored stress management programs in the workplace.
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| 6. |
- Bernardo, Carmela, et al.
(författare)
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Achieving consensus in multilateral international negotiations : The case study of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change
- 2021
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Ingår i: Science Advances. - : American Association for the Advancement of Science.. - 2375-2548. ; 7:51
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The purpose of this paper is to propose a dynamical model describing the achievement of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. To represent the complex, decade-long, multiparty negotiation process that led to the accord, we use a two time scale dynamical model. The short time scale corresponds to the discussion process occurring at each meeting and is represented as a Friedkin-Johnsen model, a dynamical multiparty model in which the parties show stubbornness, i.e., tend to defend their positions during the discussion. The long time scale behavior is determined by concatenating multiple Friedkin-Johnsen models (one for each meeting). The proposed model, tuned on real data extracted from the Paris Agreement meetings, achieves consensus on a time horizon similar to that of the real negotiations. Remarkably, the model is also able to identify a series of parties that exerted a key leadership role in the Paris Agreement negotiation process.
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| 7. |
- Kang, Jie, et al.
(författare)
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Aerobic exercise prevents depression via alleviating hippocampus injury in chronic stressed depression rats
- 2021
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Ingår i: Brain Sciences. - : MDPI AG. - 2076-3425. ; 11:1, s. 1-12
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- (1) Background: Depression is one of the overwhelming public health problems. Alleviating hippocampus injury may prevent depression development. Herein, we established the chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) model and aimed to investigate whether aerobic exercise (AE) could alleviate CUMS induced depression-like behaviors and hippocampus injury. (2) Methods: Forty-eight healthy male Sprague-Dawley rats (200 ± 20 g) were randomly divided into 4 groups (control, CUMS, CUMS + 7 days AE, CUMS + 14 days AE). Rats with AE treatments were subjected to 45 min treadmill per day. (3) Results: AE intervention significantly improved CUMS-induced depressive behaviors, e.g., running square numbers and immobility time assessed by the open field and forced swimming test, suppressed hippocampal neuron apoptosis, reduced levels of phosphorylation of NMDA receptor and homocysteine in hippocampus, as well as serum glucocorticoids, compared to the CUMS rats. In contrast, AE upregulated phosphorylation of AMPAR receptor and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) hippocampus in CUMS depression rats. The 14 day-AE treatment exhibited better performance than 7 day-AE on the improvement of the hippocampal function. (4) Conclusion: AE might be an efficient strategy for prevention of CUMS-induced depression via ameliorating hippocampus functions. Underlying mechanisms may be related with glutamatergic system, the neurotoxic effects of homocysteine, and/or influences in glucocorticoids-BDNF expression interaction.
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| 8. |
- Shi, Xiaowei, et al.
(författare)
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The effect of ride experience on changing opinions toward autonomous vehicle safety
- 2021
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Ingår i: Communications in Transportation Research. - : Elsevier BV. - 2772-4247. ; 1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are a promising emerging technology that is likely to be widely deployed in the near future. People's perception on AV safety is critical to the pace and success of deploying the AV technology. Existing studies found that people's perceptions on emerging technologies might change as additional information was provided. To investigate this phenomenon in the AV technology context, this paper conducted real-world AV experiments and collected factors that may associate with people's initial opinions without any AV riding experience and opinion change after a successful AV ride. A number of ordered probit and binary probit models considering data heterogeneity were employed to estimate the impact of these factors on people's initial opinions and opinion change. The study found that people's initial opinions toward AV safety are significantly associated with people's age, personal income, monthly fuel cost, education experience, and previous AV experience. Further, the factors dominating people's opinion change after a successful AV ride include people's age, personal income, monthly fuel cost, daily commute time, driving alone indicator, willingness to pay for AV technology, and previous AV experience. These results provide important references for future implementations of the AV technology. Additionally, based on the inconsistent effects for variables across different models, suggestions for future transportation survey designs are provided.
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| 9. |
- Wang, Jinhuan, et al.
(författare)
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Modeling and simulating for congestion pedestrian evacuation with panic
- 2015
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Ingår i: Physica A. - : Elsevier BV. - 0378-4371 .- 1873-2119. ; 428, s. 396-409
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A new multi-agent based congestion evacuation model incorporating panic behavior is proposed in this paper for simulating pedestrian evacuation in public places such as a stadium. Different from the existing results, pedestrians in this model are divided into four classes and each pedestrian's status can be either normal, being overtaken, or casualty. The direction of action for each individual is affected by competitive ability, distance to the exits as well as number and density of occupants within the view field of the agent. Our simulations exhibit that during the evacuation process: (1) The agents gather in front of the exits spontaneously and present arched shapes close to the exits. (2) Under the panic state the agents cohere closely and almost do not change the target exit. So other alternative exits are ignored. (3) For the case without obstacle, the casualties under panic increase greatly. But if there are obstacles (chairs), the congestion can be alleviated. Thus the casualties are reduced. (4) If certain exit is partly clogged, the evacuation becomes more efficient when adding a virtual leader. The overall simulation results show that the proposed model can reproduce the real evacuation process in a stadium quite well.
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| 10. |
- Wang, Yongxiang, et al.
(författare)
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Health status and risk profiles for brain aging of rural‐dwelling older adults : Data from the interdisciplinary baseline assessments in MIND‐China
- 2022
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Ingår i: Alzheimer’s & Dementia. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 2352-8737. ; 8:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Introduction: Multidomain intervention approaches have emerged as a potential strategy to reduce dementia risk. We sought to describe the baseline assessment approaches, health conditions, and risk profiles for brain aging of participants in the randomized controlled Multimodal INterventions to delay Dementia and disability in rural China (MIND-China).Methods: MIND-China engaged residents who were >= 60 years of age and living in rural communities in the western Shandong province. In March to September 2018, all participants underwent the core module assessments via face-to-face interviews, clinical examinations, neuropsychological testings, and laboratory tests. Specific modules of examination were performed for sub-samples, including brain magnetic resonance imaging scans, genetic and blood biochemical markers, actigraphy testing, cardiopulmonary coupling analysis for sleep quality and disturbances, audiometric testing, and optical coherence tomography examination. We performed descriptive analysis.Results: In total, 5765 participants (74.9% of all eligible residents) undertook the baseline assessments. The mean age was 70.9 years (standard deviation, 5.9), 57.2% were women, 40.6% were illiterate, and 88.3% were farmers. The overall prevalence of common chronic diseases was 67.2% for hypertension, 23.4% for dyslipidemia, 23.5% for heart disease, 14.4% for diabetes mellitus, and 5.4% for dementia. The prevalence rates of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, obesity, heart disease, depressive symptoms, and dementia were higher in women than in men (P < .05). Overall, 87.1% of the participants had at least two of the 15 chronic diseases (89.3% in women vs 84.2% in men, P < .001). Participants examined for the specific modules were younger, more likely to be women, and more educated than those not examined.Discussion: Comprehensive baseline assessments of participants in MIND-China provide extremely valuable data sources for interdisciplinary research into the complex relationships of aging, health, brain aging, and functional consequences among older adults living in the rural communities.Highlights:MIND-China is a multimodal intervention study among rural residents >= 60 years of age.At baseline, 5765 participants undertook the interdisciplinary assessments.The baseline assessments consisted of core module and specific modules.Specific modules included brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), blood biomarkers, ActiGraph, cardiopulmonary coupling (CPC), pure-tone audiometry (PTA), and optical coherence tomography (OCT).
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