Category: Statistics

Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2022 Jul 7;19(1):76. doi: 10.1186/s12966-022-01314-z.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: It is unknown if and how children’s movement behaviour accumulation patterns change as a result of physical activity and/or sedentary behaviour interventions. It is important to establish the effectiveness of interventions targeting changes in such accumulation patterns. This study aimed to investigate the effect of the Transform-Us! school- and home-based intervention program on children’s movement behaviour accumulation patterns, focusing on sporadic accumulation versus time in bouts.

METHODS: Baseline and post-intervention (18 months) accelerometer data from the Transform-Us! 2 × 2 factorial design cluster randomised controlled trial was used (Melbourne, 2010-2012; analytical sample n = 267; aged 8-9 years). Linear mixed models were fitted to examine effects of three different interventions (targeting increases in physical activity [PA-I], reductions in sedentary time [SB-I], or both [PA + SB-I]) compared to a usual practice (control) group on post-intervention movement behaviour accumulation compositions with eight components, including sporadic time and bouts of sedentary time, and light-, moderate- and vigorous-intensity physical activity.

RESULTS: Intervention effects on distribution of time in the post-intervention waking movement behaviour accumulation composition (adjusted for baseline composition) were small and not significant. However, visual inspection of the change in compositions over time revealed that only groups with a sedentary behaviour intervention component (SB-I and PA + SB-I) reduced time in sedentary bouts, compared to the overall sample compositional mean. In addition, the SB-I group was the only group with an increase in vigorous-intensity physical activity. The combined intervention group (PA + SB-I) was characterized by the largest proportional increase in MPA bouts. The usual practice group was characterized by the largest proportional increases in both sporadic and bouts of sedentary time.

CONCLUSIONS: This study showed some early evidence to suggest that the “break up your sitting” message may result in greater impact than the “move more” message. Future research, including larger sample sizes, should investigate if this type of messaging is indeed more effective in changing movement behaviours and ultimately child health.

TRIAL REGISTRATION: International Standard Randomized Controlled Trial Number ISRCTN83725066 ; Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry Number ACTRN12609000715279 .

PMID:35799258 | DOI:10.1186/s12966-022-01314-z

BMC Public Health. 2022 Jul 7;22(1):1303. doi: 10.1186/s12889-022-13689-6.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Egypt has agreed and ratified international regulations that strict child labor. However, the country still struggles with high prevalence of child labor and the associated negative social and health effects. The objective of this study was to identify the prevalence and determinants of work-related injuries among working children in Egypt.

METHODS: This study involved a secondary data analysis of the National Child Labor Survey (NCLS) conducted in 2010 by The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) in Egypt with technical and financial support from the ILO’s International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) through its Statistical Information and Monitoring Program on Child Labor (SIMPOC). The total number of working children who responded to questions of work-related injuries in the NCLS child questionnaire was 7485 children.

RESULTS: The prevalence of work-related injuries among working children in Egypt was estimated as 24.1% (95% CI: 22.0%-26.2%), of whom the majority were superficial wounds (87.3%). Among children who reported work-related injuries, 57.9% did not stop work or schooling because of the most serious injury, while 39.6% had stopped temporarily and 2.6% had stopped completely. The main determinants of work-related injuries among working children in the study sample were gender (boys), age of starting work (5-11 years), type of main economic activity (industry and services), type of main workplace (plantation, farms, or garden), the average work hours per week (28 h or more), and exposure to ergonomic and safety, and chemical hazards at work.

CONCLUSIONS: The estimated high prevalence of work-related injuries among working children aged 5-17 years in Egypt raises the health risks concerns associated with child labor. Findings of this study on the determinants of work-related injuries could guide policies and interventions to combat child labor and the associated health risks, including work-related injuries.

PMID:35799255 | DOI:10.1186/s12889-022-13689-6

BMC Endocr Disord. 2022 Jul 7;22(1):172. doi: 10.1186/s12902-022-01076-6.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: To investigate the value of quantitative computed tomography (QCT) measurement of bone mineral density (BMD) in middle-aged and elderly men with abnormal blood glucose.

METHODS: Total 138 men aged above 50 years old with routine physical examination were involved in the study. All participants were evaluated with serological index, BMD by QCT and dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). Statistical analysis was conducted by χ² test and regression model.

RESULTS: All individuals were divided into normal blood glucose (NBG) group and abnormal blood glucose (ABG) group. Compared with NBG group, BMD detected by QCT was obviously lower in ABG group (P < 0.05). More cases with low bone mass or osteoporosis were detected by QCT measurement than DXA (χ² = 56.618, P = 0.000), which were consistent in both NBG and ABG groups (χ² was 33.564 and 23.250, P = 0.000). No significant difference of detection rates was found in both subgroups neither by QCT nor DXA measurement (χ² = 4.204, P = 0.122). Regression analysis revealed that ABG was negatively associated with BMD assessed by QCT (β = -0.217, P < 0.05), which did not show statistical difference after adjusting for age.

CONCLUSION: In middle-aged and elderly male patients with NBG or ABG, QCT manifests higher detection rates of low bone mass and osteoporosis than DXA. ABG is negatively correlated with BMD measured by QCT, which is affected by age.

PMID:35799254 | DOI:10.1186/s12902-022-01076-6

BMC Health Serv Res. 2022 Jul 8;22(1):880. doi: 10.1186/s12913-022-08290-x.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Increased service user involvement is recommended to improve weak mental health systems in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). However, involvement is rarely implemented and interventions to support involvement are sparse. In this study we evaluated the acceptability, feasibility and perceived outcomes of an empowerment and training program for service users and health professionals to facilitate service user involvement in mental health system strengthening in rural Ethiopia.

METHODS: REducing Stigma among HealthcAreProvidErs (RESHAPE) is a training curriculum for service users, their caregivers and aspirational health workers, which uses PhotoVoice methodology, to prepare them in participation of mental health systems strengthening in LMICs. We delivered the RESHAPE training augmented with empowerment content developed in Ethiopia. The interactive face-to-face training was delivered to service users and caregivers (over 10 days), and health professionals (1 day) separately. The study was an uncontrolled, convergent mixed-methods design. The quantitative data consisted of process data, satisfaction questionnaire, and a retrospective pre-test survey. Qualitative data included exit and follow-up in-depth interviews with the service users. Descriptive statistics were performed for quantitative data, and qualitative data were thematically analysed. The findings were integrated through triangulation for convergent themes following analysis.

RESULTS: Twelve service users, 12 caregivers and 18 health professionals were enrolled, and completed the training. Participants valued the content and delivery process; the standard of the training program met their expectations and participation led to positive gains in understanding about mental illness, stigma, service-user involvement and human rights. The qualitative findings identified positive impacts, including increased self-confidence, sense of empowerment, social – and perceived therapeutic benefits.

CONCLUSIONS: We found that the RESHAPE training with added content for Ethiopia, delivered using the PhotoVoice methodology, is feasible, acceptable and of value to develop and implement training programmes which can empower service users to be involved in mental health system strengthening in this setting. Further study to assess the impact on health systems strengthening is warranted.

PMID:35799252 | DOI:10.1186/s12913-022-08290-x

Int Breastfeed J. 2022 Jul 7;17(1):51. doi: 10.1186/s13006-022-00479-4.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Both the consumption of breastmilk in infancy and a person’s season of birth influences his or her health, educational, professional, and behavioral outcomes. Further, season of birth effects differ by sex. However, current research, for the most part, neglects to examine if season of birth and breastfeeding are related. This paper examines the impact of sex-based variations in season of birth on breastfeeding likelihood and duration in the U.S.

METHODS: Using data from children born to female respondents of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (born between 1970 and 2012), this study examines with Probit, Negative Binomial, and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regressions if a child’s season of birth and sex are correlated with breastfeeding incidence and duration. The breastfeeding incidence and duration data are self-reported by the mother.

RESULTS: Season of birth has a small but statistically significant impact on the incidence and duration of breastfeeding, which varies depending on the sex of the infant. Mothers giving birth to sons in the spring are 13.5% less likely to breastfeed than those giving birth to sons in the winter (with a p – value of 0.0269). Mothers with daughters born in the summer or fall (autumn) breastfeed slightly longer than mothers with daughters born in the spring. On average, mothers of summer-born daughters breastfeed 4.1% longer (with a 95% confidence interval of 0.3 – 7.8) and those with fall-born daughters 3.8% longer (with a 95% confidence interval of 0 – 7.5). Mothers giving birth to daughters in the spring are also significantly less likely to reach the breastfeeding six-week duration target (compared to fall and winter births) and the one-year duration target (compared to fall births).

CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that the costs and benefits of breastfeeding an infant vary with the season of birth and the sex of the child. This finding could explain some of the season of birth effects previously identified in the literature. Further, policymakers seeking to increase breastfeeding rates should consider the reduced breastfeeding rates and durations for children born in the spring.

PMID:35799249 | DOI:10.1186/s13006-022-00479-4

J Cheminform. 2022 Jul 7;14(1):45. doi: 10.1186/s13321-022-00612-9.

ABSTRACT

Bitterness is an aversive cue elicited by thousands of chemically diverse compounds. Bitter taste may prevent consumption of foods and jeopardize drug compliance. The G protein-coupled receptors for bitter taste, TAS2Rs, have species-dependent number of subtypes and varying expression levels in extraoral tissues. Molecular recognition by TAS2R subtypes is physiologically important, and presents a challenging case study for ligand-receptor matchmaking. Inspired by hybrid recommendation systems, we developed a new set of similarity features, and created the BitterMatch algorithm that predicts associations of ligands to receptors with ~ 80% precision at ~ 50% recall. Associations for several compounds were tested in-vitro, resulting in 80% precision and 42% recall. The encouraging performance was achieved by including receptor properties and integrating experimentally determined ligand-receptor associations with chemical ligand-to-ligand similarities.BitterMatch can predict off-targets for bitter drugs, identify novel ligands and guide flavor design. The novel features capture information regarding the molecules and their receptors, which could inform various chemoinformatic tasks. Inclusion of neighbor-informed similarities improves as experimental data mounts, and provides a generalizable framework for molecule-biotarget matching.

PMID:35799226 | DOI:10.1186/s13321-022-00612-9

Microbiome. 2022 Jul 8;10(1):104. doi: 10.1186/s40168-022-01295-y.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: The 16S rRNA gene is used extensively in bacterial phylogenetics, in species delineation, and now widely in microbiome studies. However, the gene suffers from intragenomic heterogeneity, and reports of recombination and an unreliable phylogenetic signal are accumulating. Here, we compare core gene phylogenies to phylogenies constructed using core gene concatenations to estimate the strength of signal for the 16S rRNA gene, its hypervariable regions, and all core genes at the intra- and inter-genus levels. Specifically, we perform four intra-genus analyses (Clostridium, n = 65; Legionella, n = 47; Staphylococcus, n = 36; and Campylobacter, n = 17) and one inter-genus analysis [41 core genera of the human gut microbiome (31 families, 17 orders, and 12 classes), n = 82].

RESULTS: At both taxonomic levels, the 16S rRNA gene was recombinant and subject to horizontal gene transfer. At the intra-genus level, the gene showed one of the lowest levels of concordance with the core genome phylogeny (50.7% average). Concordance for hypervariable regions was lower still, with entropy masking providing little to no benefit. A major factor influencing concordance was SNP count, which showed a positive logarithmic association. Using this relationship, we determined that 690 ± 110 SNPs were required for 80% concordance (average 16S rRNA gene SNP count was 254). We also found a wide range in 16S-23S-5S rRNA operon copy number among genomes (1-27). At the inter-genus level, concordance for the whole 16S rRNA gene was markedly higher (73.8% – 10th out of 49 loci); however, the most concordant hypervariable regions (V4, V3-V4, and V1-V2) ranked in the third quartile (62.5 to 60.0%).

CONCLUSIONS: Ramifications of a poor phylogenetic performance for the 16S rRNA gene are far reaching. For example, in addition to incorrect species/strain delineation and phylogenetic inference, it has the potential to confound community diversity metrics if phylogenetic information is incorporated – for example, with popular approaches such as Faith’s phylogenetic diversity and UniFrac. Our results highlight the problematic nature of these approaches and their use (along with entropy masking) is discouraged. Lastly, the wide range in 16S rRNA gene copy number among genomes also has a strong potential to confound diversity metrics. Video Abstract.

PMID:35799218 | DOI:10.1186/s40168-022-01295-y

BMC Res Notes. 2022 Jul 7;15(1):239. doi: 10.1186/s13104-022-06114-z.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: This study evaluates the probiotic activity of three vaginal Lactobacillus gasseri (H59.2, IMAUFB014, and JCM1131) and one non-vaginal L. plantarum ATCC14917 against three Candida albicans (ATCC10231, candidiasis, and healthy vaginal microbiota). Displacement of lactobacilli and adhesion inhibition of C. albicans were evaluated on an abiotic surface through adhesion assays with different experimental settings (ES) through low (1.0E + 03 CFU/ml) and high (1.00E + 09 CFU/ml) levels of colonization. ES simulated dysbiosis (ES1 and ES4), candidiasis (ES2), and healthy vaginal microbiota (ES3).

RESULTS: At ES2 and ES3, L. gasseri H59.2 showed discrepant inhibition values among C. albicans isolates (ES2: P = 0.008, ES3: P = 0.030; two-way ANOVA). L. plantarum was only displaced by 23%, 31%, 54%, and 94% against low and high levels of C. albicans ATCC10231. L. plantarum was less displaced, when compared to L. gasseri strains (ES1: 61-84%, ES2: 82-96%, ES3: 83-95%, and ES4: 73-97%), showing multiple statistical differences (ES1: P = < 0.001, ES2: P = 0.003, and ES3: P = < 0.001; two-way ANOVA). L. plantarum also showed a superior inhibition of C. albicans ATCC10231 in ES1 (81%) and ES2 (58%) when compared to L. gasseri strains (ES1: 27-73%, P < 0.001; and ES2:1-49%, P < 0.001; two-way ANOVA).

PMID:35799214 | DOI:10.1186/s13104-022-06114-z

Addict Sci Clin Pract. 2022 Jul 7;17(1):34. doi: 10.1186/s13722-022-00315-4.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Opioid use disorder (OUD) is a serious health condition that is effectively treated with buprenorphine. However, only a minority of people with OUD are able to access buprenorphine. Many access points for buprenorphine have high barriers for initiation and retention. Health care and drug treatment systems have not been able to provide services to all-let alone the majority-who need it, and many with OUD report extreme challenges starting and staying on buprenorphine in those care settings. We describe the design and protocol for a study of a rapid access buprenorphine program model in six Washington State communities at existing sites serving people who are unhoused and/or using syringe services programs. This study aimed to test the effectiveness of a Community-Based Medication-First Program model.

METHODS: We are conducting a hybrid effectiveness-implementation study of a rapid access buprenorphine model of care staffed by prescribers, nurse care managers, and care navigators. The Community-Based Medication-First model of care was designed as a 6-month, induction-stabilization-transition model to be delivered between 2019 and 2022. Effectiveness outcomes will be tested by comparing the intervention group with a comparison group derived from state records of people who had OUD. Construction of the comparison group will align characteristics such as geography, demographics, historical rates of arrests, OUD medication, and health care utilization, using restriction and propensity score techniques. Outcomes will include arrests, emergency and inpatient health care utilization, and mortality rates. Descriptive statistics for buprenorphine utilization patterns during the intervention period will be documented with the prescription drug monitoring program.

DISCUSSION: Results of this study will help determine the effectiveness of the intervention. Given the serious population-level and individual-level impacts of OUD, it is essential that services be readily available to all people with OUD, including those who cannot readily access care due to their circumstances, capacity, preferences, and related systems barriers.

PMID:35799210 | DOI:10.1186/s13722-022-00315-4

World J Emerg Surg. 2022 Jul 7;17(1):38. doi: 10.1186/s13017-022-00445-9.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Current guidelines recommend repeat computed tomography (CT) imaging in high-grade blunt renal injury within 48-96 h, yet diagnostic value and clinical significance remain controversial. The aim of this work was to determine the possible gain of CT re-imaging in uncomplicated patients with blunt renal trauma at 48 h after injury, presenting one of the largest case series.

METHODS: A retrospective database of patients admitted to our centre with isolated blunt renal trauma due to sporting injuries was analysed for a period of 20 years (2000-2020). We included only patients who underwent repeat imaging at 48 h after trauma irrespective of AAST renal injury grading (grade 1-5) and initial management. The primary outcome was intervention rates after CT imaging at 48 h in uncomplicated patients versus CT scan at the time of clinical symptoms.

RESULTS: A total of 280 patients (mean age: 37.8 years; 244 (87.1%) male) with repeat CT after 48 h were included. 150 (53.6%) patients were classified as low-grade (grade 1-3) and 130 (46.4%) as high-grade (grade 4-5) trauma. Immediate intervention at trauma was necessary in 59 (21.1%) patients with high-grade injuries: minimally invasive therapy in 48 (81.4%) and open surgery in 11 (18.6%) patients, respectively. In only 16 (5.7%) cases, intervention was performed based on CT re-imaging at 48 h (low-grade vs. high-grade: 3.3% vs. 8.5%; p = 0.075). On the contrary, intervention rate due to clinical symptoms was 12.5% (n = 35). Onset of clinical progress was on average (range) 5.3 (1-17) days post trauma. High-grade trauma (odds ratio [OR]_{grade 4 vs. grade 3}, 14.62; p < 0.001; OR_{grade 5 vs. grade 3}, 22.88, p = 0.004) and intervention performed at the day of trauma (OR 3.22; p = 0.014) were powerful predictors of occurrence of clinical progress.

CONCLUSION: Our data suggest that routine CT imaging 48 h post trauma can be safely omitted for patients with low- and high-grade blunt renal injury as long as they remain clinically stable. Patients with high-grade renal injury have the highest risk for clinical progress; thus, close surveillance should be considered especially in this group.

PMID:35799209 | DOI:10.1186/s13017-022-00445-9