Search results for " Surveys"

Assessing alcohol consumption through wastewater-based epidemiology: Spain as a case study

2020

Background In this study, an alternative and complementary method to those approaches currently used to estimate alcohol consumption by the population is described. This method, known as wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE), allows back-calculating the alcohol consumption rate in a given population from the concentrations of a selected biomarker measured in wastewater. Methods Composite (24-h) wastewater samples were collected at the inlet of 17 wastewater treatment plants located in 13 Spanish cities for seven consecutive days in 2018. The sampled area covered 12.8% of the Spanish population. Wastewater samples were analyzed to determine the concentration of ethyl sulfate, the biomarker use…

Managing Peripheral Artery Disease in Diabetic Patients: A Questionnaire Survey from Vascular Centers of the Mediterranean Federation for the Advanci…

2020

Background The Mediterranean Federation for the Advancing of Vascular Surgery (MeFAVS) was founded on October 1, 2018, to enhance cooperation among vascular professionals within Mediterranean countries. Due to its prominent social and economic impact on national health systems, diabetic arteriopathy has been selected as the very first topic to be investigated by the federation. Methods MeFAVS members were asked to reply to a questionnaire on the management of diabetic ischemic foot. Results were collected and analyzed statistically. The questionnaire consisted of 15 multiple choice answers regarding diabetic foot (DF) diagnosis and treatment. The questionnaire was submitted to 21 centers on…

Developing tools for biodiversity surveys : studies with wood-inhabiting fungi

2010

Pain and clinical findings in the low back: a study of industrial employees with 5-, 10-, and 28-year follow-ups.

2009

Little is known about the relationships of clinical findings in the low back with low back pain (LBP) in the normal working population. We studied whether physiotherapist's findings in the low back were associated with local and radiating LBP among a cohort (n=902) of employees in the engineering industry. A systematic non-proportional sample was drawn in strata by age, gender, and occupational class. The non-proportionality aimed at increasing sample size in smaller strata. Physiotherapists performed the straight-leg raising test (SRL), and made assessments of the fingertip-to-floor distance and pain in palpation of the lumbar interspinous spaces. The variables on pain at the interspinous …

Etiological factors of chronic hepatitis in Italy: a 2014 national survey.

2017

Background The last Italian prevalence survey on chronic hepatitis (CH) conducted in 2001 showed that the hepatitis C virus (HCV) was the main agent associated with CH. Aim The aim of this study was to evaluate epidemiological changes in CH occurring after 13 years. Patients and methods Enrollment of 1392 CH consecutive patients referred to 16 Italian liver units in 2014 scattered all over the country (four in the North, four in the Center, four in the South, and four in the Islands) was performed. Results The mean age of the patients was 58.3 years, with a sex ratio (male/female) of 1.5. HCV infection (also with other etiologies) continues to be the most prevalent etiology (58.1%). However…

Worldwide trends in blood pressure from 1975 to 2015: a pooled analysis of 1479 population-based measurement studies with 19.1 million participants

2017

Background Raised blood pressure is an important risk factor for cardiovascular diseases and chronic kidney disease. We estimated worldwide trends in mean systolic and mean diastolic blood pressure, and the prevalence of, and number of people with, raised blood pressure, defined as systolic blood pressure of 140 mm Hg or higher or diastolic blood pressure of 90 mm Hg or higher. Methods For this analysis, we pooled national, subnational, or community population-based studies that had measured blood pressure in adults aged 18 years and older. We used a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate trends from 1975 to 2015 in mean systolic and mean diastolic blood pressure, and the prevalence of rai…

Reliability of adapted version of Italian Label tobacco Impact Index for the adolescent: ALII

2017

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to assess the reliability of the Adolescent Label Impact Index (ALII) , it is an adolescent adapted version of Italian LII of the tobacco products warnings. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A sample including students aged 13-15 years was considered. The ALII is constructed by 4 items: salience, harm, quitting and forgo. The questionnaire was self-administered to study participants twice with 3 days between each administration (T1 and T2) to measure reliability. The internal consistency using Cronbach's alpha and Corrected Item-Total Correlations (CITC) and the test-retest reliability applying Pearson's correlation were computed. RESULTS: Cronbach's alpha ranges fro…

Equity and excellence : evidence for policy formulation to reduce the difference in PISA performance between Swedish speaking and Finnish speaking st…

2013

Jämlikhet och resultat : forskningsresultat som kan användas för att minska skillnaderna i PISA-prestationer mellan svenskspråkiga och finskspråkiga …

2013

How representative are referendums? Evidence from 20 years of Swiss referendums

2017

Direct democracy allows citizens to reverse decisions made by legislatures and even initiate new laws which parliaments are unwilling to pass, thereby, as its proponents argue, leading to more representative policies than would have obtained under a purely representative democracy. Yet, turnout in referendums is usually lower than in parliamentary elections and tends to be skewed towards citizens of high socio-economic status. Consequently, critics of direct democracy argue that referendum outcomes may not be representative of the preferences of the population at large. We test this assertion using a compilation of post-referendum surveys encompassing 148 national referendums held in Switze…