Rural

BACKGROUND: An epidemic of chronic kidney disease (CKD) has been observed in Central America among workers in the sugarcane fields. One hypothesis is that the CKD may be caused by recurrent heat stress and dehydration, and potentially by hyperuricemia. Accordingly, we developed a murine model of kidney injury associated with recurrent heat stress. In the current experiment, we tested whether treatment with allopurinol (a xanthine oxidase inhibitor that reduces serum urate) provides renal protection against recurrent heat stress and dehydration...

OBJECTIVE: Our aim is to study the association between bronchial asthma (BA) and periodontitis in northern Jordan. METHODS: A case-control study of 260 subjects; 130 with BA and 130 without BA (controls) were recruited from pulmonary clinics at a university hospital in northern Jordan. BA was physician diagnosed and on anti-asthma medications for ≥12 months. Periodontitis was defined as the presence of ≥ 4 teeth with ≥ 1 site with probing pocket depth (PPD) ≥ 4 mm and clinical attachment level (CAL) ≥ 3 mm...

High winter ozone in the Uintah Basin, Utah, and the Upper Green River Basin, Wyoming, occurs because of the confluence of three separate factors: (1) extensive oil or natural gas production, (2) topography conducive to strong multi-day thermal inversions, and (3) snow cover. We surveyed 13 basins and valleys in the western USA for the existence and magnitude of these factors. Seven of the basins, because winter ozone measurements were available, were assigned to four different behavioral classes. Based on similarities among the basins, the remaining six were also given a tentative assignment...

BACKGROUND: The mixed dentition is an important transition period from primary teeth. to permanent teeth. However, the caries prevalence of first permanent molar in mixed dentitions was about 30%, which almost represent the caries rate of permanent teeth in this period of time. Therefore, we assessed the oral bacterial profiles in young children (age 6-8) with mixed dentition with or without first molar caries for providing the research basis of caries etiology. METHODS: We collected samples of supragingival plaque and saliva from the children living in Guizhou, a rural isolated province in China...

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Cardiovascular health (CVH) is a construct defined by the American Heart Association (AHA) as part of its 2020 Impact Goal definition. CVH has, until now, not been evaluated in Sub-Saharan African populations. The aim of this study was to investigate differences in the prevalence of ideal CVH and its constituent metrics among Ghanaians living in rural and urban Ghana and Ghanaian migrants living in three European countries. The AHA definition of CVH is based on 7 metrics: smoking, body mass index, diet, physical activity, blood pressure, total cholesterol, and fasting plasma glucose...

Owing to lack of data from multiple air quality monitoring stations, studies about spatial association between concentrations of ambient pollutants and mortality in China are rare. To investigate the spatial variation of association between concentrations of particulate matter less than 10 μm in aerodynamic diameter (PM10 ), nitrogen dioxide (NO2 ) and carbon monoxide (CO) and cardiovascular mortality in Beijing, China, we collected data including daily deaths, concentrations of PM10 , NO2 and CO, and meteorological factors from 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2010 in all 16 districts of Beijing...

Urbanization and rural-urban migration are two factors driving global patterns of disease and mortality. There is significant concern about their potential impact on disease burden and the effectiveness of current control approaches. Few attempts have been made to increase our understanding of the relationship between urbanization and disease dynamics, although it is generally believed that urban living has contributed to reductions in communicable disease burden in industrialized countries. To investigate this relationship, we carried out spatiotemporal analyses using a 48-year-long dataset of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome incidence (HFRS; mainly caused by two serotypes of hantavirus in China: Hantaan virus and Seoul virus) and population movements in an important endemic area of south China during the period 1963-2010...

BACKGROUND: Community paramedicine (CP) models have been applied across rural and urban communities in support of healthcare delivery systems for nearly two decades. However, there is still insufficient information regarding the development of sustainable CP programmes. This study explores the strategies used by active CP programmes and investigates their operational statuses, community demographics, financial models and challenges for programme development. METHODS: A series of interviews was conducted with four CP programmes in Pennsylvania, USA, which are affiliated with a local government, a health system, an ambulance service and an emergency medical service, respectively...

OBJECTIVES: To clarify competencies for inclusion in our curriculum that focuses on developing leaders in community medicine. DESIGN: Qualitative interview study. SETTING: All six regions of Japan, including urban and rural areas. PARTICIPANTS: Nineteen doctors (male: 18, female: 1) who play an important leadership role in their communities participated in semistructured interviews (mean age 48.3 years, range 34-59; mean years of clinical experience 23...

A 15-year-old girl of Asian origin, hailing from a rural agrarian background, presented with history of multiple episodes of dizziness for 3 years. The episodes were precipitated mostly by emotional and/or physical stress and relieved on lying down, with a few episodes culminating in transient loss of consciousness. As preliminary cardiac and neurological evaluation were normal, she was being treated by the primary physician as a case of probable psychogenic syncope, supported by the consistent association of the episodes with emotional stress...

BACKGROUND: Wearables, fitness apps, and patient home monitoring devices are used increasingly by patients and other individuals with lifestyle challenges. All Danish general practitioners (GPs) use digital health records and electronic health (eHealth) consultations on a daily basis, but how they perceive the increasing demand for lifestyle advice and whether they see eHealth as part of their lifestyle support should be explored further. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to explore GPs' perspectives on eHealth devices and apps and the use of eHealth in supporting healthy lifestyle behavior for their patients and themselves...

BACKGROUND: Knee pain is common with obesity and weight gain being important risk factors. Previous clinical trials have focused on overweight or obese adults with knee pain and osteoarthritis and demonstrated modest effects of intense weight loss programs on reducing knee pain despite very significant weight loss. There has been no lifestyle intervention that targets community-based adults to test its effect on prevention of knee pain. We aimed to determine the effect of a simple low-intensity self-management lifestyle intervention (HeLP-her), proven in randomised controlled trials to improve lifestyle and prevent weight gain, on knee pain in community-based young to middle-aged rural women...

Objective We estimated the incremental (extra) direct medical costs of a population-based cohort of newly diagnosed systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) for five years before and after diagnosis, and the impact of sex and socioeconomic status (SES) on pre-index costs for SLE. Methods We identified all adults newly diagnosed with SLE over 2001-2010 in British Columbia, Canada, and obtained a sample of non-SLE individuals from the general population, matched on sex, age, and calendar-year of study entry. We captured costs for all outpatient encounters, hospitalisations, and dispensed medications each year...

OBJECTIVES: To assess the association between rural and urban residential mobility and cognitive function among middle-aged and older adults in China. METHOD: We used data from the World Health Organization Study on global AGEing and adult health that included adults age 50+ from China ( N = 12,410). We used multivariate linear regressions to examine how residential mobility and age at migration were associated with cognitive function. RESULTS: Urban and urban-to-urban residents had the highest level of cognitive function, whereas rural and rural-to-rural residents had the poorest cognitive function...

INTRODUCTION: The USA needs more rural physicians. Although women represent half of all US trained medical students, the rural physician workforce has remained predominantly male. Insight is needed into what makes rural practice attractive for women and which practice characteristics allow women physicians to practice successfully in rural areas. This study's purpose was to examine aspects of the practice environment that impact women physicians' professional satisfaction and commitment to rural medicine...

Aerosol samples (as PM10, n = 250) were collected from three rural/remote receptor locations in the mid Brahmaputra plain region and were chemically characterized for metals (Al, Fe, Co, Cu, Cr, Cd, Mn, Ni, Pb), ions (Ca2+ , Mg2+ , Na+ , K+ , NH4 + , F- , Cl- , NO3 - , SO4 2- ), and carbon. Vital ratios like NO3 - /SO4 2- , EC/OC, K+ /EC, K+ /OC, enrichment factors and inter-species correlations were exploited to appreciate possible sources of aerosol. These empirical analyses pointed towards anthropogenic contributions of aerosol, particularly from biomass burning, vehicular emission, and road dust...

Exposure to PM2.5 -bound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) can elicit several types of cancer and non-cancer effects. Previous studies reported substantial burdens of PAH-induced lung cancer, but the burdens of other cancer types and non-cancer effects remain unknown. Thus, we estimate the cancer and non-cancer burden of disease, in disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), attributable to ambient PM2.5 -bound PAHs exposure in Nagpur district, India, using risk-based approach. We measured thirteen PAHs in airborne PM2...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Mental illness is increasingly recognized as a global health problem. However, in many countries, including Nepal, it is difficult to talk about mental health problems due to the stigma associated with it. Hence a training programme was developed to train auxiliary nurse midwives, who otherwise are not trained in mental health as part of their pre-registration training in rural Nepal, on issues related to maternal mental health. After the training programme a selection of auxiliary nurse midwives were interviewed to establish their views on the training, its usefulness and ways to improve it...

OBJECTIVES: The present study aimed at investigating the timing of birth across the day in a rural population of indigenous and nonindigenous women in the province of Formosa, Argentina in order to explore the variation in patterns in a non-Western setting. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study utilized birth record data transcribed from delivery room records at a rural hospital in the province of Formosa, northern Argentina. The sample included data for Criollo, Wichí, and Toba/Qom women (n = 2421)...