The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
There has been progress towards malaria elimination in the last decade. In response, WHO launched the Global Technical Strategy (GTS), in which vector surveillance and control play important roles. Country experiences in the Eliminating Malaria Case Study Series were reviewed to identify success factors on the road to elimination using …
Brazil has experienced an unprecedented epidemic of Zika virus (ZIKV), with ~30,000 cases reported to date. ZIKV was first detected in Brazil in May 2015 and cases of microcephaly potentially associated with ZIKV infection were identified in November 2015. Using next generation sequencing we generated seven Brazilian ZIKV genomes, sampled …
This study aimed to determine the epidemiological characteristics of imported malaria infections in Al-Ahsa, Eastern province of Saudi Arabia, based on a retrospective analysis of central laboratory records over the last ten-year period from 2005 to 2015. Records showing details of all positive slides for malaria blood films over a …
Thallium (Tl) is a highly toxic heavy metal widely present in the environment. Case reports have suggested that maternal exposure to high levels of Tl during pregnancy is associated with low birth weight (LBW), but epidemiological data are limited. This study was designed to evaluate whether prenatal Tl exposure is …
In October, 2015, 22 scientists from ten countries met at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France, to evaluate the carcinogenicity of the consumption of red meat and processed meat. The Working Group assessed more than 800 epidemiological studies that investigated the association of cancer with …
The high prevalence of sickle haemoglobin in Africa shows that malaria has been a major force for human evolutionary selection, but surprisingly few other polymorphisms have been proven to confer resistance to malaria in large epidemiological studies. To address this problem, we conducted a multi-centre genome-wide association study (GWAS) of …
This Executive Summary to the Endocrine Society’s second Scientific Statement on environmental endocrinedisrupting chemicals (EDCs) provides a synthesis of the key points of the complete statement. The full Scientific Statement represents a comprehensive review of the literature on seven topics for which there is strong mechanistic, experimental, animal, and epidemiological …
Every 40 seconds a person dies by suicide somewhere in the world. “Preventing suicide: a global imperative” is the first WHO report of its kind. It aims to increase awareness of the public health significance of suicide and suicide attempts, to make suicide prevention a higher priority on the global …
The Global Burden of Disease Study 2013 (GBD 2013) aims to bring together all available epidemiological data using a coherent measurement framework, standardised estimation methods, and transparent data sources to enable comparisons of health loss over time and across causes, age–sex groups, and countries. The GBD can be used to …
Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) or sexually transmitted infections (STIs), have been recognised as a major public-health problem for a number of years. In 1912, Prince Morrow, chair of the US committee looking into the problem of venereal diseases, was quoted as saying "it is a conservative estimate that fully one-eighth …
The researchers assessed high cholesterol (HC) awareness, treatment, and control rates among US Hispanic/Latino adults and describe factors associated with HC awareness and management.
Short-term exposure to air pollution has adverse effects among patients with asthma, but whether long-term exposure to air pollution is a cause of adult-onset asthma is unclear. The researchers aimed to investigate the association between air pollution and adult onset asthma.
Vector-borne transmission of Trypanosoma cruzi is seen exclusively in the Americas where an estimated 8 million people are infected with the parasite. Significant research in southern Peru has been conducted to understand T. cruzi infection and vector control, however, much less is known about the burden of infection and epidemiology …
Outdoor air pollution is an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease throughout the world, with particulate air pollution alone responsible for over three million deaths each year. Increases in concentrations of daily air pollution are associated with acute myocardial infarction and admission to hospital or death from heart failure. These …
Half the epidemiological studies with information about menopausal hormone therapy and ovarian cancer risk remain unpublished, and some retrospective studies could have been biased by selective participation or recall. We aimed to assess with minimal bias the effects of hormone therapy on ovarian cancer risk.
Hypotheses about the genesis of novel H1N1 influenza (the pandemic strain of swine flu) range far and wide. Some public health and epidemiology experts are taking a fresh look at concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) , which they say provide ideal conditions that facilitate the mutation of viral pathogens into …
The Lancet presents the most recent update on the global, regional, and national causes of death. Against a backdrop of increased global improvements in life-expectancy, death rates for some causes – including drug use and liver cancer – continue to rise. Up-to-date evidence on levels and trends for age-sex-specific all-cause …
Incense burning is common in many parts of the world. Although it is perceived that particulate matter from incense smoke is deleterious to health, there is no epidemiologic evidence linking domestic exposure to cardiovascular mortality. The researchers examined the association between exposure to incense burning and cardiovascular mortality in the …
The complex and unprecedented Ebola epidemic ongoing in West Africa has highlighted the need to review the epidemiological characteristics of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) as well as our current understanding of the transmission dynamics and the effect of control interventions against Ebola transmission. Here we review key epidemiological data from …
We previously reported an association between childhood leukaemia in Britain and proximity of the child’s address at birth to high-voltage power lines that declines from the 1960s to the 2000s. We test here whether a ‘corona-ion hypothesis’ could explain these results. This hypothesis proposes that corona ions, atmospheric ions produced …
