Publications
19 results found
Ho NT, Tran MT, Tran CTD, et al., 2024, Prevalence of metabolic syndrome among Vietnamese adult employees., Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis, Vol: 34, Pages: 326-333
BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Metabolic syndrome (MtS) is associated with increased risk of many health disorders, especially cardiovascular diseases. In Vietnam, study examining MtS is meager and especially lacking for the workforce. We estimated the prevalence of MtS and its associated factors among Vietnamese employees. METHODS AND RESULTS: We analyzed secondary data of annual health check of employees of 300 Vietnamese companies from the Vinmec Healthcare System. We used three definitions for MtS: International Diabetes Federation (IDF), National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III (NCEP ATP III), and NCEP ATP III-Asia. Of 57,997 participants evaluated, 48.5 % were males and 66.2 % were younger than 40 years old. The unadjusted MtS prevalence was 8.4 % (IDF), 10.2 % (NCEP ATP III), and 16.0 % (NCEP ATP III-Asia). The age-sex adjusted prevalence of MtS (NCEP ATP III-Asia) was 21.8 % (95 % confidence interval (CI): 21.4 %, 22.2 %). MtS prevalence increased with age, reached 49.6 % for age ≥60. The aging related increase was more remarkable in females than males (prevalence ratio (PR) (95 % CI) for age ≥60 comparing to age <30 years old in males vs. females was 4.0 (3.6, 4.3) vs. 20.1 (17.7, 22.9)). High blood triglyceride (83.4 %) and abdominal obesity (74.5 %) were the predominant contributors to MtS. CONCLUSION: In this relatively young Vietnamese working population, 16 % had MtS with high triglyceride and abdominal obesity being the predominant contributors. These findings emphasize the need for developing effective high triglyceride and abdominal obesity prevention and control programs to curb the emerging epidemic of metabolic disorders in the workforce.
Soltan F, Cristofalo D, Marshall D, et al., 2022, Community-based interventions for improving mental health in refugee children and adolescents in high-income countries, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Vol: 2022, Pages: 1-88, ISSN: 1469-493X
BackgroundAn unprecedented number of people around the world are experiencing forced displacement due to natural or man‐made events. More than 50% of refugees worldwide are children or adolescents. In addition to the challenges of settling in a new country, many have witnessed or experienced traumatic events. Therefore, refugee children and adolescents are at risk of developing mental health problems such as post‐traumatic stress disorder, and require appropriate and effective support within communities.ObjectivesTo assess the effectiveness and acceptability of community‐based interventions (RCTs only) in comparison with controls (no treatment, waiting list, alternative treatment) for preventing and treating mental health problems (major depression, anxiety, post‐traumatic stress disorder, psychological distress) and improving mental health in refugee children and adolescents in high‐income countries.Search methodsDatabases searches included the Cochrane Common Mental Disorders Controlled Trials Register (all available years), CENTRAL/CDSR (2021, Issue 2), Ovid MEDLINE, Embase, six other databases, and two trials registries to 21 February 2021. We checked reference lists of included study reports. Selection criteriaStudies of any design were eligible as long as they included child or adolescent refugees and evaluated a community‐based mental health intervention in a high‐income country. At a second stage, we selected randomised controlled trials.Data collection and analysisFor randomised controlled trials, we extracted data relating to the study and participant characteristics, and outcome data relating to the results of the trial. For studies using other evaluation methods, we extracted data relating to the study and participant characteristics. W derived evidence on the efficacy and availability of interventions from the randomised controlled trials only. Data were synthesised narratively.Main resultsWe screened 5005 records and sought full‐text manuscripts of 62
Wu Y, Lin Q, Yang M, et al., 2021, A computer vision-based yoga pose grading approach using contrastive skeleton feature representations, Healthcare, Vol: 10, Pages: 1-12, ISSN: 2227-9032
The main objective of yoga pose grading is to assess the input yoga pose and compare it to a standard pose in order to provide a quantitative evaluation as a grade. In this paper, a computer vision-based yoga pose grading approach is proposed using contrastive skeleton feature representations. First, the proposed approach extracts human body skeleton keypoints from the input yoga pose image and then feeds their coordinates into a pose feature encoder, which is trained using contrastive triplet examples; finally, a comparison of similar encoded pose features is made. Furthermore, to tackle the inherent challenge of composing contrastive examples in pose feature encoding, this paper proposes a new strategy to use both a coarse triplet example—comprised of an anchor, a positive example from the same category, and a negative example from a different category, and a fine triplet example—comprised of an anchor, a positive example, and a negative example from the same category with different pose qualities. Extensive experiments are conducted using two benchmark datasets to demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed approach.
Naughton F, Vaz LR, Coleman T, et al., 2020, Interest in and use of smoking cessation support across pregnancy and postpartum, Nicotine and Tobacco Research, Vol: 22, Pages: 1178-1186, ISSN: 1462-2203
BackgroundLimited research exists on interest in and use of smoking cessation support in pregnancy and postpartum.MethodsA longitudinal cohort of pregnant smokers and recent ex-smokers were recruited in Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom (N = 850). Data were collected at 8–26 weeks gestation, 34–36 weeks gestation, and 3 months postpartum and used as three cross-sectional surveys. Interest and use of cessation support and belief and behavior measures were collected at all waves. Key data were adjusted for nonresponse and analyzed descriptively, and multiple regression was used to identify associations.ResultsIn early and late pregnancy, 44% (95% CI 40% to 48%) and 43% (95% CI 37% to 49%) of smokers, respectively, were interested in cessation support with 33% (95% CI 27% to 39%) interested postpartum. In early pregnancy, 43% of smokers reported discussing cessation with a midwife and, in late pregnancy, 27% did so. Over one-third (38%) did not report discussing quitting with a health professional during pregnancy. Twenty-seven percent of smokers reported using any National Health Service (NHS) cessation support and 12% accessed NHS Stop Smoking Services during pregnancy. Lower quitting confidence (self-efficacy), higher confidence in stopping with support, higher quitting motivation, and higher age were associated with higher interest in support (ps ≤ .001). A recent quit attempt and greater interest in support was associated with speaking to a health professional about quitting and use of NHS cessation support (ps ≤ .001).ConclusionsWhen asked in early or late pregnancy, about half of pregnant smokers were interested in cessation support, though most did not engage. Cessation support should be offered throughout pregnancy and after delivery.ImplicationsThere is relatively high interest in cessation support in early and late pregnancy and postpartum among smokers; however, a much smaller proportion of pregnant or postpartum women access any cessation s
Soltan F, Uphoff E, Newson R, et al., 2020, Community-based interventions for improving mental health in refugee children and adolescents in high-income countries, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, ISSN: 1469-493X
Pattaro S, Vanderbloemen L, Minton J, 2020, Visualizing fertility trends for 45 countries using composite lattice plots, Demographic Research, Vol: 42, Pages: 689-711, ISSN: 1435-9871
Background: The Human Fertility Database (HFD) and Human Fertility Collection (HFC) provide disaggregated data on age-specific fertility rates for 45 countries. These sources offer the opportunity to learn about the development of different pathways of transition to low fertility both within and between countries.Objective: The aim of this paper is to use composite fertility lattice plots, which combine information from different visualization techniques of the Lexis surface, namely level plots and contour plots, to explore changes in age-specific fertility rates (ASFRs) and the implied (period-based) cumulative cohort fertility rates (cumulative pseudo cohort fertility rates, CPCFRs) across countries and geographic regions.Methods: Through key examples we introduce a new refinement of the Lexis surface, combining level plots, which use colour/shade to indicate ASFRs, and contour lines to indicate fertility milestones for given cohorts (CPCFRs). We have also developed a web-based app to allow researchers to produce their own fertility Lexis surfaces.Results: Results show that once countries have fallen below a replacement fertility level, they tend to not return to it. Exceptions are Norway and the United States, which saw rising fertility rates for cohorts born after the 1950s and late 1960s respectively. The age-specific fertility trends, as well as broader political and socioeconomic conditions, are very different in these countries, suggesting different paths by which replacement fertility rates might be achieved.Contribution: Complex data visualizations show, in an intuitive way, how ASFRs are related to successive cohorts’ fertility milestones (CPCFRs). Combining this information enables us to explore differences between countries and can make an important contribution to comparative fertility research.
Soltan F, Vanderbloemen LS, 2018, Systematic review of community-based interventions for improving health and well-being in refugee children and adolescents after resettlement in developed countries (2018), PROSPERO International Register of Systematic Reviews https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=99102
Cooper S, Orton S, Leonardi-Bee J, et al., 2017, Smoking and quit attempts during pregnancy and postpartum: a longitudinal UK cohort, BMJ OPEN, Vol: 7, ISSN: 2044-6055
Objectives Pregnancy motivates women to try stopping smoking, but little is known about timing of their quit attempts and how quitting intentions change during pregnancy and postpartum. Using longitudinal data, this study aimed to document women’s smoking and quitting behaviour throughout pregnancy and after delivery.Design Longitudinal cohort survey with questionnaires at baseline (8–26 weeks’ gestation), late pregnancy (34–36 weeks) and 3 months after delivery.Setting Two maternity hospitals in one National Health Service hospital trust, Nottingham, England.Participants 850 pregnant women, aged 16 years or over, who were current smokers or had smoked in the 3 months before pregnancy, were recruited between August 2011 and August 2012.Outcome measures Self-reported smoking behaviour, quit attempts and quitting intentions.Results Smoking rates, adjusting for non-response at follow-up, were 57.4% (95% CI 54.1 to 60.7) at baseline, 59.1% (95% CI 54.9 to 63.4) in late pregnancy and 67.1% (95% CI 62.7 to 71.5) 3 months postpartum. At baseline, 272 of 488 current smokers had tried to quit since becoming pregnant (55.7%, 95% CI 51.3 to 60.1); 51.3% (95% CI 44.7 to 58.0) tried quitting between baseline and late pregnancy and 27.4% (95% CI 21.7 to 33.2) after childbirth. The percentage who intended to quit within the next month fell as pregnancy progressed, from 40.4% (95% CI 36.1 to 44.8) at baseline to 29.7% (95% CI 23.8 to 35.6) in late pregnancy and 14.2% (95% CI 10.0 to 18.3) postpartum. Postpartum relapse was lower among women who quit in the 3 months before pregnancy (17.8%, 95% CI 6.1 to 29.4) than those who stopped between baseline and late pregnancy (42.9%, 95% CI 24.6 to 61.3).Conclusions Many pregnant smokers make quit attempts throughout pregnancy and postpartum, but intention to quit decreases over time; there is no evidence that smoking rates fall during gestation.
Minton J, Shaw R, Green MA, et al., 2017, Visualising and quantifying 'excess deaths' in Scotland compared with the rest of the UK and the rest of Western Europe, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Vol: 71, Pages: 461-467, ISSN: 1470-2738
BACKGROUND: Scotland has higher mortality rates than the rest of Western Europe (rWE), with more cardiovascular disease and cancer among older adults; and alcohol-related and drug-related deaths, suicide and violence among younger adults. METHODS: We obtained sex, age-specific and year-specific all-cause mortality rates for Scotland and other populations, and explored differences in mortality both visually and numerically. RESULTS: Scotland's age-specific mortality was higher than the rest of the UK (rUK) since 1950, and has increased. Between the 1950s and 2000s, 'excess deaths' by age 80 per 100 000 population associated with living in Scotland grew from 4341 to 7203 compared with rUK, and from 4132 to 8828 compared with rWE. UK-wide mortality risk compared with rWE also increased, from 240 'excess deaths' in the 1950s to 2320 in the 2000s. Cohorts born in the 1940s and 1950s throughout the UK including Scotland had lower mortality risk than comparable rWE populations, especially for males. Mortality rates were higher in Scotland than rUK and rWE among younger adults from the 1990s onwards suggesting an age-period interaction. CONCLUSIONS: Worsening mortality among young adults in the past 30 years reversed a relative advantage evident for those born between 1950 and 1960. Compared with rWE, Scotland and rUK have followed similar trends but Scotland has started from a worse position and had worse working age-period effects in the 1990s and 2000s.
Minton J, Green M, McCartney G, et al., 2016, What Case & Deaton saw, and what they missed. A data visualisation commentary on Case & Deaton (2015), Publisher: OXFORD UNIV PRESS, ISSN: 1101-1262
Almashrafi A, Vanderbloemen L, 2016, Quantifying the effect of complications on patient flow, costs and surgical throughputs, BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, Vol: 16, ISSN: 1472-6947
BackgroundPostoperative adverse events are known to increase length of stay and cost. However, research on how adverse events affect patient flow and operational performance has been relatively limited to date. Moreover, there is paucity of studies on the use of simulation in understanding the effect of complications on care processes and resources. In hospitals with scarcity of resources, postoperative complications can exert a substantial influence on hospital throughputs. Methods:This paper describes an evaluation method for assessing the effect of complications on patient flow within a cardiac surgical department. The method is illustrated by a case study where actual patient-level data are incorporated into a discrete event simulation (DES) model. The DES model uses patient data obtained from a large hospital in Oman to quantify the effect of complications on patient flow, costs and surgical throughputs.We evaluated the incremental increase in resources due to treatment of complications using Poisson regression. Several types of complications were examined such as cardiac complications, pulmonary complications, infection complications and neurological complications.Results: 48% of the patients in our dataset experienced one or more complications. The most common types of complications were ventricular arrhythmia (16%) followed by new atrial arrhythmia (15.5%) and prolonged ventilation longer than 24 hours (12.5%). The total number of additional days associated with infections was the highest, while cardiac complications have resulted in the lowest number of incremental days of hospital stay. Complications had a significant effect on perioperative operational performance such as surgery cancellations and waiting time. The effect was profound when complications occurred in the Cardiac Intensive Care (CICU)where a limited capacity was observed.
Minton J, Green M, McCartney G, et al., 2016, Two cheers for a small giant? Why we need better ways of seeing data: A commentary on: 'Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among White non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st century', International Journal of Epidemiology, Vol: 46, Pages: 356-361, ISSN: 1464-3685
A recent Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) article by Case and Deaton generated a lot of attention outside the journal’s usual readership.1 According to the social media tracker website Altmetric, by 30 December 2015 the paper was picked up by 84 news outlets and 42 blogs, and had been tweeted around 600 times, all in around a month. Altmetric rates on that date placed it as the 11th most impactful output of 37 873 PNAS items evaluated, placing it in the top 0.03% of all papers published in the journal.The title and abstract of the article, ‘Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among white non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st century’, was probably important factors in the mainstream media attention. Though it is perhaps not news that, in the USA, life has never been easy if you are African American, Hispanic or a young adult, the finding that life may not be so long for the White and the middle-aged perhaps came as more of a surprise. The Washington Post called the findings ‘startling’, Public Broadcasting Service called them ‘stunning’ and Al Jezeera America called them ‘devastating’.In parallel with traditional media, the paper also drew interest within the new media of Facebook and bloggers. And it was from the new media rather than the old, and in particular from the personal blog of statistician Andrew Gelman,2 that some of the most insightful commentaries and critiques of the paper emerged.
Vanderbloemen L, Dorling D, Minton J, 2016, Visualising variation in mortality rates across the life course and by sex, USA and comparator states, 1933-2010., Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Vol: 70, Pages: 826-831, ISSN: 1470-2738
BACKGROUND: Previous research showed that younger adult males in the USA have, since the 1950s, died at a faster rate than females of the same age. In this paper, we quantify this difference, and explore possible explanations for the differences at different ages and in different years. METHODS: Using data from the Human Mortality Database (HMD), the number of additional male deaths per 10 000 female deaths was calculated for each year from 1933 to 2010, and for each year of age from 0 to 60 years, for the USA, and a number of other countries for comparison. The data were explored visually using shaded contour plots. RESULTS: Gender differences in excess mortality have increased. Coming of age (between the ages of 15 and 25 years of age) is especially perilous for men relative to women now compared with the past in the USA; the visualisations highlight this change as important. CONCLUSIONS: Sex differences in mortality risks at various ages are not static. While women may today have an advantage when it comes to life expectancy, in the USA, this has greatly increased since the 1930s. Just as young adulthood for women has been made safer through safer antenatal and childbirth practices, changes in public policy can make the social environment safer for men.
Prady SL, Burch J, Vanderbloemen L, et al., 2015, Measuring expectations of benefit from treatment in acupuncture trials: A systematic review, COMPLEMENTARY THERAPIES IN MEDICINE, Vol: 23, Pages: 185-199, ISSN: 0965-2299
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- Citations: 25
Minton J, Vanderbloemen L, Dorling D, 2013, Visualizing Europe's demographic scars with coplots and contour plots., International Journal of Epidemiology, Vol: 42, Pages: 1164-1176, ISSN: 1464-3685
We present two enhancements to existing methods for visualizing vital statistics data. Data from the Human Mortality Database were used and vital statistics from England and Wales are used for illustration. The simpler of these methods involves coplotting mean age of death with its variance, and the more complex of these methods is to present data as a contour plot. The coplot method shows the effect of the 20th century's epidemiological transitions. The contour plot method allows more complex and subtle age, period and cohort effects to be seen. The contour plot shows the effects of broad improvements in public health over the 20th century, including vast reductions in rates of childhood mortality, reduced baseline mortality risks during adulthood and the postponement of higher mortality risks to older ages. They also show the effects of the two world wars and the 1918 influenza pandemic on men of fighting age, women and children. The contour plots also show a cohort effect for people born around 1918, suggesting a possible epigenetic effect of parental exposure to the pandemic which shortened the cohort's lifespan and which has so far received little attention. Although this article focuses on data from England and Wales, the associated online appendices contain equivalent visualizations for almost 50 series of data available on the Human Mortality Database. We expect that further analyses of these visualizations will reveal further insights into global public health.
Kong AS, Vanderbloemen L, Skipper B, et al., 2012, Acanthosis nigricans predicts the clustering of metabolic syndrome components in Hispanic elementary school-aged children, JOURNAL OF PEDIATRIC ENDOCRINOLOGY & METABOLISM, Vol: 25, Pages: 1095-1102, ISSN: 0334-018X
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- Citations: 15
Repetto P, Cabieses B, Bernales M, et al., 2012, PROMOTION OF CIGARETTES AMONG CHILEAN MAGAZINES FOR FEMALES: WHAT ARE THE MESSAGES ABOUT SMOKING?, Publisher: SPRINGER, Pages: S211-S211, ISSN: 0883-6612
Kong AS, Leggott J, Hartenberger C, et al., 2007, Acanthosis nigricans predicts clustering of metabolic syndrome components in Hispanic school children, 67th Annual Meeting of the American-Diabetes-Association, Publisher: AMER DIABETES ASSOC, Pages: A473-A474, ISSN: 0012-1797
Kong AS, Skipper B, Vanderbloemen L, et al., 2007, Components of the metabolic syndrome in a hispanic population of school-aged children., 8th Conference of the Western Student Medical Research Forum, Publisher: B C DECKER INC, Pages: S125-S125, ISSN: 1081-5589
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