The Role of European Schools and University Departments of Public Health in the 2020 COVID-19 Response, European Region, 2020

Objective: The main objective was to examine, how European Schools of Public Health (SPHs) responded to the COVID-19 pandemic through 2020, across the main activity domains of the SPHs. Methods: A cross-sectional survey based on an online questionnaire concerning the anti-COVID-19 activities from 1st March to 31st October 2020 of the 117 members of the…

Milk intake and incident stroke and coronary heart disease in populations of European descent: A Mendelian Randomization study

Higher milk intake has been associated with a lower stroke risk, but not with risk of coronary heart disease (CHD). Residual confounding or reverse causation cannot be excluded. Therefore, we estimated the causal association of milk consumption with stroke and CHD risk through instrumental variable (IV) and gene-outcome analyses. IV analysis included 29,328 participants (4,611…

Trends in gender of authors of original research in oncology among major medical journals: a retrospective bibliometric study

Objective We evaluated the temporal trend in gender ratios of first and last authors in the field of oncological research published in major general medical and oncology journals and examined the gender pattern in coauthorship. Design We conducted a retrospective study in PubMed using the R package RISmed. We retrieved original research articles published in…

High-risk subtypes of chronic lyphocytic leukemia are detectable as early as 16 years prior to diagnosis

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is preceded by monoclonal B-cell lymphocytosis (MBL), a CLL precursor state with a prevalence of up to 12% in aged individuals. However, the duration of MBL and the mechanisms of its evolution to CLL remain largely unknown. In this study, we sequenced the B-cell receptor immunoglobulin heavy chain (BcR IGH) gene…

Multilevel Zero-One Inflated Beta Regression Model for the Analysis of the Relationship between Exogenous Health Variables and Technical Efficiency in the Spanish National Health System Hospitals

Background: This article proposes a methodological innovation in health economics for the second stage analysis of technical efficiency in hospitals. It investigates the relationship between the installed capacity in regions and hospitals and their ownership structure. Methods: A multilevel zero-one inflated beta regression model is employed to model pure technical efficiency more adequately than other…

Public Perceptions of the Role of Lifestyle Factors in Cancer Development: Results from the Spanish Onco-Barometer 2020

The European Code against Cancer recommends not to smoke, to avoid alcohol consumption, to eat a healthy diet, and maintain a healthy weight to prevent cancer. To what extent is the public aware of the influence of these lifestyle factors on cancer development? The goal of the current study was to describe the perceived influence…

Health, Work, and Social Problems in Spanish Informal Caregivers: Does Gender Matter? (The CUIDAR-SE Study)

(1) Background: The aim of this study was (i) to analyze problems faced by informal caregivers in three areas of their life: health, work and finances, and family and social relationships, (ii) to investigate the main determinants of these problems, and (iii) to explore differences between men and women. (2) Methods: The study population consisted…

Circulating tryptophan metabolites and risk of colon cancer: results from case-control and prospective cohort studies

Dysregulation of tryptophan metabolism has been linked to colorectal tumorigenesis, however, epidemiological studies investigating tryptophan metabolites in relation to colorectal cancer risk are limited. We studied associations of plasma tryptophan, serotonin, and kynurenine with colon cancer risk in two studies with cancer patients and controls, and in one prospective cohort: ColoCare Study (110 patients/153 controls),…

Inflammatory potential of the diet and risk of breast cancer in the European Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study

The role of chronic inflammation on breast cancer (BC) risk remains unclear beyond as an underlying mechanism of obesity and physical activity. We aimed to evaluate the association between the inflammatory potential of the diet and risk of BC overall, according to menopausal status and tumour subtypes. Within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and…