Publications by authors named "Manuel Franco"

Rheumatologists and other nondermatologists often encounter patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) who present with cutaneous diseases that mimic psoriasis (PsO). Cutaneous disorders including tinea, seborrheic dermatitis, eczema, pityriasis rubra pilaris, syphilis, or cutaneous lymphoma are commonly mistaken for PsO. It is crucial for rheumatologists and other nondermatologists to recognize alternative conditions and to consider referral to dermatology when skin disease is not responding to therapy.

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The steady rise in overweight and obesity in Europe disproportionately affects people and communities with a lower socio-economic position (SEP). Many obesity prevention approaches exist, but these have had limited reach and unsatisfactory effects thus far, especially in low-SEP populations. In this context, there is a need for implementation of effective individual-level and population-based preventive strategies that also tackle health inequalities.

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Clustering is an essential tool in biomedical research, often used to identify patterns and subgroups within complex, high-dimensional datasets, such as gene expression profiles, metabolomics, and patient stratification data. However, searching the optimal number of clusters and other input parameters such as trimmed and sparse represent challenging tasks. Traditional clustering methods may struggle to handle noisy, outliers, redundancy, and high-dimensional data, which are common in biomedical applications, leading to unreliable or biologically uninterpretable results.

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Introduction: School meal policies can protect children's health by reducing food insecurity, and they can also increase social justice, school attendance and food systems sustainability if designed to do so. This study analysed school meal policies in Vienna, Copenhagen, Madrid, and New York City (NYC) designed to improve nutritional health, sustainability and accessibility to school meals for vulnerable children.

Context: Child poverty is a growing and worrying reality in high-income countries.

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The on-surface synthesis of two-dimensional (2D) polymers from monomers represents a useful strategy for designing lattice, orbital and spin symmetries. Like other 2D materials, the ordered stacking of 2D polymers into bilayers may allow developing unique optoelectronic, charge transport and magnetic properties not found in the individual layers. However, controlling layer stacking of 2D polymers remains challenging.

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Objective: To compare, from an empirical point of view, the use of focus group and photovoice as we conducted two studies on food environment in neighbourhoods with different socio-economic profiles.

Method: The European project Heart Healthy Hoods studied the association between the physical and social environment of Madrid (Spain) and the cardiovascular health of its residents. Two ancillary studies were developed to further expand the study of urban health inequalities using focus group and photovoice.

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Rotavirus infection continues to be a significant public health problem in developing countries, despite the availability of several vaccines. The efficacy of oral rotavirus vaccines in young children may be affected by significant immunological differences between individuals in early life and adults. Therefore, understanding the dynamics of early-life systemic and mucosal immune responses and the factors that affect them is essential to improve the current rotavirus vaccines and develop the next generation of mucosal vaccines.

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Large cities are home to several groups of immigrants who undergo important changes in their environmental conditions and lifestyles that significantly modify their risk of chronic diseases. Quantitative evidence indicates that both their health and diet worsen over time; much less is known about the qualitative mechanisms that cause these changes. The aim of this article is to understand how immigrants in the city of Madrid perceive the relation between the urban food environment and dietary behaviour.

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Despite growing interest in understanding how food environments shape dietary behaviors, European longitudinal evidence is scarce. We aimed to investigate the associations of 9-year average and change in exposure to local retail food environments with the diet quality of residents in Luxembourg. We used data from 566 adults enrolled in both waves of the nationwide ORISCAV-LUX study (2007-2017).

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Background: Evidence has shown contradicting results on how the density of urban green spaces may reduce socioeconomic inequalities in type 2 diabetes (). The aim of this study is to test whether socioeconomic inequalities in diabetes prevalence are modified by park density.

Methods: We designed a population-wide cross-sectional study of all adults registered in the primary healthcare centres in the city of Madrid, Spain (n=1 305 050).

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Background: Our objective was to assess the health impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) during 2020-2022 in the Madrid region.

Methods: We included all individuals registered in the Madrid Health System Registry as of 31 December 2019, and followed them until 31 December 2022. Using a unique personal identifier, we linked the databases of primary care, hospitals, pharmacies, certified laboratories performing diagnostic tests, vaccines, and mortality.

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Objective: To describe the design and methodology of a qualitative study to explore the main factors influencing dietary inequalities in adolescents in Madrid and Bilbao, Spain.

Method: The study area included six neighborhoods (three in each city) of different socioeconomic status (SES): low, medium, and high. We sampled 12 secondary schools (six in each city: two per socioeconomic level).

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates how the immune responses (antibodies and CD4 T cells) to SARS-CoV-2 from natural infection and vaccination change over time, focusing on variants like Mu, Gamma, and Delta.
  • It found that antibody levels decline after 6 months, particularly in mildly infected individuals, while those severely infected maintain higher levels; vaccination boosts antibody production but they also decrease over time.
  • The cross-recognition of variants showed varying effectiveness, and prior exposure to the virus influenced the immune response, suggesting important considerations for future vaccine development against emerging variants.
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Article Synopsis
  • Nutrition is vital during adolescence, as unhealthy habits can lead to chronic diseases later in life, and qualitative research helps to explore the factors affecting these behaviors.
  • The review analyzed 50 studies from the past decade, highlighting four key areas (individual, social, community, macrosystem) that influence adolescent eating habits, including factors like gender, peer influence, and food accessibility.
  • Understanding these barriers and facilitators can lead to better strategies for promoting healthy eating habits among adolescents.
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The objective was to study the association between surrounding greenness and the incidence of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) with a four years follow-up in almost half a million high CVD-risk women and men, as well as its differential effect by area-level deprivation in Madrid. We analyzed 2015-2018 primary healthcare electronic medical records for 437,513 high CVD risk individuals representing more than 95% of the population of that age range residing in Madrid. The outcome variable was any cardiovascular event.

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Background: To study the association between exercise facility availability and type 2 diabetes incidence and its complications, and to explore effect modification by socioeconomic status (SES) and sex in the Madrid adult population.

Methods: A multilevel longitudinal design, based on a population-based retrospective cohort including 1,214,281 residents of Madrid (Spain) aged 40-75 years from 2015 to 2018. Outcomes were type 2 diabetes incidence and macrovascular (cardiac ischemia and/or stroke) and microvascular (chronic kidney disease, retinopathy, and/or peripheral vascular disease) complications in those with diabetes at baseline.

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This sequential mixed-methods study aims to: 1) assess spatial and temporal trends in cardiovascular risk factors by socioeconomic position from 2001 to 2020 in Spain; 2) explore public health professionals' perspectives regarding interventions that might have impacted these inequities; and 3) analyze determinants on social inequities in cardiovascular risk factors. First, we will measure the change in absolute and relative social inequities in eight cardiovascular risk factors through time trend analysis using repeated cross-sectional data from both National and European Health Surveys for Spain from 2001 to 2020. Second, we will interview key informants -both at the regional and national level-, to contextualize data obtained in phase 1 and capture the content and variation of policies across regions.

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Background: In humans, blood circulating IgMIgDCD27 B cells are considered analogous to those described in the marginal zone of the spleen and are involved in important immunological processes. The homing receptors they express, and the organs involved in their development (for example, intestinal organs in rabbits) are only partially known. We recently reported that this population is heterogeneous and composed of at least two subsets: one expressing high levels of IgM - IgM B cells - and another low levels - IgM B cells.

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While climate change and population ageing are expected to increase the exposure and vulnerability to extreme heat events, there is emerging evidence suggesting that social inequalities would additionally magnify the projected health impacts. However, limited evidence exists on how social determinants modify heat-related cardiovascular morbidity. This study aims to explore the association between heat and the incidence of first acute cardiovascular event (CVE) in adults in Madrid between 2015 and 2018, and to assess how social context and other individual characteristics modify the estimated association.

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Despite increasing attention on addressing socioeconomic disparities in diet quality, longitudinal studies are scarce. Furthermore, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on diet-related outcomes are yet to be fully understood. We examined changes in diet quality by educational level among adults in Madrid, Spain.

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