Visually assessed ischaemia on cardiac magnetic resonance, but not quantitative perfusion metrics, predicts symptomatic improvement in coronary artery bypass.

Background: Serial perfusion cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) in symptomatic patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) may provide mechanistic insight into dynamic abnormalities of the myocardium.

Objectives: To assess how changes in cardiac reperfusion and remodelling associate with symptom improvement in patients undergoing CABG METHODS: Patients awaiting elective CABG completed serial quality of life questionnaires and detailed CMR at baseline and at 6-12 months post CABG as per protocol. Automated fully quantitative stress and rest myocardial blood flow was calculated, alongside assessment of the visual ischaemic burden.

Adolescent pregnancy in French Guiana: double trouble for young mothers and small vulnerable newborns.

Objectives: Adolescent pregnancies (AP), defined as pregnancies in girls aged 10-19 years, are associated with adverse maternal and neonatal outcomes. They are frequently reported among those with low economic status. French Guiana (FG) is a French overseas territory with important social inequalities in South America, marked by inequalities.

Topography and environmental deficiencies are associated with chikungunya virus exposure in urban informal settlements in Salvador, Brazil.

Background: Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is an arbovirus with a significant global public health burden. Delineating the specific contributions of individual behaviour, household, natural and built environment to CHIKV transmission is important for reducing risk in urban informal settlements but challenging due to their heterogeneous environments. The aim of this study was to quantify variation in CHIKV seroprevalence between and within four urban communities in a large Brazilian city, and identify the respective contributions of individual, household, and environmental factors for seropositivity.

Reliance on migrant healthcare workers in the United Kingdom: A critical discourse analysis.

The UK National Health Service (NHS) has relied on Migrant Healthcare workers (M-HCWs) since its inception. These M-HCWs have typically come from Low and Middle-Income countries (LMICs) and particularly, countries that were previously under British colonial rule. Despite this, medical workforce shortages persist in the NHS and there has been a lack of policy consensus about how best to ameliorate it.

Economic burden and cost-effectiveness of treatments for open tibia fractures in Malawi: Economic analysis of a multicentre prospective cohort study.

Background: Open tibia fractures result in substantial lifelong disability for patients, and are expensive to treat. As the injury typically affects young working men, the societal costs from open tibia fractures are likely to also be high in low income countries, but remain largely unknown. We therefore investigated the overall societal costs and cost-effectiveness of different orthopaedic treatments at one year following an open tibia fracture in Malawi.

Evaluation of ophthalmic large language models: quantitative vs. qualitative methods.

Purpose Of Review: Alongside the development of large language models (LLMs) and generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications across a diverse range of clinical applications in Ophthalmology, this review highlights the importance of evaluation of LLM applications by discussing evaluation metrics commonly adopted.

Recent Findings: Generative AI applications have demonstrated encouraging performance in clinical applications of Ophthalmology. Beyond accuracy, evaluation in the form of quantitative and qualitative metrics facilitate a more nuanced assessment of LLM output responses.

Working towards affordable healthy diets: a review on innovations in food price monitoring, policy and research in Australia and beyond.

Healthy diets are unaffordable for billions of people worldwide, with food prices rising in high-, middle- and low-income nations in recent times. Despite widespread attention to this issue, recent actions taken to inform policy prioritisation and government responses to high food inflation have not been comprehensively synthesised. Our review summarises (i) innovative efforts to monitor national food and healthy diet price, ii) new policy responses adopted by governments to address food inflation and (iii) future research directions to inform new evidence.

Sexual Health Behaviors and Outcomes Among Middle-Aged and Older Disabled Adults in Britain.

Background: Sexual health is crucial for well-being, yet research often overlooks middle-aged and older adults, as well as those with disabilities. This study explores the sexual health of disabled middle-aged and older adults in Britain.

Objective: We aim to explain sexual behaviors and outcomes among disabled adults aged 45-74 in Britain.

Recommendations for studying the association of the cancer diagnosis to treatment interval with overall survival: a modified Delphi process.

Background: The duration from diagnosis to primary treatment initiation (DTI) is an important interval for patients with cancer, as delayed treatment has been found to be associated with heightened recurrence rates and worsened survival. Studying the association between DTI duration and overall survival (OS) is biased and confounded by clinical triaging, heterogeneous definitions, and variation in analytic approaches.

Objective: To develop consensus-based guidance for conducting studies investigating the association of DTI duration and OS.

Risk factors for mental disorders in pregnant women in two cities from São Paulo, Brazil: A cohort study.

Introduction: Mental disorders during pregnancy are a significant public health problem due to the substantial physiological and psychological changes that occur during this period. This study aims to investigate the risk factors for mental disorders in pregnant women by comparing data from two distinct cohorts in Jundiaí and Araraquara, Brazil.

Methods: This is a prospective cohort study that included pregnant women from two Brazilian cohorts in São Paulo state.

Improving the reporting on health equity in observational research (STROBE-Equity): extension checklist and elaboration.

Data on health equity to inform societally relevant evidence based decisions and policy making are lacking in the research literature. Observational studies have the potential to provide data on health equity. Yet, guidance on how to report health equity data and considerations in observational research is inadequate.

Identifying care gaps along the HIV treatment failure cascade: A multistate analysis of viral load monitoring, re-suppression, and regimen switches in Zambia.

Background: Timely response to treatment failure is critical for improved outcomes and viral re-suppression among people living with HIV, but care gaps along the treatment failure cascade can occur due to delays by both clients (e.g., retention and adherence) and health systems (e.

Sex differences in the prevalence of high-risk oral and anal human papillomavirus infections among heterosexually active populations in Ibadan, Nigeria.

Purpose: To determine sex differences in the prevalence of oral and anal high-risk HPV infections among heterosexually active males and females in Ibadan.

Methods: This was a secondary analysis from the Sexual Behavior and HPV Infections in Nigerians in Ibadan (SHINI) study that involved sexually active males and females aged 18-45 years. After a face-to-face interview, samples were collected from the mouth, cervix, vulva, and anus by a sex-matched trained nurse.

Improving the Reporting on Health Equity in Observational Research (STROBE-Equity): Extension Checklist and Elaboration.

Importance: Observational studies can provide valuable insights to inform decisions on health equity. Existing guidelines for reporting such studies, such as the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) statement, currently lack specific considerations for reporting on health equity. Health equity is defined as the absence of avoidable and unfair differences that may exist across individuals and populations due to structural and systematic inequities in living and working conditions, opportunities, and resources.

Health financial resilience in individuals and households: a scoping review of components, strategies and outcomes.

Background: Financial resilience, the ability to withstand and recover from financial shocks, has become increasingly critical amid economic volatility, rising healthcare costs, and global crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. While prior research has explored broad determinants of financial resilience.

Methods: Following the Arksey and O'Malley framework, this review systematically mapped literature from multiple databases (PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, EconLit) and Google Scholar search engine from 1990 to 2024.

Instrumental variable approaches for estimating time-varying treatment effects in comparative effectiveness research.

Background: The increased availability of large-scale longitudinal data offers important opportunities to assess the causal effects of health interventions. In this setting, Instrumental Variable (IV) approaches have the potential to reduce the risk of bias from confounding due to unmeasured variables. However, there has been a lack of attention given to the development of IV approaches in settings when both the instrument and the potential confounders vary over time.

Driving innovation from discovery to access: Meeting report of the 7 Global Forum on TB Vaccines (8-10 October 2024, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil).

We urgently need novel, effective, and accessible vaccines to end tuberculosis (TB) as a public health crisis. The 7th Global Forum on TB Vaccines was convened from 8-10 October 2024 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Under the theme of "Driving innovation from discovery to access," the program covered the breadth of TB vaccine research and development (R&D) through implementation, while underscoring the need for greater innovation and investments to advance development and ensure rapid, affordable, and equitable access.

Alterations of Hepcidin and Iron Markers Associated with Obesity and Obesity-related Diabetes in Gambian Women.

Aims: Obesity, type 2 diabetes (T2D), and chronic inflammation are associated with disturbances in iron metabolism. Hepcidin is hypothesized to play a role in these alterations owing to its strong association with inflammation via the JAK-STAT3 pathway. The current study investigated the differences between inflammatory markers and iron indices and their association with hepcidin in lean women, women with obesity, and women with obesity and T2D (obesity-T2D) in The Gambia.

WHF Roadmap on Single Pill Combination Therapies.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading global cause of mortality, with treatment adherence posing a major barrier to effective prevention and control. Single pill combinations (SPCs), also known as fixed-dose combinations, simplify treatment by combining multiple agents into one pill, improving adherence and reducing cardiovascular risk. This World Heart Federation Roadmap synthesizes the latest clinical evidence and identifies key barriers to SPC implementation, including limited manufacturing, affordability, regulatory complexity, and inconsistent guideline inclusion.

Use of geocoding techniques for epidemiological surveillance in the Federal District, Brazil: a case study using dengue.

This study aimed to compare different address geocoding services and their applicability to epidemiological surveillance using dengue as an example. We applied a cross-sectional, descriptive study based on case notifications in the Notifiable Diseases Information System (SINAN) for the Brazilian capital in 2014 that includes complete postal code (CEP) information identified in the National Address Database for Statistical Purposes (CNEFE), which is considered the 'gold standard' for accuracy analysis. For records without CEP, georeferencing was performed through linkage of the original database with four geocoding tools: Google Maps, CNEFE, OpenStreetMap (OSM) and ArcGIS.

Hospital referral patterns amongst older adults in Zimbabwe: a cross-sectional study.

Over the coming decades Africa is projected to undergo a significant demographic shift towards an older population. Healthcare provision for older adults is made more complex by age-related multimorbidity and frailty, which contribute to older adults more frequently requiring intensive, hospital-based treatment than those in younger age groups. We investigate age and sex-stratified, diagnosis-specific hospital referral patterns in Harare, Zimbabwe to understand referral practices for older adults.

A mix of views: Perspectives on pregnant women's participation in maternal vaccine trials.

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate perspectives on participation in a Group B Streptococcus (GBS) maternal vaccine trial among pregnant women, their partners, family members, friends and other stakeholders in Kampala, Uganda.

Methods: We conducted focus group discussions, in-depth interviews and key informant interviews from October 2022 to February 2023 with 56 participants: 36 pregnant or breastfeeding women, 5 women not in the trial, 5 partners of women in trial, 5 healthcare workers, and 5 community stakeholders. This cross-sectional study was embedded within a GBS maternal vaccine trial conducted at the national referral hospital.

Components of Family-Focused Interventions that Have Common Impacts Across Parental Domestic Violence and Abuse, Mental Ill-Health, and Substance Misuse: An Intervention Components Analysis.

Support for families experiencing domestic violence and abuse (DVA), mental ill-health (MH) and substance misuse (SU) is often delivered in siloes, despite the frequent co-occurrence of these public health issues. Little evidence-based guidance exists on which interventions best support families experiencing a combination of these problems. Identifying intervention components with common impacts across parental DVA, MH and SU could inform policy and practice.