Bmc Public Health
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Physicians of the Spanish Influenza Sentinel Surveillance System report and systematically swab patients attended to their practices for influenza-like illness (ILI). Within the surveillance system, some Spanish regions also participated in an observational study aiming at estimating influenza vaccine effectiveness (cycEVA study). During the season 2009-2010, we estimated pandemic influenza vaccine effectiveness using both the influenza surveillance data and the cycEVA study. ⋯ Point estimates of the pandemic influenza vaccine effectiveness suggested a protective effect of the pandemic vaccine against laboratory-confirmed influenza A(H1N1)2009 in the season 2009-2010. Both studies were limited by the low vaccine coverage and the late start of the vaccination campaign. Routine influenza surveillance provides reliable estimates and could be used for influenza vaccine effectiveness studies in future seasons taken into account the surveillance system limitations.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
The effect of walking on falls in older people: the 'Easy Steps to Health' randomized controlled trial study protocol.
Falls in older people continue to be a major public health issue in industrialized countries. Extensive research into falls prevention has identified exercise as a proven fall prevention strategy. However, despite over a decade of promoting physical activity, hospitalisation rates due to falls injuries in older people are still increasing. This could be because efforts to increase physical activity amongst older people have been unsuccessful, or the physical activity that older people engage in is insufficient and/or inappropriate. The majority of older people choose walking as their predominant form of exercise. While walking has been shown to lower the risk of many chronic diseases its role in falls prevention remains unclear. This paper outlines the methodology of a study whose aims are to determine: if a home-based walking intervention will reduce the falls rate among healthy but inactive community-dwelling older adults (65 + years) compared to no intervention (usual activity) and; whether such an intervention can improve risk factors for falls, such as balance, strength and reaction time. ⋯ Certain types of physical activity can reduce the risk of falls. As walking is already the most popular physical activity amongst older people, if walking is shown to reduce falls the public health implications could be enormous. Conversely, if walking does not reduce falls in older people, or even puts older people at greater risk, then health resources targeting falls prevention need to be invested elsewhere.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Effectiveness of a structured motivational intervention including smoking cessation advice and spirometry information in the primary care setting: the ESPITAP study.
There is current controversy about the efficacy of smoking cessation interventions that are based on information obtained by spirometry. The objective of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness in the primary care setting of structured motivational intervention to achieve smoking cessation, compared with usual clinical practice. ⋯ Application of a motivational intervention based on structured information about spirometry results, improved abstinence rates among smokers seen in actual clinical practice conditions in primary care.