Bmc Public Health
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Electronic media use is becoming an increasingly important part of life for today's school-aged children. At the same time, concern of children's sleep habits has arisen, and cross-sectional studies have shown that electronic media use is associated with short sleep duration and sleep disturbances. The purpose of this longitudinal study was to investigate whether baseline electronic media use and media presence in a child's bedroom predicted sleep habits as well as changes in these sleep habits 18 months later among 10- to 11-year-old children in Finland. ⋯ Computer use, TV viewing, and the presence of media in children's bedrooms may reduce sleep duration, and delay bedtimes.
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Global health implementing organizations benefit most from health impact estimation models that isolate the individual effects of distributed products and services - a feature not typically found in intervention impact models, but which allow comparisons across interventions and intervention settings. Population Services International (PSI), a social marketing organization, has developed a set of impact models covering seven health program areas, which translate product/service distribution data into impact estimates. Each model's primary output is the number of disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) averted by an intervention within a specific country and population context. This paper aims to describe the structure and inputs for two types of DALYs averted models, considering the benefits and limitations of this methodology. ⋯ The DALYs averted models offer implementing organizations practical measurement solutions for understanding an intervention's contribution to improving health. These models calculate health impact estimates that reflect the scale and diversity of program operations and intervention settings, and that enable comparisons across health areas and countries. Challenges remain in accounting for intervention synergies, attributing impact to a single organization, and sourcing and updating model inputs. Nevertheless, these models demonstrate how DALYs averted can be viably used by the global health community as a metric for predicting intervention impact using standard program output data.
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To complement available information on mortality in a population Standard Expected Years of Life Lost (SEYLL), an indicator of premature mortality, is increasingly used to calculate the mortality-associated disease burden. SEYLL consider the age at death and therefore allow a more accurate view on mortality patterns as compared to routinely used measures (e.g. death counts). This study provides a comprehensive assessment of disease and injury SEYLL for Hong Kong in 2010. ⋯ The study stresses the mortality impact of diseases and injuries that occur in earlier stages of life and thus presents the SEYLL measure as a more sensitive indicator compared to classical mortality indicators. SEYLL provide useful additional information and supplement available death statistics.
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Sudan is classified as having insufficient progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG-4), where the levels of child and infant mortality are among the highest in the region and the world. This study investigated factors associated with neonatal mortality in Sudan. Neonatal death is defined as death within the first 28 days of life. ⋯ Public health interventions which target neonatal mortality reduction should adopt a risk-factor-based approach to detect pregnancy complications early and once identified, the health system should be strengthened so that these complications can be dealt with adequately.
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Drowning deaths constitute a significant proportion of unnatural deaths globally. In Sweden and other high-income countries, drowning deaths have decreased. This study investigates the epidemiology and current trends of unintentional, intentional, and undetermined drowning deaths with emphasis on the presence of alcohol and other drugs. ⋯ Presence of alcohol and drugs were frequent and may have contributed to the drowning deaths. The incidence of drowning deaths significantly decreased during the study period. Males and the middle/older age groups had a higher incidence compared to females and children. Suicidal drowning was common especially among women. Alcohol and drugs are significant contributors in drowning deaths in Sweden and should be considered as part of a comprehensive prevention program.