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Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in the Americas and raised blood pressure accounts for over 50% of CVD. In the Americas over a quarter of adult women and four in ten adult men have hypertension and the diagnosis, treatment and control are suboptimal. In 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) released an updated guideline for the pharmacological treatment of hypertension in adults. This policy paper highlights the facilitating role of the WHO Global HEARTS initiative and the HEARTS in the Americas initiative to catalyze the implementation of this guideline, provides specific policy advice for implementation, and emphasizes that an overarching strategic approach for hypertension control is needed. The authors urge health advocates and policymakers to prioritize the prevention and control of hypertension to improve the health and wellbeing of their populations and to reduce CVD health disparities within and between populations of the Americas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. To describe and discuss the activities deployed by EVIPNet Brazil in 2013, highlighting the network's actions to promote evidence-based decision-making for the development and implementation of health policies. Methods. A descriptive approach was employed to present the actions carried out by EVIPNet Brazil in 2013, especially processes relating to capacity-building, product development, and event participation. Results. In 2013, 10 training programs were carried out (four technical meetings and six workshops), involving 34 institutions and 193 participants. One evidence brief for policy was reviewed and republished, and five others were developed. Moreover, one process of deliberative dialogue was conducted. A scientific paper was published on the experience of EVIPNet Brazil in the development of evidence-informed polices. The first issue of the EVIPNet Brazil Newsletter was published, along with the posting of news articles online. EVIPNet Brazil's actions were presented on national and international lectures, conferences, and round tables. The impacts of EVIPNet Brazil may be observed in the federal, state, and local contexts. Conclusions. A successful development, implementation, and monitoring of evidence-informed policies depends on actions such as those carried out by EVIPNet, including professional capacity-building to help expand and consolidate the network, creation of new local Health Evidence Centers to encourage the use of evidence in decision-making, production of evidence briefs for health policies, and organization of deliberative dialogues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human biomonitoring (HBM) of environmental contaminants plays an important role in estimating exposure and evaluating risk, and thus it has been increasingly applied in the environmental field. The results of HBM must be compared with reference values (RV). The term "reference values" has always been related to the interpretation of clinical laboratory tests. For physicians, RV indicate "normal values" or "limits of normal"; in turn, toxicologists prefer the terms "background values" or baseline values" to refer to the presence of contaminants in biological fluids. This discrepancy leads to the discussion concerning which should be the population selected to determine RV. Whereas clinical chemistry employs an altered health state as the main exclusion criterion to select a reference population (that is, a "healthy" population would be selected), in environmental toxicology the exclusion criterion is the abnormal exposure to xenobiotics. Therefore, the choice of population to determine RV is based on the very purpose of the RV to be determined. The present paper discusses the concepts and methodology used to determine RV for biomarkers of chemical environmental contaminants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mortality statistics are used in epidemiology and public health as an indicator of health status, to evaluate health programs, and in population studies to compare trends and spatial differences. One of the variables used in this type of analysis is the underlying cause-of-death. However, the quality of cause-of-death statistics based on the information recorded by physicians in death certificates has been criticized. The aim of this paper is to discuss the reliability of cause-of-death data recorded by physicians in death certificates, based on studies carried out according to various methodologies, and to comment on the validity of using such underlying cause-ofdeath statistics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]