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Background: NEETs (young people not in employment, education or training) are at higher risk for poorer mental and physical health. In France, the Missions locales (MLs) are the only social structures dedicated to this population. We sought to determine whether the systematic offer of a social and preventive medicine consultation at a ML might increase NEET participants’ access to training in the 12 months following the intervention. Methods: This intervention research was a parallel randomised controlled interventional study conducted at five MLs in mainland France in 2011–2012. It included 976 NEETs aged 18 to 25 years who attended one of the five MLs. At inclusion, participants were randomly assigned (1:1:1) to three groups: those in the first group were invited to see a social worker (not studied in this paper), those in the second group were invited to see a doctor and a social worker (intervention group), and the third was a control group. The primary outcome was participation in at least one training session during the year following study inclusion. Results: Among the 976 participants, 504 were randomly assigned to the intervention group and 472 to the control group; 704 (72.1%) were included in the analyses. A significantly higher proportion of the participants in the intervention group participated in a training session in the 12 months following the intervention than of those in the control group (63.3% vs 55.6%; p = 0.04). This difference was significantly greater for women, those less than 21 years of age, those unstably housed and those with a lower level of education. Conclusions: Social and preventive medicine consultations that are fully integrated into the social services for NEETs have an impact on their access to training and contribute to changing some of their health-related behaviours. This may improve their access to the labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

France implemented a comprehensive smoke-free law in two phases: Phase 1 (February 2007) banned smoking in workplaces, shopping centres, airports, train stations, hospitals, and schools; Phase 2 (January 2008) banned smoking in hospitality venues (bars, restaurants, hotels, casinos, nightclubs). This paper evaluates France’s smoke-free law based on the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project in France (the ITC France Project), which conducted a cohort survey of approximately 1,500 smokers and 500 non-smokers before the implementation of the laws (Wave 1) and two waves after the implementation (Waves 2 and 3). Results show that the smoke-free law led to a very significant and near-total elimination of observed smoking in key venues such as bars (from 94–97% to 4%) and restaurants (from 60–71% to 2–3%) at Wave 2, which was sustained four years later (6–8% in bars; 1–2% in restaurants). The reduction in self-reported smoking by smoking respondents was nearly identical to the effects shown in observed smoking. Observed smoking in workplaces declined significantly after the law (from 41–48% to 18–20%), which continued to decline at Wave 3 (to 14–15%). Support for the smoke-free laws increased significantly after their implementation and continued to increase at Wave 3 (p<.001 among smokers for bars and restaurants; p<.001 among smokers and p = .003 for non-smokers for workplaces). The findings demonstrate that smoke-free policies that are implemented in ways consistent with the Guidelines for Article 8 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) lead to substantial and sustained reductions in indoor smoking while also leading to high levels of support by the public. Moreover, contrary to arguments by opponents of smoke-free laws, smoking in the home did not increase after the law was implemented and prevalence of smoke-free homes among smokers increased from 23.2% before the law to 37.2% 5 years after the law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The present study aimed to describe exposure and attitudes of French medical residents towards pharmaceutical industry. The study was performed shortly after the Mediator affair which revealed several serious conflicts of interest inside the French health system. Methods and Findings: A cross-sectional study was implemented among residents from 6 French medical faculties. Independent education in pharmacology, attitudes towards the practices of pharmaceutical sales representatives, opinions concerning the pharmaceutical industry, quality of information provided by the pharmaceutical industry, and opinions about pharmaceutical company sponsorship were investigated through a web-based questionnaire. We also assessed potential changes in resident attitudes following the Mediator affair. The mean value of exposure to drug companies was 1.9 times per month. Global opinions towards drug company information were negative for 42.7% of the residents and positive for only 8.2%. Surprisingly, 81.6% of residents claimed that they had not changed their practices regarding drug information since the Mediator affair. Multivariate analyses found that residents in anesthesiology were less likely to be exposed than others (OR = 0.17 CI95% [0.05–0.61]), exposure was significantly higher at the beginning of residence (p<0.001) and residents who had a more positive opinion were more frequently exposed to drug companies (OR = 2.12 CI95% [1.07–4.22]). Conclusions: Resident exposure to drug companies is around 1 contact every 2 weeks. Global opinion towards drug information provided by pharmaceutical companies was negative for around 1 out of 2 residents. In contrast, residents tend to consider the influences of the Mediator affair on their practice as relatively low. This survey enabled us to identify profiles of residents who are obviously less exposed to pharmaceutical industry. Current regulatory provisions are not sufficient, indicating that further efforts are necessary to develop a culture of disclosure of conflict of interest and of transparency in residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The Fukushima nuclear disaster has generated worldwide concern on the risk of exposure to nuclear radiations. In Europe, health authorities had to issue statements about the lack of usefulness of iodine based preventive treatments within their borders. However a lack of confidence in official messages has developed in various European countries due to recent perceived failures in managing public health crises. The lay population preventive behaviors in this context are largely unknown. Consequently, to examine the effects of public health crisis on lay behaviors leading to pharmaceuticals purchases, we studied the sales of iodine-based products in France before, during and after the crisis. Methods: We focused our study on 58 iodine-based drugs available with and without a physician prescription. Our data came from a stratified sample of 3004 pharmacies in metropolitan France. Our study period was from January 2010 to April 2012, with a focus on March-April 2011. We differentiated sales of drugs prescribed by physicians from sales of drugs obtained without a prescription. We used a CUSUM method to detect abnormal increases in sales activity and cross-correlations to assess shifts in sales timing. Results: Sales of iodine-based nutritional complements, and later sales of iodine-based homeopathic remedies, substantially increased (up to 3-fold) during a period of 20 days. Their temporal patterns were correlated to specific events during the crisis. Prescriptions for iodine-based homeopathy increased (up to 35% of all sales). Iodine pills, strictly regulated by health authorities, have also been sold but on a very small scale. Conclusion: These results indicate uncontrolled preventive behaviors resulting in the potentially unjustifiable consumption of available drugs. They have implications in public policy, and demonstrate the usefulness of drug sales surveillance for instantaneous evaluation of population behavior during a global crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]