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1. Lattice Model for Influenza Spreading with Spontaneous Behavioral Changes.

Author

Fierro, Annalisa and Liccardo, Antonella

Subjects
LATTICE models (Statistical physics), INFLUENZA transmission, EPIDEMICS, RISK perception, SOCIAL contact, DISEASE susceptibility, COMPUTATIONAL biology, STATISTICAL mechanics
Abstract

Individual behavioral response to the spreading of an epidemic plays a crucial role in the progression of the epidemic itself. The risk perception induces individuals to adopt a protective behavior, as for instance reducing their social contacts, adopting more restrictive hygienic measures or undergoing prophylaxis procedures. In this paper, starting with a previously developed lattice-gas SIR model, we construct a coupled behavior-disease model for influenza spreading with spontaneous behavioral changes. The focus is on self-initiated behavioral changes that alter the susceptibility to the disease, without altering the contact patterns among individuals. Three different mechanisms of awareness spreading are analyzed: the local spreading due to the presence in the neighborhood of infective individuals; the global spreading due to the news published by the mass media and to educational campaigns implemented at institutional level; the local spreading occurring through the “thought contagion” among aware and unaware individuals. The peculiarity of the present approach is that the awareness spreading model is calibrated on available data on awareness and concern of the population about the risk of contagion. In particular, the model is validated against the A(H1N1) epidemic outbreak in Italy during the season, by making use of the awareness data gathered by the behavioral risk factor surveillance system (PASSI). We find that, increasing the accordance between the simulated awareness spreading and the PASSI data on risk perception, the agreement between simulated and experimental epidemiological data improves as well. Furthermore, we show that, within our model, the primary mechanism to reproduce a realistic evolution of the awareness during an epidemic, is the one due to globally available information. This result highlights how crucial is the role of mass media and educational campaigns in influencing the epidemic spreading of infectious diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published
2013
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2. Validation of a measure of subjective well-being: An abbreviated version of the day reconstruction method

Author

Nirmala Naidoo, Somnath Chatterji, Arvind Mathur, Paul Kowal, José Luis Ayuso-Mateos, Marta Miret, Francisco Félix Caballero, and UAM. Departamento de Psiquiatría

Subjects
Gerontology, Male, Time Factors, Epidemiology, Emotions, lcsh:Medicine, Personal Satisfaction, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Habits, 0302 clinical medicine, Surveys and Questionnaires, Area under curve, Human Relations, Global health, Medicine, Psychology, 030212 general & internal medicine, 050207 economics, lcsh:Science, Epidemiological Methods, Multidisciplinary, 05 social sciences, 1. No poverty, Middle Aged, Reconstruction method, 3. Good health, Mental Health, Area Under Curve, Christian ministry, Female, Public Health, Research Article, Personality, Adult, Psychometrics, Medicina, Salud mental, Library science, World Health Organization, World health, 03 medical and health sciences, 0502 economics and business, Humans, Subjective well-being, Biology, Adult health, Behavior, Population Biology, business.industry, lcsh:R, Adjustment (Psychology), Survey Methods, ROC Curve, Quality of Life, lcsh:Q, business
Abstract

Background: The study of well-being is becoming a priority in social sciences. The Day Reconstruction Method (DRM) was developed to assess affective states. The aim of the present study was to validate an abbreviated version of the DRM designed for administration in population studies, and to assess its test-retest properties. Principal Findings: 1560 adults from Jodhpur (India) were interviewed using an abbreviated version of the DRM, and a week later they were re-interviewed using the original long version of the DRM, after which the abbreviated version of the DRM was compared with the original version. A regression model considering interaction terms was employed to analyse the impact of sociodemographic characteristics on net affect. Test-retest reliability was assessed, and found to be moderate. Positive affect showed more test-retest reliability than negative affect, while net affect had more temporal stability than U-index. The affect of sets A, B, and C, taken together, had a moderate predictive ability compared with the affect obtained using the full version of the DRM: AUC = 0.67 for positive affect; 0.66 for net affect; 0.61 for negative affect; and 0.60 for the U-index. Household income, gender, and setting all had a significant impact on net affect. Conclusions: Net affect and positive affect showed moderate temporal stability, whereas negative affect and the U-index showed fair temporal stability. Evaluating the affective state using the abbreviated version of the DRM provides a profile of the population similar to that of the full version. The results provide considerable support for using the short version of the DRM as an instrument to measure subjective well-being in large population surveys, This paper uses data from World Health Organization (WHO) Study on global AGEing and adult health (SAGE). WHO’s SAGE is supported by the United States National Institute on Aging through Interagency Agreements (OGHA 04034785; YA1323-08-CN-0020; Y1-AG-1005-01) and through a research grant (R01- AG034479). The paper was supported by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III-FIS research grant number PS09/00295, the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation: ACI-Promociona (ACI2009-1010), and the Centro de Investigación Biomédica Red de Salud Mental (CIBERSAM), Instituto de Salud Carlos III

Published
2012

3. Validity and Reproducibility of a Spanish Dietary History.

Author

Guallar-Castillón, Pilar, Sagardui-Villamor, Jon, Balboa-Castillo, Teresa, Sala-Vila, Aleix, Ariza Astolfi, Mª José, Sarrión Pelous, Mª Dolores, León-Muñoz, Luz María, Graciani, Auxiliadora, Laclaustra, Martín, Benito, Cristina, Banegas, José Ramón, and Artalejo, Fernando Rodríguez

Subjects
INGESTION, DIET, MICRONUTRIENTS, POPULATION biology, PROTEIN content of food, FOOD chemistry
Abstract

Objective: To assess the validity and reproducibility of food and nutrient intake estimated with the electronic diet history of ENRICA (DH-E), which collects information on numerous aspects of the Spanish diet. Methods: The validity of food and nutrient intake was estimated using Pearson correlation coefficients between the DH-E and the mean of seven 24-hour recalls collected every 2 months over the previous year. The reproducibility was estimated using intraclass correlation coefficients between two DH-E made one year apart. Results: The correlations coefficients between the DH-E and the mean of seven 24-hour recalls for the main food groups were cereals (r = 0.66), meat (r = 0.66), fish (r = 0.42), vegetables (r = 0.62) and fruits (r = 0.44). The mean correlation coefficient for all 15 food groups considered was 0.53. The correlations for macronutrients were: energy (r = 0.76), proteins (r = 0.58), lipids (r = 0.73), saturated fat (r = 0.73), monounsaturated fat (r = 0.59), polyunsaturated fat (r = 0.57), and carbohydrates (r = 0.66). The mean correlation coefficient for all 41 nutrients studied was 0.55. The intraclass correlation coefficient between the two DH-E was greater than 0.40 for most foods and nutrients. Conclusions: The DH-E shows good validity and reproducibility for estimating usual intake of foods and nutrients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published
2014
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4. Lattice Model for Influenza Spreading with Spontaneous Behavioral Changes

Author

Antonella Liccardo, Annalisa Fierro, Annalisa, Fierro, and Liccardo, Antonella

Subjects
Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice, Epidemiology, Population Modeling, Disease, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Influenza A Virus, H1N1 Subtype, Pandemic, Medicine, Psychology, Child, Epidemiological Methods, Mass media, education.field_of_study, Multidisciplinary, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, Physics, Middle Aged, Infectious Diseases, Child, Preschool, Interdisciplinary Physics, Research Article, Adult, Adolescent, Clinical Research Design, Science, Population, Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Statistical Mechanics, Young Adult, Environmental health, Influenza, Human, Humans, Mass Media, education, Epidemics, Biology, Aged, Behavior, Population Biology, Mechanism (biology), business.industry, Modeling, Infant, Newborn, Computational Biology, Infant, Models, Theoretical, Communications, Risk perception, Epidemic model, business, Infectious Disease Modeling
Abstract

Individual behavioral response to the spreading of an epidemic plays a crucial role in the progression of the epidemic itself. The risk perception induces individuals to adopt a protective behavior, as for instance reducing their social contacts, adopting more restrictive hygienic measures or undergoing prophylaxis procedures. In this paper, starting with a previously developed lattice-gas SIR model, we construct a coupled behavior-disease model for influenza spreading with spontaneous behavioral changes. The focus is on self-initiated behavioral changes that alter the susceptibility to the disease, without altering the contact patterns among individuals. Three different mechanisms of awareness spreading are analyzed: the local spreading due to the presence in the neighborhood of infective individuals; the global spreading due to the news published by the mass media and to educational campaigns implemented at institutional level; the local spreading occurring through the "thought contagion" among aware and unaware individuals. The peculiarity of the present approach is that the awareness spreading model is calibrated on available data on awareness and concern of the population about the risk of contagion. In particular, the model is validated against the A(H1N1) epidemic outbreak in Italy during the 2009/2010 season, by making use of the awareness data gathered by the behavioral risk factor surveillance system (PASSI). We find that, increasing the accordance between the simulated awareness spreading and the PASSI data on risk perception, the agreement between simulated and experimental epidemiological data improves as well. Furthermore, we show that, within our model, the primary mechanism to reproduce a realistic evolution of the awareness during an epidemic, is the one due to globally available information. This result highlights how crucial is the role of mass media and educational campaigns in influencing the epidemic spreading of infectious diseases.

Published
2013