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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]

The aim of this study was to quantify the impact of selections and shared selections in the rugby union. Players’ names, positions, and number of selections were collected for all XV de France’s games (1906–2014). Every team’s percentage of renewal of workforce was calculated for backs and forwards. During the 1987–2014 period, all second row forwards (locks), halfbacks, and centres’ shared selections (number of times when two players have competed together) were recreated. The Best vs. Rest method was applied to these remodelled dyads. They were analysed and compared with surrounding teammates as well as opponents. Head coaches similarly change their workforce for upcoming matches after winning or losing (around 30%), but losing teams renew significantly more positions in their line-ups. The recreated halfbacks, locks, and centres reveal a common pattern. Whether victorious or not, the ‘renewed couples’ victory percentage will congregate towards the XV de France’s victory percentage. For all the best recreated couples, the cumulated number of selections for forwards’ is always higher than the ones part of less efficient teams: 231.3 ± 80 vs. 212.9 ± 91 selections for locks’ teammates (Effect sizes (ES) small, possibly positive, 54.8%). In best recreated couples, number 8’s are significantly more experienced than their counterparts in less efficient pairs (ES small, likely positive, 76.3%). The XV de France’s collective effectiveness relies on a balance between stability and workforce renewal, which allows the building of specific position interactions and builds on experimented forwards packs. Selections and shared selections are serious collective performance parameters associated with performance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Objectives: To assess the impact of a hygiene-encouragement program on reducing infection rates (primary end point) by 5%. Design: A cluster randomized study was carried out over a 5-month period. Settings and participants: Fifty nursing homes (NHs) with 4345 beds in France were randomly assigned by stratified-block randomization to either a multicomponent intervention (25 NHs) or an assessment only (25 NHs). Intervention: The multicomponent intervention was targeted to caregivers and consisted of implementing a bundle of infection prevention consensual measures. Interactive educational meetings using a slideshow were organized at the intervention NHs. The NHs were also provided with color posters emphasizing hand hygiene and a kit that included hygienic products such as alcoholic-based hand sanitizers. Knowledge surveys were performed periodically and served as reminders. Measurements: The primary end point was the total infection rate (urinary, respiratory, and gastrointestinal infections) in those infection cases classified either as definite or probable. Analyses corresponded to the underlying design and were performed according to the intention-to-treat principle. This study was registered (#NCT01069497). Results: Forty-seven NHs (4515 residents) were included and followed. The incidence rate of the first episode of infection was 2.11 per 1000 resident-days in the interventional group and 2.15 per 1000 resident-days in the control group; however, the difference between the groups did not reach statistical significance in either the unadjusted (Hazard Ratio [HR] = 1.00 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.89–1.13]; P = .93]) or the adjusted (HR = 0.99 [95% CI 0.87–1.12]; P = .86]) analysis. Conclusion: Disentangling the impact of this type of intervention involving behavioral change in routine practice in caregivers from the prevailing environmental and contextual determinants is often complicated and confusing to interpret the results. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]