Search

Problem: Low response rate to weekly self-reported questionnaires used to obtain athlete health-related and risk exposure data and low compliance with intervention have been reported. We thus aimed to investigate if time to 1) non-response to a weekly questionnaire and 2) non-compliance with an intervention is different among French athletics athletes with different characteristics. Methods: We performed a secondary analysis of data from the PREVATHLE randomized controlled trial including 840 female and male competitive athletics athletes followed over 39-weeks. Using univariate Cox proportional hazards regression models, we analyzed the association between athletes’ baseline characteristics and the following outcomes: time to failing to (1) respond to a weekly questionnaire and (2) complete a prescribed intervention. Results: Most athletes failed to complete all questionnaires over the 39 weeks (n=672, 80%), athletes in the intervention group, female athletes, younger athletes, athletes performing explosive disciplines, and athletes with higher non-specific sport training failed sooner. Nearly all athletes in the intervention group failed to comply with the intervention (n=443; 98.7%), and the rates were similar amongst athletes with different characteristics. Conclusions: This study shows that novel ways have to be found in order to improve both 1) athletes’ self-reported responses to weekly questionnaires on health-related and risk exposure data and 2) athletes’ compliance with an injury risk reduction program. Education and/or digital solutions might be potential opportunities. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Background and aimMalnutrition in older patients is linked to poor appetite. Cannabis-based medicine may have orexigenic properties in older patients, but this has to our knowledge never been investigated. In older patients, uncertainty applies to the accuracy of estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) based on creatinine, which is crucial for medication prescribing. In older patients with poor appetite, the study aims (1) to assess the efficacy of Sativex® (8.1-mg delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol [THC] and 7.5-mg cannabidiol [CBD]) to stimulate appetite and (2) to compare the performance of various GFR-estimates and measured-GFR (mGFR) for determining gentamicin clearance utilizing population pharmacokinetic (popPK) modelling methods.Methods and objectivesThis study is composed of two substudies. Substudy 1 is an investigator-initiated single-center, double-blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled, superiority, cross-over study. Substudy 1 will recruit 17 older patients with poor appetite, who will also be invited to substudy 2. Substudy 2 is a single-dose pharmacokinetics study and will recruit 55 patients. Participants will receive Sativex® and placebo in substudy 1 and gentamicin with simultaneous measurements of GFR in substudy 2. The primary endpoints are as follows: Substudy 1—the difference in energy intake between Sativex® and placebo conditions; substudy 2— the accuracy of different eGFR equations compared to mGFR. The secondary endpoints include safety parameters, changes in the appetite hormones, total ghrelin and GLP-1 and subjective appetite sensations, and the creation of popPK models of THC, CBD, and gentamicin.

This report draws on 41 focus groups with marginalised and/or underserved audiences in Brazil, India, the UK, and the US to examine how differences along lines of race, caste, religion, class, and place affect perceptions of trustworthy journalism. We highlight commonalities among participants rooted in distinct experiences, needs, and expectations that lead them to perceive news as representing their communities negatively, unfairly, stereotypically, or in divisive or altogether absent ways entirely. In some countries, grievances around deficient or harmful coverage were often intertwined with perceptions of the news media as extensions of broader power structures and impressions of journalists as privileged and out of touch. Finally, we show that many saw news media as intentionally mistreating people from disadvantaged communities while consistently catering to other more powerful audiences, and we summarise what participants recommended as possible solutions for building or restoring their trust.

This report presents results from online survey data collected in August and September 2022 investigating how people access news and information about climate change in Brazil, France, Germany, India, Japan, Pakistan, the UK, and the USA. Our research suggests that a significant proportion of our respondents come across climate change news frequently and mostly through television and online news media. We also found that, despite the heightened concern about climate change among some younger people, fewer engage with the news related to it when compared to older people. Regarding misinformation, more than two-thirds of respondents in our survey expressed concern about false or misleading news on climate change. Furthermore, the results indicate that frequent news consumers find climate change-related news empowering, i.e., providing them accurate information and helping them to know what to do about it, whereas, among less frequent consumers a significantly larger share say that they find such news confusing and irrelevant. We conclude by discussing the findings and offering some policy inputs.

Problem: Low response rate to weekly self-reported questionnaires used to obtain athlete health-related and risk exposure data and low compliance with intervention have been reported. We thus aimed to investigate if time to 1) non-response to a weekly questionnaire and 2) non-compliance with an intervention is different among French athletics athletes with different characteristics. › Methods: We performed a secondary analysis of data from the PREVATHLE randomized controlled trial including 840 female and male competitive athletics athletes followed over 39-weeks. Using univariate Cox proportional hazards regression models, we analyzed the association between athletes’ baseline characteristics and the following outcomes: time to failing to (1) res-pond to a weekly questionnaire and (2) complete a prescribed intervention. › Results: Most athletes failed to complete all questionnaires over the 39 weeks (n=672, 80%), athletes in the intervention group, female athletes, younger athletes, athletes performing explosive disciplines, and athletes with higher non-specific sport training failed sooner. Nearly all athletes in the intervention group failed to comply with the intervention (n=443; 98.7%), and the rates were similar amongst athletes with different characteristics. › Conclusions: This study shows that novel ways have to be found in order to improve both 1) athletes’ self-reported responses to weekly questionnaires on health-related and risk exposure data and 2) athletes’ compliance with an injury risk reduction pro-gram. Education and/or digital solutions might be potential opportunities.

Based on interviews with a strategic sample of 11 publishers in eight low- and middle-income countries, in this report we analyse how various digital publishers across a range of Global South countries approach digital platforms: both big platform companies such as Google and Meta; rapidly growing ones, including TikTok; and smaller ones such as Twitter and Telegram.

In this report, we examine the relationship between trust in news and how people think about news on digital platforms, drawing on an original survey collected in the summer of 2022 in Brazil, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We find a ‘trust gap’ between how much people in all four countries trust information in the news media in general and news found on platforms, which they are more sceptical toward. At the same time, people have mainly positive feelings toward the platforms themselves. These differences are explained by reasons people express to use platforms, which are often about solving daily tasks or connecting with others, and less about news and information. Our results indicate that the challenge for news organisations may be less about an erosion of trust due to their being seen on platforms and more about being seen at all in these spaces.

Background The role of the pulmonary microbiome in sarcoidosis is unknown. The objectives of this study were the following: (1) examine whether the pulmonary fungal and bacterial microbiota differed in patients with sarcoidosis compared with controls; (2) examine whether there was an association between the microbiota and levels of the antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) in protected bronchoalveolar lavage (PBAL). Methods Thirty-five sarcoidosis patients and 35 healthy controls underwent bronchoscopy and were sampled with oral wash (OW), protected BAL (PBAL), and left protected sterile brushes (LPSB). The fungal ITS1 region and the V3V4 region of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene were sequenced. Bioinformatic analyses were performed with QIIME 2. The AMPs secretory leucocyte protease inhibitor (SLPI) and human beta defensins 1 and 2 (hBD-1 and hBD-2), were measured in PBAL by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Results Aspergillus dominated the PBAL samples in sarcoidosis. Differences in bacterial taxonomy were minor. There was no significant difference in fungal alpha diversity between sarcoidosis and controls, but the bacterial alpha diversity in sarcoidosis was significantly lower in OW (p = 0.047) and PBAL (p = 0.03) compared with controls. The beta diversity for sarcoidosis compared with controls differed for both fungi and bacteria. AMP levels were significantly lower in sarcoidosis compared to controls (SLPI and hBD-1: p < 0.01). No significant correlations were found between alpha diversity and AMPs. Conclusions The pulmonary fungal and bacterial microbiota in sarcoidosis differed from in controls. Lower antimicrobial peptides levels were seen in sarcoidosis, indicating an interaction between the microbiota and the innate immune system. Whether this dysbiosis represents a pathogenic mechanism in sarcoidosis needs to be confirmed in experimental studies.

Background: Small Airways Obstruction (SAO) is a common feature of obstructive lung diseases. There is limited research on SAO, its global prevalence and risk factors. Methods: Using data from 41 sites in the cross-sectional Burden of Obstructive Lung Disease study (N=26,448), we defined SAO as either: 1) mean forced expiratory flow rate between 25% and 75% of the forced vital capacity (FEF25-75) less than lower limit of normal (LLN), or 2) forced expiratory volume in three seconds to forced vital capacity ratio (FEV3/FVC) less than the LLN. We estimated the prevalence of pre- and post-bronchodilator SAO for each site. To identify risk factors for SAO, we performed multivariable regression analyses within each site, and pooled estimates using random effects meta-analysis. Findings: Prevalence of pre-bronchodilator SAO ranged from 5% (34/624) in Tartu (Estonia) to 34% (189/555) in Mysore (India) for FEF25-75, while for FEV3/FVC it ranged from 5% (31/667) in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) to 31% (287/981) in Salzburg (Austria). Prevalence of post-bronchodilator SAO was universally lower. Risk factors associated with FEV3/FVC included increasing age, low body mass index, active and passive smoking, low level of education, working in a dusty job for more than 10 years, and previous tuberculosis. Results were similar for FEF25-75, except for increasing age, which was associated with reduced odds of SAO. Interpretation: Despite the wide geographical variation, SAO is common and more prevalent than chronic airflow obstruction worldwide. SAO shows the same risk factors as chronic airflow obstruction. However, further research is required to investigate whether it also associates with respiratory symptoms and lung function decline. Funding: National Heart and Lung Institute; Wellcome Trust (085790/Z/08/Z).

SummaryHuman populations have been shaped by catastrophes that may have left long-lasting signatures in their genomes. One notable example is the second plague pandemic that entered Europe in ca. 1,347 CE and repeatedly returned for over 300 years, with typical village and town mortality estimated at 10%–40%.1 It is assumed that this high mortality affected the gene pools of these populations. First, local population crashes reduced genetic diversity. Second, a change in frequency is expected for sequence variants that may have affected survival or susceptibility to the etiologic agent (Yersinia pestis).2 Third, mass mortality might alter the local gene pools through its impact on subsequent migration patterns. We explored these factors using the Norwegian city of Trondheim as a model, by sequencing 54 genomes spanning three time periods: (1) prior to the plague striking Trondheim in 1,349 CE, (2) the 17th–19th century, and (3) the present. We find that the pandemic period shaped the gene pool by reducing long distance immigration, in particular from the British Isles, and inducing a bottleneck that reduced genetic diversity. Although we also observe an excess of large FST values at multiple loci in the genome, these are shaped by reference biases introduced by mapping our relatively low genome coverage degraded DNA to the reference genome. This implies that attempts to detect selection using ancient DNA (aDNA) datasets that vary by read length and depth of sequencing coverage may be particularly challenging until methods have been developed to account for the impact of differential reference bias on test statistics. Results and discussion STAR★Methods

The eleventh Digital News Report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford reveals new insights about digital news consumption based on a YouGov survey of over 93,000 online news consumers in 46 media markets The report provides evidence that much of the public is turning away from – or at least selectively avoiding – the news. The report documents ways in which the connection between journalism and much of the public may be fraying, including a fall in trust following last year’s positive bump, and declining interest in news. Our survey finds that younger audiences have a weaker connection with news brands, and are increasingly accessing the news via platforms such as TikTok. Despite significant increases in the proportion paying for online news in a handful of richer countries there are signs that overall growth may be levelling off.

This report examines how audiences lacking trust in most news organisations make sense of news they encounter while navigating platforms, specifically Facebook, Google, and WhatsApp. Based on interviews with people in Brazil, India, United Kingdom, and United States, we find that they encounter limited news, and when they do, they often rely on mental shortcuts to determine what they can trust. More specifically, we find they often form snap judgments based on (1) pre-existing ideas about news in general or specific brands, (2) social cues from family and friends, (3) the tone and wording of headlines, (4) the use of visuals, (5) the presence of advertising, and (6) platform-specific cues. While some of these cues may be beyond the scope of what news organisations have influence over – putting the onus on platforms – others are within the scope of publishers' control but require them to be more attuned to how their content is exhibited in these spaces.