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Healthy lifestyle promotion from the perspective of state policy, journalism, healthcare, sociology, and psychology was analyzed. The objective of the study was to analyze changes in the financial and agitation state policy aimed at increasing the motivational activity of citizens of the Russian Federation towards a healthy lifestyle (HLS) in the Soviet era and at the post-Soviet stage and assess the effectiveness of these measures. The effectiveness of the Soviet propaganda of healthy lifestyles among the population was evaluated. Crisis phenomena in public health, low persuasiveness of the media presentation of the healthy lifestyle value, the COVID-19 pandemic, difficulties in implementing corporate health promotion programs in the workplace at individual en-terprises, and ignoring gender stereotypes in attitudes to health are the reasons that contribute to the adherence of Russian workers to unhealthy behaviors, that cause an increase in the incidence of chronic non-communicable diseases. The historical aspect of changes in state policy for health promotion made it possible to determine the tasks in developing health-saving programs.Copyright © 2023, Media Sphera Publishing Group. All rights reserved.
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Background/Objectives: Chemosensory dysfunction is a hallmark of SARS-CoV-2 infection;nevertheless, the genetic factors predisposing to long-term smell and taste loss are still unknown. This study aims to identify candidate genes possibly involved in persistent smell/taste loss through Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) analysis of a large cohort of 130 fully characterised Italian individuals, previously diagnosed with COVID-19. Method(s): DNA of all analysed patients was used to perform WGS analysis, and a detailed personal anamnesis was collected. Moreover, orthonasal function was assessed through the extended Sniffin' Sticks test, retronasal function was tested with 20 powdered tasteless aromas, and taste was determined with validated Taste Strips. Self-reported smell and taste alterations were assessed via Visual Analog Scales plus questionnaires. Result(s): The clinical evaluation allowed to classify the patients in two groups: 88 cases affected by persistent smell dysfunction (median age, 49) and 42 controls (median age, 51). Among cases, 26.1% (n = 23) were functionally anosmic and 73.9% (n = 65) were hyposmic. Within cases, 77 underwent the taste strip test: 53.2% (n = 41) presented hypogeusia and 46.8% (n = 36) were normogeusic. Preliminary WGS results on a first subset of 76 samples confirmed the important role of UGT2A1 gene, previously described as involved in smell loss. Interestingly, we identified a nonsense variant (rs111696697, MAF 0.046) significantly associated with anosmia in males (p-value: 0.0183). Conclusion(s): Here, for the first time a large cohort of patients, fully characterised through a comprehensive psychophysical evaluation of smell and taste, have been analysed to better define the genetic bases of COVID-19-related persistent chemosensory dysfunction.
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Background/Objectives: The disease course upon SARS-CoV-2 infection is highly variable and comprises a range from asymptomatic infection to severe (and even lethal) COVID-19. Genetic factors substantially contribute to this variability, as evidenced by epidemiological studies and recent results from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) as well as sequencing-based approaches. The host genetics group of the German COVID-19 OMICs Initiative (DeCOI) has been founded with the aim to identify additional genetic variants that influence COVID-19 severity through whole genome sequencing (WGS) analyses. Method(s): Until January 2022, WGS has been performed on approximately 1200 individuals affected by COVID-19. Result(s): The most recent data freeze comprised 952 individuals. In this dataset, no carrier of a deleterious protein-altering variant has been detected in TLR7, which is the only conclusive risk gene for severe COVID-19. Applying a gene-based association test of rare variants to the subcohort of European individuals (n = 752, mean age: 56 years, females: 44%), including 199 severely affected individuals, we did not observe any significant association after correction for multiple testing. Exome-wide association analysis of common variants in this subcohort replicated the GWAS-locus on chromosome 3. Conclusion(s): With this ongoing work, we are contributing to international efforts to elucidate the host genetics of COVID-19, also by sharing our summary statistics for meta-analyses. Currently, we are sequencing additional severely affected individuals and we are refining analytical strategies, which will also include the joint analysis of common and rare variants at genomewide scale.
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Every government in the world introduced restrictions to human mobility – that is, the movement of persons across and within state borders – in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Such restrictions thus constituted a global phenomenon, but they were by no means globally uniform;rather, they varied significantly between and within states, as well as over time. This research note presents different data sources for studying the drivers and outcomes of mobility restrictions, highlighting specific ways in which the data can be used. We begin by surveying seven new databases capturing various aspects of the regulation of human movement during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing inspiration from research on previous pandemics, we then outline five possible research avenues prompted by these data. We suggest that explaining the causes and consequences of such restrictions, as well as the differences between them, can significantly advance research on the governance of mobility, migration, and citizenship.
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Aim: Conspiracy endorsement has gained much attention in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, as it constitutes a major public health challenge that is associated with reduced adherence to preventative measures. However, little is known about the developmental backdrops and personality characteristics that render an individual prone to conspiracy endorsement. There is a growing body of evidence implying a detrimental role of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) - a highly prevalent burden - in the development of epistemic trust and personality functioning. This study aimed to investigate the association between ACEs and conspiracy endorsement as well as the mediating role of epistemic trust and personality functioning. Method(s): Analyses are based on cross-sectional representative data of the German population collected during the COVID-19 pandemic (N = 2501). Structural equation modelling (SEM) with personality functioning (OPD-SQS) and epistemic trust (ETMCQ) as mediators of the association between ACEs and conspiracy endorsement were conducted. Result(s): In total, 20.4% (n = 508) of all participants endorsed conspiracies. There was a significant association between ACEs and conspiracy endorsement (beta = 0.25, p < 0.001;explained variance 6%). The variance of conspiracy endorsement increased to 19% after adding epistemic trust and personality functioning as mediators (beta = 0.12, p < 0.001), indicating a partial mediation and direct prediction from these mediators. Fit indices demonstrated a good model fit. Conclusion(s): Evidence on the far-reaching and detrimental effects of early childhood adversities are further increased by demonstrating an association between ACEs and conspiracy endorsement. Our findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms by including epistemic trust and personality functioning.Copyright © 2023
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The Citizen Science Association (CSA) is a member-driven organization that connects people with interest in community/citizen science (c*science) from a wide range of backgrounds, disciplines, and experiences. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the bi-annual CSA conference pivoted away from an in-person format to a virtual format. CitSciVirtual: Local, Global, Connected occurred throughout May 2021 and brought together more than 700 attendees from 36 countries. The conference prioritized interactive experiences for attendees, including 16 collaborative poster sessions featuring 240 virtual posters, 55 workshops to learn and practice new skills, and 7 social events. This paper summarizes the impacts of the rapid transition to a virtual format on the conference goals, planning and decision-making processes, practices, outcomes, and attendee experiences. Both the strengths and weaknesses of this first virtual conference are featured to outline opportunities for growth for the CSA, c*science at large, and science conferences in general. © 2023 AESS Publications. All Rights Reserved.
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Background/Objectives: COVID-19 can affect anyone with the disease's symptoms ranging from mild to very severe. Although environmental, clinical, and social factors play an important role in the disease process, host genetic factors are not negligible either. In the present article, we attempted to elaborate on the spectrum of risk variants and genes identified in different ways and their possible relationship to COVID-19 severity and/or mortality. Method(s): We present three different approaches to search host genetic risk factors that influence the development of COVID-19 disease. First, we analyzed the exome sequencing data obtained from Slovak patients who died of COVID-19. Second, we selected risk factors/genes that were associated with COVID-19. Finally, we compared each group of found risk variants with data from dead patients and two control groups, worldwide public data of the Non-Finnish European population from the gnomAD database, and genetic data from Non-invasive prenatal testing in the Slovak population. Result(s): We illustrate the utility of genomic data showed strong association in meta-analyses conducted by the COVID-19 HGI Browser. Conclusion(s): To our knowledge, the present study is the first population analysis of COVID-19 variants worldwide and also in the Slovak population that provides different approaches to the analysis of genetic variants in whole-exome sequencing data from patients who have died of COVID-19.
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PurposeThis article poses the question on whether and how youth participation in environmental sustainability makes a difference within participatory budgets (PBs). This is a question worth asking because PBs have pursued, from the very beginning, goals of social sustainability through the inclusion of social groups that struggle to make their voices heard, as in the case of the youth. As young people show an increasing capacity to self-organise around environmental issues, a knowledge gap emerges as to the contribution that youth can give to environmental sustainability within PBs.Design/methodology/approachThe 2021 edition of the Lisbon PB (2021PB) has been analysed through desk research - document analysis using the city council's website as the main source of information, and fieldwork - an organisation of one two-day workshop with 20 young students through a partnership between the local authority and the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon. Methods were applied to retrieve findings on youth participation in environmental sustainability in the 2021PB.FindingsThe youth show a relative increase of participation in the 2021PB and emerge as a key target group in funded proposals. Convergence with student proposals suggest shared awareness on the role of youth in the pursuit of social sustainability. The success of health-related proposals confirms ownership of (young) citizens over the concept of environmental sustainability, which further relies on the various scopes of funded proposals at both city and neighbourhood levels. In the workshop, students did not stick to specific themes and struggled to connect present criticalities and future imaginaries.Research limitations/implicationsFocus on one case study necessarily limits the generalisation of findings. Nevertheless, the 2021PB illuminates pathways of research on youth participation in environmental sustainability through participatory budgeting that are worth clearing in the future, such as the role of digital participation, dynamics induced by extreme events as the COVID-19 pandemic and PBs' capacity to intercept environmental activism.Practical implicationsDecision-makers and practitioners can take advantage of findings to acknowledge the potential of youth participation in PBs to reframe the take of environmental sustainability.Social implicationsThe article provides new inputs for future developments in the operationalisation of social and environmental sustainability through participatory budgeting.Originality/valueThis article examines original data retrieved from the 2021PB. Data analysis is backed by the literature review of key democratic challenges in social and environmental sustainability within participatory budgeting.
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Aims: Little is known about risk factors for both Long COVID and somatic symptoms that develop in individuals without a history of COVID-19 in response to the pandemic. There is reason to assume an interplay between pathophysiological mechanisms and psychosocial factors in the etiology of symptom persistence. This study investigates specific risk factors for somatic symptom deterioration in a cohort of German adults with and without prior SARS-CoV-2 infection. Method(s): German healthcare professionals underwent SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibody testing and completed self-rating questionnaires at baseline and 21 months later between April 2020 and February 2022. Differences in variables between the time points were analyzed and a regression analysis was performed to predict somatic symptom deterioration at follow-up. Result(s): Seven hundred fifty-one adults completed both assessments. Until follow-up, n = 58 had contracted SARS-CoV-2 confirmed by serology. Between baseline and follow-up, signs of mental and physical strain increased significantly in the sample. Symptom expectations associated with COVID-19 and a self-reported history of COVID-19, but not serologically confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, significantly predicted somatic symptom deterioration at follow-up. A further predictor was baseline psychological symptom burden. Conclusion(s): This study supports a disease-overarching biopsychosocial model for the development of burdensome somatic symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic and supports research findings that symptom burden may be more related to the psychosocial effects of the pandemic than to infection itself. Future studies on Long COVID should include SARS-CoV-2 negative control groups and consider symptom burden prior to infection in order to avoid an overestimation of prevalence rates.Copyright © 2023
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The experience of managing patients with COVID-19 around the world has shown that, although respiratory symptoms predominate during the manifestation of infection, then many patients can develop serious damage to the cardiovascular system. However, coronary artery disease (CHD) remains the leading cause of death worldwide. The purpose of the review is to clarify the possible pathogenetic links between COVID-19 and acute coronary syndrome (ACS), taking into account which will help to optimize the management of patients with comorbid pathology. Among the body's responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection, which increase the likelihood of developing ACS, the role of systemic inflammation, the quintessence of which is a "cytokine storm" that can destabilize an atherosclerotic plaque is discussed. Coagulopathy, typical for patients with Covid-19, is based on immunothrombosis, caused by a complex interaction between neutrophilic extracellular traps and von Willebrandt factor in conditions of systemic inflammation. The implementation of a modern strategy for managing patients with ACS, focused on the priority of percutaneous interventions (PCI), during a pandemic is experiencing great difficulties due to the formation of time delays before the start of invasive procedures due to the epidemiological situation. Despite this, the current European, American and Russian recommendations for the management of infected patients with ACS confirm the inviolability of the position of PCI as the first choice for treating patients with ACS and the undesirability of replacing invasive treatment with thrombolysis.Copyright © 2023 Stolichnaya Izdatelskaya Kompaniya. All rights reserved.
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Background/Objectives: Validated association between COVID-19 and the most obvious candidate genes, e.g. HLA, is still missing. A weak association with class I HLA-C*04:01 was found for infection in Sardinians and for severity in another mixed population. Auto-antibodies to interferon type I have been implicated in the severity of COVID-19 in two studies. Method(s): The binding affinity between HLA molecules and SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and IFNalpha subunits was evaluated in silico. The presence of antibodies against one or more of the 12 IFNalpha subunits was evaluated in 160 hospitalized COVID-19 patients. The 10 most frequent haplotypes in the Italian population were tested in 1.997 SARS-CoV-2 infected patients (hospitalized versus not hospitalized). Result(s): The presence of auto-antibodies against at least one IFNalpha subunit was detected in 26% of patients. The haplotype A*24:02-B*35:02-C*04:01-DRB1*11:04-DQB1*03:01 was found to predispose to severity (p = 0.0018;p = 0.07 after Bonferroni correction) in patients <50 years. The haplotype includes alleles able to bind spike with low affinity (i.e. C*04:01 and DRB1*11:04) and IFNalpha with high affinity (i.e. DRB1*11:04). Conclusion(s): One of the 10 most frequent ancestral haplotype of the Italian population predisposes to severity likely reducing both innate immunity through IFNalpha auto-antibodies induction and adaptive immunity through weaker spike protein presentation.
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Background/Objectives: The severity of the symptoms of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been associated to age, comorbidity, and male sex. Besides virus characteristics, host genetic factors influence the infection outcome. Different genome-wide association studies and meta-analyses investigated the contribution of common variants, whereas the role of rare variants just started to be elucidated. Our goal is to determine the contribution of rare variants to the development of severe COVID-19 in the Italian population. Method(s): We compared the genetic background of 215 severe COVID-19 patients with 1764 individuals from the general population. Rare variants (minor allele frequency <1%) from wholeexome sequencing data were retrieved using a bioinformatics variant discovery pipeline. We tested the impact of rare variants (classified according to their predicted effect on the gene product) both using a burden test design, and an iterative machine learning (ML) approach. Result(s): We identified a total of 690,000 rare variants in the entire examined population. Among them, 250 were associated with COVID-19 severity at a nominal P < 0.05. Gene-based burden test revealed a gene with an excess of loss-of-function mutations at P < 0.05. Finally, the ML approach, analysing all the 690,000 rare variants, identified the best combination of variants that is able to predict COVID-19 severity in our cohort. Conclusion(s): Our work provides new insights on the genetic signature of COVID-19 in the Italian population. The most informative rare variants could be exploited to define individuals' risk profiles to COVID-19 severity for the Italian population.
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Purpose. The aim of the paper is to present the participation of the Mobile Library Service of Zagreb City Libraries in the period from 2018 to 2022, in the projects of the Institute for Youth Development and Innovation (IRIM) dealing with the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) field. The projects are as follows: "The STEM revolution continues: Libraries”, "The Digital citizen”, and "The Digital libraries for local development”. The mentioned projects encourage the use of digital technologies in libraries in order to develop libraries into advanced centers for the acquisition of digital skills. By providing a mobile library service, the libraries strive to reduce the consequences of social exclusion and raise the quality and standard of life in the community for all citizens, thus contributing to the realization of the right of each individual to access information, knowledge and culture, which also includes the presentation of new technologies to all children, regardless of whether they live in urban or suburban areas and whether they attend central or branch primary schools. Approach/methodology. The paper describes the participation of the Mobile Library Service of Zagreb City Libraries in the period from 2018 to 2022 in the projects of the Institute for Youth Development and Innovation: "The STEM revolution continues: Libraries”, "The Digital citizen”, and "The Digital libraries for local development”. Through the presentation of the five years of participation in the projects, two of which were completely marked by the coronavirus epidemic, it will be shown how successful the implementation of the projects was in 2018 and 2019, as well as the stagnation that followed in 2020 and 2021, and the start of the revitalization of the projects in 2022. The data was collected in the reports on the work of the Mobile Library Service, on the Zagreb City Libraries website, and from the professional and other papers on the Mobile Library Service of Zagreb City Libraries. Findings. By presenting the participation in the projects, an attempt was made to indicate the success of their implementation and the development of activities in accordance with the modern IFLA Mobile Library Guidelines (2011). Also, it will be shown that the work program is based on social and demographic changes in the local communities, the computerization of the library systems and the modernization of the IT equipment of the Mobile Library Service, as well as an excellent inter-institutional cooperation. Furthermore, the paper points to the most important thing, which is that by providing a mobile library service, libraries strive to reduce the consequences of social exclusion and raise the quality and standard of life in the community for all citizens, thus contributing to the realization of the right of each individual to access information, knowledge and culture, which also includes the presentation of new technologies to all children, regardless of whether they live in urban or suburban areas and whether they attend central or branch primary schools. Social implications. By being included in the IRIM projects, libraries, as well as mobile libraries, thus develop into advanced centers for acquiring digital skills. The social significance is manifested in the effort to reduce the consequences of social exclusion by providing a mobile library service that also includes the presentation of new technologies to all children, regardless of whether they live in urban or suburban areas and whether they attend central or branch primary schools. Originality/value. The paper is a valuable contribution to the very small number of published professional papers on the participation of the Mobile Library Service of Zagreb City Libraries in the projects of the Institute for Youth Development and Innovation such as "The STEM revolution continues: Libraries”, "The Digital citizen”, and "The Digital libraries for local development”. © 2023, Hrvatsko Knjiznicarsko Drustvo. All rights reserved.
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My biggest fear about teaching a social studies methods class with COVID restrictions was talking "at" my teacher candidates and not modeling interactive and engaging social studies education. Social studies education should be engaging and student-centered. In this article, I offer technological adaptations to lessons that center around three main ideas of history/social studies teaching: Promoting Historical Inquiry, Facilitating Discussions, and Supporting Civic Engagement. With advances in technology and digital learning tools, challenging and active social studies instruction can be achieved in a virtual or hybrid learning environment.
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Citizen science in coastal ecosystems often involve (eco-)tourists that actively monitor reefs, species and pollution. Data collected by tourists, passively, was used to gain insight into landings of the largest fish, the whale shark (Rhincodon typus), in Pangandaran Bay, Indonesia. Monitoring of illegal fishing was halted due to COVID-19 travel restrictions and lockdowns. With two million, mainly Indonesian, tourists visiting Pangandaran Bay in 2020 (30% less than in 2019) enough tourists were present to record landings of whale sharks. Monitoring social media revealed reports of 10 whale shark landings between August 2020 and August 2022. Seven were in July-August of immatures 6-7 m in length. The information passively provided by tourists since COVID-19 have given insights into the biology of whale sharks, landing risks and how communities interact with sharks. Feeding back this information to tourists is challenging, yet vital, to cement a sense of belonging, purpose and attachment to their holiday location.
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Technological advancements and the appearance of low-cost Raspberry Shake seismographs have enabled the development of citizen science seismic networks in many areas worldwide. These networks can help reduce seismic risk and increase citizens' understanding of seismology and earthquakes. Such a network exists in Bucharest, one of the cities in Europe that are struck and affected by strong Vrancea earthquakes. The paper aims to show that data from such networks can be used in both outreach programs and research studies. There are presented, for the first time, seismic observations collected over two years beginning in the summer of 2020 in the Bucharest area based on the low-cost seismometers from the citizen science Raspberry Shake network. A significant number of earthquakes from the Vrancea region were recorded by the Bucharest Raspberry Shake Seismic Network (BRSSN). Some of them were felt by Bucharest inhabitants. The National Institute for Earth Physics in Magurele (Romania) organizes educational events that promote geosciences among the population and presents the tools at its disposal for a better understanding of earthquakes and their effects, contributing this way to the development of the concept of citizen science. Citizens are the first witnesses to seismic events and the citizen science seismic network provides them with the first direct information about the event via web apps available for any internet-connected device. Their involvement as non-professional participants helps in providing data for scientists via questionnaire forms to improve scientific research for earthquake assessment. Since citizen seismometers are installed in urban areas, an analysis of the ambient seismic noise (ASN) was performed in addition to the analysis of recorded seismic events. The analysis indicates that the level of seismic noise is mainly controlled by human activities. At the same time, for one citizen seismometer installed in a school in Bucharest, the results show patterns of noise variations due to students' activity.
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Drawing upon 152 in-depth qualitative interviews with residents in Austria carried out in the first year of the pandemic, this article discusses how people's experiences with COVID-19 policies reflect and reshape state-citizen relations. Coinciding with a significant government crisis, the first year of COVID-19 in Austria saw pandemic measures justified with reference to a biological, often medical understanding of health that framed disease prevention in terms of transmission reduction, often with reference to metrics such as hospitalisation rates, etc. Instead of using this biomedical frame, our interviewees, however, drew attention to biopsychosocial dimensions of the crisis and problematised the entanglements between economy and health. We call this the emergence of a biosocial notion of citizenship that is attentive to psychological, social and economic dimensions of health. Insights into the biosocial nature of pandemic citizenship open a window of opportunity for addressing long-standing social injustices.
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The COVID-19 pandemic brought to the fore stark gendered care inequalities and the inadequacy of care provision across states. This article presents a feminist-ethics-of-care-informed discourse analysis of the representation of care that emerged at the Irish Citizens' Assembly on Gender Equality - an innovative government-created citizen deliberation process. It identifies how care was represented as a 'problem' of both gender inequality and the market, and uncovers key silences, which ignored care as a universal need of all citizens and the significance of care networks to sustaining caring. We propose the necessity of ethics-of-care-based understandings to address post-pandemic care challenges.
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This paper explores the potential impacts of effective communication strategies on handling with citizen complaints. Governments from all over the world recently learnt a number of important lessons as a result of poor public relations during the COVID-19 outbreak. Public confusion and misunderstanding may result from poor government communication, not just during the global coronavirus pandemic. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the benefits of the recently launched eOtinish services for citizen complaints, as well as their implementation process, benefits, and obstacles. This quick analysis of Kazakhstan's evolving eOtinish program review is meant to serve as a conceptual starting point for future studies on effective e-government adoption. This article provides government with recommendations for establishing effective citizen complaint strategies through effective communication channels for use with the public. By using the eOtinish as a case study we propose to understand technological change in the public sector, in particular, how technology influences administrative capacity, through a new concept of technological capacity. The results of this study suggest in order to seek new solution in managing people complaint government reach to conclusion that implementation of technological changes fundamentally alter how public organizations function and how services are delivered. © 2022,Innovation Journal. All Rights Reserved.