COVID-19 Vaccination Intention Associated with Behaviors towards Protection and Perceptions Regarding the Pandemic.

BACKGROUND: The impressively rapid availability of different types of COVID-19 vaccines and, on the other hand, the degree of their effectiveness as opposed to the likelihood of serious or non-serious side effects place a fairly large percentage of the population at a crossroads regarding the choice to get vaccinated or not, hence threatening achievement of total immunization coverage and full immunity. This study aimed to assess COVID-19 vaccination intention in Greece regarding protection behaviors and perceptions of the pandemic. METHODS: A total of 3753 participants completed a specially designed electronic questionnaire anonymously and voluntarily. The study population consisted of healthcare workers, students, members of professional societies, teachers, and professors. The questionnaire was composed of four parts pertaining to demographic data and possible changes in hygiene attitudes during the COVID-19 pandemic. RESULTS: In total, 43.3% of the participants stated that SARS-CoV-2 poses a significant risk. The most widespread protection practice was avoiding crowded places (90.1%), followed by reducing the use of public transport (86.1%) and washing their hands with soap and water more often than usual (84.2%). Women undertook significantly more behavioral changes than men and participants of other nationalities. About half of the participants (44%) implemented seven behavioral changes. Lower personal and general perceived risk due to COVID-19 was significantly associated with lower intention to get vaccinated. CONCLUSION: Strong hesitancy was observed towards COVID-19 vaccination. There is a need for further studies to be conducted to investigate the benefits and safety of vaccines for the purpose of better informing the public. Healthcare personnel can and should play a key role in this process.

A three-dimensional digital microscopic investigation of entheseal changes as skeletal activity markers.

OBJECTIVES: The current article explores the effectiveness of entheseal changes (EC) as skeletal activity markers by testing the correlation between such changes and cross-sectional geometric (CSG) properties while controlling for the effect of age and body size. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The originality of the article lies in capturing EC in a continuous quantitative manner using three-dimensional microscopy. Roughness and bone resorption were recorded on Zones 1 and 2 of three humeral entheses (subscapularis, supraspinatus, and infraspinatus) in a documented sample of 29 male skeletons. RESULTS: Our analysis found that merely 5.91% of the partial correlations between EC and CSG properties were statistically significant. In addition, two unexpected patterns were identified, namely a higher number of significant correlations on the left side entheses compared to the right side ones, and a higher number of correlations between minimum roughness and CSG properties compared to mean and maximum roughness. DISCUSSION: These patterns are the inverse of what we would expect if activity had exerted an important effect on EC expression. Therefore, they support the lack of association between EC and habitual activity, even though various factors potentially affecting the above results are discussed.

An evaluation of Bayesian age estimation using the auricular surface in modern Greek material.

Pelvic morphology is highly reflective of both sex and age changes in humans, making it a popular research focus in forensic anthropology. Relevant studies range from traditional descriptive to more complicated approaches involving statistical modeling, with the latter having become excessively popular in the last decades. The present study examines the performance of Bayesian statistics in age estimation based on the morphological changes observed on the iliac auricular surface. The aim is two-fold: a) to test whether a Bayesian approach can improve age-at-death estimation compared to the original Lovejoy et al. (1985a) and Buckberry and Chamberlain (2002) methods, and b) to explore the impact of adopting different samples as informative priors as well as for obtaining the transition analysis parameters. For this purpose, two modern Greek documented collections have been used, the Athens and the Cretan Collection. Our results found no clear improvement in age prediction when adopting Bayesian age estimation, with only one exception: Athenian males for the Buckberry and Chamberlain (2002) method. The choice of samples for transition analysis and as informative priors affected the results but this effect was statistically non-significant.

Assessing the accuracy of cranial and pelvic ageing methods on human skeletal remains from a modern Greek assemblage.

The present study tests the accuracy of commonly adopted ageing methods based on the morphology of the pubic symphysis, auricular surface and cranial sutures. These methods are examined both in their traditional form as well as in the context of transition analysis using the ADBOU software in a modern Greek documented collection consisting of 140 individuals who lived mainly in the second half of the twentieth century and come from cemeteries in the area of Athens. The auricular surface overall produced the most accurate age estimates in our material, with different methods based on this anatomical area showing varying degrees of success for different age groups. The pubic symphysis produced accurate results primarily for young adults and the same applied to cranial sutures but the latter appeared completely inappropriate for older individuals. The use of transition analysis through the ADBOU software provided less accurate results than the corresponding traditional ageing methods in our sample. Our results are in agreement with those obtained from validation studies based on material from across the world, but certain differences identified with other studies on Greek material highlight the importance of taking into account intra- and inter-population variability in age estimation.