Public health consequences after ten years of the Syrian crisis: a literature review.

Ten years of the Syrian war had a devastating effect on Syrian lives, including millions of refugees and displaced people, enormous destruction in the infrastructure, and the worst economic crisis Syria has ever faced. The health sector was hit hard by this war, up to 50% of the health facilities have been destroyed and up to 70% of the healthcare providers fled the country seeking safety, which increased the workload and mental pressure for the remaining medical staff. Five databases were searched and 438 articles were included according to the inclusion criteria, the articles were divided into categories according to the topic of the article.Through this review, the current health status of the Syrian population living inside Syria, whether under governmental or opposition control, was reviewed, and also, the health status of the Syrian refugees was examined according to each host country. Public health indicators were used to summarize and categorize the information. This research reviewed mental health, children and maternal health, oral health, non-communicable diseases, infectious diseases, occupational health, and the effect of the COVID - 19 pandemic on the Syrian healthcare system. The results of the review are irritating, as still after ten years of war and millions of refugees there is an enormous need for healthcare services, and international organization has failed to respond to those needs. The review ended with the current and future challenges facing the healthcare system, and suggestions about rebuilding the healthcare system.Through this review, the major consequences of the Syrian war on the health of the Syrian population have been reviewed and highlighted. Considerable challenges will face the future of health in Syria which require the collaboration of the health authorities to respond to the growing needs of the Syrian population. This article draws an overview about how the Syrian war affected health sector for Syrian population inside and outside Syria after ten years of war which makes it an important reference for future researchers to get the main highlight of the health sector during the Syrian crisis.

Applicability of Obesity-Related SNPs and their Effect Size Measures Defined on Populations with European Ancestry for Genetic Risk Estimation among Roma.

Investigations on the impact of genetic factors on the development of obesity have been limited regarding the Roma population-the largest and most vulnerable ethnic minority in Europe of Asian origin. Genetic variants identified from genetic association studies are primarily from European populations. With that in mind, we investigated the applicability of data on selected obesity-related single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), obtained from the Hungarian general (HG) population of European origin, on the Hungarian Roma (HR) population. Twenty preselected SNPs in susceptible alleles, known to be significantly associated with obesity-related phenotypes, were used to estimate the effect of these SNPs on body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) in HG (N = 1783) and HR (N = 1225) populations. Single SNP associations were tested using linear and logistic regression models, adjusted for known covariates. Out of 20 SNPs, four located in FTO (rs1121980, rs1558902, rs9939609, and rs9941349) showed strong association with BMI and WC as continuous variables in both samples. Computations based on Adult Treatment Panel III (ATPIII) and the International Diabetes Federation's (IDF) European and Asian criteria showed rs9941349 in FTO to be associated only with WC among both populations, and two SNPs (rs2867125, rs6548238) in TMEM18 associated with WC only in HG population. A substantial difference (both in direction and effect size) was observed only in the case of rs1801282 in PPARγ on WC as a continuous outcome. Findings suggest that genetic risk scores based on counting SNPs with relatively high effect sizes, defined based on populations with European ancestry, can sufficiently allow estimation of genetic susceptibility for Roma. Further studies are needed to clarify the role of SNP(s) with protective effect(s).

Alcohol Consumption among the Elderly Citizens in Hungary and Serbia-Comparative Assessment.

Studies in the alcohol consumption area are mostly related to the (ab)use of alcohol in young people. However, today, a growing number of researchers are emphasizing the clinical and public health significance of alcohol consumption in the elderly. In the WHO reports, harmful alcohol consumption is responsible for 5.3% of the global burden of the disease. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of alcohol consumption among men and women aged 55 and over in Serbia and Hungary, leveraging data from the 2013 Serbian National Health Survey and from the 2014 Hungarian National Health Survey. Respondents aged 55 and over were analysed based on logistic multivariate models. The prevalence of alcohol consumption was 41.5% and 62.5% in Serbia and Hungary, respectively. It was higher among men in both countries, but among women, it was significantly higher in Hungary than in Serbia. The statistically significant predictors affecting alcohol consumption in Serbia included age, education, well-being index, long-term disease and overall health status, with marital status being an additional factor among men. In Hungary, education and long-term disease affected alcohol consumption in both sexes, while age and employment were additional factors among women. In both countries for both sexes, younger age, more significantly than primary education and good health, was associated with a higher likelihood of alcohol consumption.

Rare diseases epidemiology research.

Rare Diseases Epidemiology is a novel action field still largely unexplored. However, Rare Diseases is a topic of growing interest at world level. The aims of this chapter are to revise useful epidemiological tools and define areas where epidemiology can help improve the rare disease knowledge, and facilitate policy decisions taking into account the real burden of rare diseases in society. This chapter also seeks to describe: the problems of coding and classification of diseases, measuring disease frequency, the study designs and association studies, the causality, the evolution from descriptive to epigenetic epidemiology and the natural history of disease. One of the major challenges facing analytical epidemiology and clinical epidemiological research into rare diseases is that genes can be involved in both aetiology and prognosis. Despite the many similarities between genetic association studies and classic observational epidemiological studies, the former pose several specific limitations, including an unprecedented volume of new data and the likelihood of very small individual effects, as well other limitations. Selecting the appropriate pathway from among all those available, i.e. the one that best relates genes from the various known regions and disease mechanisms, is crucial for the success of this type of studies.