Articles

Investigation of the impact of the NICE guidelines regarding antibiotic prophylaxis during invasive dental procedures on the incidence of infective endocarditis in England: an electronic health records study

Infective endocarditis is an uncommon but serious infection, where evidence for giving antibiotic prophylaxis before invasive dental procedures is inconclusive. In England, antibiotic prophylaxis was offered r...

Authors: T. Phuong Quan, Berit Muller-Pebody, Nicola Fawcett, Bernadette C. Young, Mehdi Minaji, Jonathan Sandoe, Susan Hopkins, Derrick Crook, Timothy Peto, Alan P. Johnson and A. Sarah Walker

Mechanisms linking childhood trauma exposure and psychopathology: a transdiagnostic model of risk and resilience

Transdiagnostic processes confer risk for multiple types of psychopathology and explain the co-occurrence of different disorders. For this reason, transdiagnostic processes provide ideal targets for early inte...

Authors: Katie A. McLaughlin, Natalie L. Colich, Alexandra M. Rodman and David G. Weissman

Risk of long-term renal disease in women with a history of preterm delivery: a population-based cohort study

Preterm delivery is an independent risk factor for maternal cardiovascular disease. Little is known about the association between preterm delivery and maternal renal function. This study aimed to examine wheth...

Authors: Peter M. Barrett, Fergus P. McCarthy, Marie Evans, Marius Kublickas, Ivan J. Perry, Peter Stenvinkel, Karolina Kublickiene and Ali S. Khashan

Optimising strategies to address mental ill-health in doctors and medical students: ‘Care Under Pressure’ realist review and implementation guidance

Mental ill-health in health professionals, including doctors, is a global and growing concern. The existing literature on interventions that offer support, advice and/or treatment to sick doctors has not yet b...

Authors: Daniele Carrieri, Karen Mattick, Mark Pearson, Chrysanthi Papoutsi, Simon Briscoe, Geoff Wong and Mark Jackson

Factors associated with the prescribing of high-dose opioids in primary care: a systematic review and meta-analysis

The risks of harms from opioids increase substantially at high doses, and high-dose prescribing has increased in primary care. However, little is known about what leads to high-dose prescribing, and studies ex...

Authors: Georgia C. Richards, Kamal R. Mahtani, Tonny B. Muthee, Nicholas J. DeVito, Constantinos Koshiaris, Jeffrey K. Aronson, Ben Goldacre and Carl J. Heneghan

Pharmacotherapy for hypertension in Sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review and network meta-analysis

The highest burden of hypertension is found in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) with a threefold greater mortality from stroke and other associated diseases. Ethnicity is known to influence the response to antihyperte...

Authors: Anna Seeley, Josephine Prynn, Rachel Perera, Rebecca Street, Daniel Davis and Anthony O. Etyang

Born to fail: flaws in replication design produce intended results

We recently published in BMC Medicine an evaluation of the comparative diagnostic performance of InSilicoVA, a software to map the underlying causes of death from verbal autopsy interviews. The developers of this...

Authors: Abraham D. Flaxman, Riley Hazard, Ian Riley, Alan D. Lopez and Christopher J. L. Murray

Non-confirming replication of “Performance of InSilicoVA for assigning causes of death to verbal autopsies: multisite validation study using clinical diagnostic gold standards,” by Flaxman et al.

A verbal autopsy (VA) is an interview conducted with the caregivers of someone who has recently died to describe the circumstances of the death. In recent years, several algorithmic methods have been developed...

Authors: Zehang Richard Li, Tyler H. McCormick and Samuel J. Clark

Association between the cytokine storm, immune cell dynamics, and viral replicative capacity in hyperacute HIV infection

Immunological damage in acute HIV infection (AHI) may predispose to detrimental clinical sequela. However, studies on the earliest HIV-induced immunological changes are limited, particularly in sub-Saharan Afr...

Authors: Daniel M. Muema, Ngomu A. Akilimali, Okechukwu C. Ndumnego, Sipho S. Rasehlo, Raveshni Durgiah, Doty B.A. Ojwach, Nasreen Ismail, Mary Dong, Amber Moodley, Krista L. Dong, Zaza M. Ndhlovu, Jenniffer M. Mabuka, Bruce D. Walker, Jaclyn K. Mann and Thumbi Ndung’u

Adolescent polycystic ovary syndrome according to the international evidence-based guideline

Diagnosing polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) during adolescence is challenging because features of normal pubertal development overlap with adult diagnostic criteria. The international evidence-based PCOS Guide...

Authors: Alexia S. Peña, Selma F. Witchel, Kathleen M. Hoeger, Sharon E. Oberfield, Maria G. Vogiatzi, Marie Misso, Rhonda Garad, Preeti Dabadghao and Helena Teede

Identifying potential causal effects of age at menarche: a Mendelian randomization phenome-wide association study

Age at menarche has been associated with various health outcomes. We aimed to identify potential causal effects of age at menarche on health-related traits in a hypothesis-free manner.

Authors: Maria C. Magnus, Anna L. Guyatt, Rebecca B. Lawn, Annah B. Wyss, Katerina Trajanoska, Leanne K. Küpers, Fernando Rivadeneira, Martin D. Tobin, Stephanie J. London, Debbie A. Lawlor, Louise A. C. Millard and Abigail Fraser

Trends in life expectancy: did the gap between the healthy and the ill widen or close?

During the past decades, life expectancy has continued to increase in most high-income countries. Previous research suggests that improvements in life expectancy have primarily been driven by advances at the u...

Authors: Anna C. Meyer, Sven Drefahl, Anders Ahlbom, Mats Lambe and Karin Modig

Are environmental area characteristics at birth associated with overweight and obesity in school-aged children? Findings from the SLOPE (Studying Lifecourse Obesity PrEdictors) population-based cohort in the south of England

Geographical inequalities in overweight and obesity prevalence among children are well established in cross-sectional research. We aimed to examine how environmental area characteristics at birth are related t...

Authors: Sam Wilding, Nida Ziauddeen, Dianna Smith, Paul Roderick, Debbie Chase and Nisreen A. Alwan

Coronavirus: the spread of misinformation

Authors: Areeb Mian and Shujhat Khan

Obesogenic environments and obesity: a comment on ‘Are environmental area characteristics at birth associated with overweight and obesity in school-aged children? Findings from the SLOPE (Studying Lifecourse Obesity PrEdictors) population-based cohort in the south of England’

Authors: Matthew Hobbs and Duncan Radley

A citizen science study of short physical activity breaks at school: improvements in cognition and wellbeing with self-paced activity

School-based physical activity and running programmes, such as The Daily Mile™, are increasing in popularity globally. The aim of this research was to examine the acute impact of such classroom physical activi...

Authors: Josephine N. Booth, Ross A. Chesham, Naomi E. Brooks, Trish Gorely and Colin N. Moran

Safety of occasional ingestion of gluten in patients with celiac disease: a real-life study

Gluten-free diet (GFD) decreases the quality of life of celiac disease (CD) patients, who frequently ask to occasionally ingest gluten-containing food. We evaluated CD patients reporting voluntary and occasion...

Authors: Luca Elli, Karla Bascuñán, Lorenzo di Lernia, Maria Teresa Bardella, Luisa Doneda, Laura Soldati, Stefania Orlando, Francesca Ferretti, Vincenza Lombardo, Giulio Barigelletti, Alice Scricciolo, Sabrina Fabiano, Maurizio Vecchi and Leda Roncoroni

What further should be done to control COVID-19 outbreaks in addition to cases isolation and contact tracing measures?

Authors: Zhenjian He

Supporting social prescribing in primary care by linking people to local assets: a realist review

Social prescribing is a way of addressing the ‘non-medical’ needs (e.g. loneliness, debt, housing problems) that can affect people’s health and well-being. Connector schemes (e.g. delivered by care navigators ...

Authors: Stephanie Tierney, Geoff Wong, Nia Roberts, Anne-Marie Boylan, Sophie Park, Ruth Abrams, Joanne Reeve, Veronika Williams and Kamal R. Mahtani

Childhood vaccination against seasonal influenza – is there a risk of undesirable outcomes?

Authors: Marc Baguelin and W. John Edmunds

The Yin and Yang of dietary gluten transgressions in real-life scenarios of celiac patients

Authors: Aaron Lerner and Torsten Matthias

High-risk multimorbidity patterns on the road to cardiovascular mortality

Multimorbidity, the co-occurrence of two or more diseases in one patient, is a frequent phenomenon. Understanding how different diseases condition each other over the lifetime of a patient could significantly ...

Authors: Nils Haug, Carola Deischinger, Michael Gyimesi, Alexandra Kautzky-Willer, Stefan Thurner and Peter Klimek

Improving medical certification of cause of death: effective strategies and approaches based on experiences from the Data for Health Initiative

Accurate and timely cause of death (COD) data are essential for informed public health policymaking. Medical certification of COD generally provides the majority of COD data in a population and is an essential...

Authors: John D. Hart, Renee Sorchik, Khin Sandar Bo, Hafizur R. Chowdhury, Saman Gamage, Rohina Joshi, Viola Kwa, Hang Li, Buddhika P. K. Mahesh, Deirdre Mclaughlin, Lene Mikkelsen, Janet Miki, Roderick Napulan, Rasika Rampatige, Matthew Reeve, Carmina Sarmiento…

Better data for better outcomes: the importance of process mapping and management in CRVS systems

Despite attempts to apply standard methods proven to work in high-income nations, nearly all civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems in low- and middle-income countries are failing to achieve ad...

Authors: Daniel Cobos Muñoz, Don de Savigny, Renee Sorchik, Khin Sandar Bo, John Hart, Viola Kwa, Xavier Ngomituje, Nicola Richards and Alan D. Lopez

Where there is no hospital: improving the notification of community deaths

Globally, an estimated two-thirds of all deaths occur in the community, the majority of which are not attended by a physician and remain unregistered. Identifying and registering these deaths in civil registra...

Authors: Tim Adair, Megha Rajasekhar, Khin Sandar Bo, John Hart, Viola Kwa, Md. Ashfaqul Amin Mukut, Matthew Reeve, Nicola Richards, Margarita Ronderos-Torres, Don de Savigny, Daniel Cobos Muñoz and Alan D. Lopez

ANACONDA: a new tool to improve mortality and cause of death data

The need to monitor the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to have access to reliable and timely mortality data has created a strong demand in countries for tools that can assist them in this. ANACONDA (...

Authors: Lene Mikkelsen, Kim Moesgaard, Michael Hegnauer and Alan D. Lopez

Automated verbal autopsy: from research to routine use in civil registration and vital statistics systems

The majority of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) do not have adequate civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems to properly support health policy formulation. Verbal autopsy (VA), long use...

Authors: Riley H. Hazard, Mahesh P. K. Buddhika, John D. Hart, Hafizur R. Chowdhury, Sonja Firth, Rohina Joshi, Ferchito Avelino, Agnes Segarra, Deborah Carmina Sarmiento, Abdul Kalam Azad, Shah Ali Akbar Ashrafi, Khin Sandar Bo, Violoa Kwa and Alan D. Lopez

Reducing ignorance about who dies of what: research and innovation to strengthen CRVS systems

The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) agenda offers a major impetus to consolidate and accelerate development in civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems. Strengthening CRVS systems is an SDG ou...

Authors: Alan D. Lopez, Deirdre McLaughlin and Nicola Richards

Improving the quality of cause of death data for public health policy: are all ‘garbage’ codes equally problematic?

Authors: Mohsen Naghavi, Nicola Richards, Hafiz Chowdhury, James Eynstone-Hinkins, Elisabeth Franca, Michael Hegnauer, Ardeshir Khosravi, Lauren Moran, Lene Mikkelsen and Alan D. Lopez

Implementing and scaling verbal autopsies: into the unknown

Please see related article: http://​bmcmedicine.​biomedcentral.​com/​articles/​10.​1186/​s12916-020-01520-1.

Authors: Ross M. Boyce and Raquel Reyes

Addressing critical knowledge and capacity gaps to sustain CRVS system development

Improving civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems requires strengthening the capacity of the CRVS workforce. The improvement of data collection and diagnostic practices must be accompanied by ef...

Authors: Tim Adair, Nicola Richards, Avita Streatfield, Megha Rajasekhar, Deirdre McLaughlin and Alan D. Lopez

Quantifying the economic cost of antibiotic resistance and the impact of related interventions: rapid methodological review, conceptual framework and recommendations for future studies

Antibiotic resistance (ABR) poses a major threat to health and economic wellbeing worldwide. Reducing ABR will require government interventions to incentivise antibiotic development, prudent antibiotic use, in...

Authors: Mark Jit, Dorothy Hui Lin Ng, Nantasit Luangasanatip, Frank Sandmann, Katherine E. Atkins, Julie V. Robotham and Koen B. Pouwels

Improving the healthcare response to domestic violence and abuse in UK primary care: interrupted time series evaluation of a system-level training and support programme

It is unknown whether interventions known to improve the healthcare response to domestic violence and abuse (DVA)—a global health concern—are effective outside of a trial.

Authors: Alex Hardip Sohal, Gene Feder, Kambiz Boomla, Anna Dowrick, Richard Hooper, Annie Howell, Medina Johnson, Natalia Lewis, Clare Robinson, Sandra Eldridge and Chris Griffiths

Mapping the travel patterns of people with malaria in Bangladesh

Spread of malaria and antimalarial resistance through human movement present major threats to current goals to eliminate the disease. Bordering the Greater Mekong Subregion, southeast Bangladesh is a potential...

Authors: Ipsita Sinha, Abdullah Abu Sayeed, Didar Uddin, Amy Wesolowski, Sazid Ibna Zaman, M. Abul Faiz, Aniruddha Ghose, M. Ridwanur Rahman, Akramul Islam, Mohammad Jahirul Karim, Anjan Saha, M. Kamar Rezwan, Abul Khair Mohammad Shamsuzzaman, Sanya Tahmina Jhora, M. M. Aktaruzzaman, Hsiao-Han Chang…

Functional somatic disorders: discussion paper for a new common classification for research and clinical use

Functional somatic symptoms and disorders are common and complex phenomena involving both bodily and brain processes. They pose major challenges across medical specialties. These disorders are common and have ...

Authors: Christopher Burton, Per Fink, Peter Henningsen, Bernd Löwe and Winfried Rief

Anxiety and depression in children and adolescents with obesity: a nationwide study in Sweden

Anxiety and depression are more common in children with obesity than in children of normal weight, but it is unclear whether this association is independent of other known risk factors. Interpretation of resul...

Authors: Louise Lindberg, Emilia Hagman, Pernilla Danielsson, Claude Marcus and Martina Persson

The effectiveness of frequent antibiotic use in reducing the risk of infection-related hospital admissions: results from two large population-based cohorts

Previous research reported that individuals prescribed antibiotics frequently develop antimicrobial resistance. The objective of this study was to evaluate whether frequent antibiotic use is associated with re...

Authors: Tjeerd Pieter van Staa, Victoria Palin, Yan Li, William Welfare, Timothy W. Felton, Paul Dark and Darren M. Ashcroft

Q&A: The novel coronavirus outbreak causing COVID-19

Authors: Dale Fisher and David Heymann

Remission of autoimmune diabetes by anti-TCR combination therapies with anti-IL-17A or/and anti-IL-6 in the IDDM rat model of type 1 diabetes

The cytokine IL-17 is a key player in autoimmune processes, while the cytokine IL-6 is responsible for the chronification of inflammation. However, their roles in type 1 diabetes development are still unknown.

Authors: Anne Jörns, Daichi Ishikawa, Hiroki Teraoku, Toshiaki Yoshimoto, Dirk Wedekind and Sigurd Lenzen

Estimating the burden of iron deficiency among African children

Iron deficiency (ID) is a major public health burden in African children and accurate prevalence estimates are important for effective nutritional interventions. However, ID may be incorrectly estimated in Afr...

Authors: John Muthii Muriuki, Alexander J. Mentzer, Emily L. Webb, Alireza Morovat, Wandia Kimita, Francis M. Ndungu, Alex W. Macharia, Rosie J. Crane, James A. Berkley, Swaib A. Lule, Clare Cutland, Sodiomon B. Sirima, Amidou Diarra, Alfred B. Tiono, Philip Bejon, Shabir A. Madhi…

The duration of chemoprophylaxis against malaria after treatment with artesunate-amodiaquine and artemether-lumefantrine and the effects of pfmdr1 86Y and pfcrt 76T: a meta-analysis of individual patient data

The majority of Plasmodium falciparum malaria cases in Africa are treated with the artemisinin combination therapies artemether-lumefantrine (AL) and artesunate-amodiaquine (AS-AQ), with amodiaquine being also wi...

Authors: Michael T. Bretscher, Prabin Dahal, Jamie Griffin, Kasia Stepniewska, Quique Bassat, Elisabeth Baudin, Umberto D’Alessandro, Abdoulaye A. Djimde, Grant Dorsey, Emmanuelle Espié, Bakary Fofana, Raquel González, Elizabeth Juma, Corine Karema, Estrella Lasry, Bertrand Lell…

The role of cities in reducing the cardiovascular impacts of environmental pollution in low- and middle-income countries

As low- and middle-income countries urbanize and industrialize, they must also cope with pollution emitted from diverse sources.

Authors: Jill Baumgartner, Michael Brauer and Majid Ezzati

A landscape of genomic alterations at the root of a near-untreatable tuberculosis epidemic

Atypical Beijing genotype Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains are widespread in South Africa and have acquired resistance to up to 13 drugs on multiple occasions. It is puzzling that these strains have retained fi...

Authors: Marisa Klopper, Tim Hermanus Heupink, Grant Hill-Cawthorne, Elizabeth Maria Streicher, Anzaan Dippenaar, Margaretha de Vos, Abdallah Musa Abdallah, Jason Limberis, Matthias Merker, Scott Burns, Stefan Niemann, Keertan Dheda, James Posey, Arnab Pain and Robin Mark Warren

The risk of morbidity and mortality following recurrent malaria in Papua, Indonesia: a retrospective cohort study

An acute episode of malaria can be followed by multiple recurrent episodes either due to re-infection, recrudescence of a partially treated parasite or, in the case of Plasmodium vivax or P. ovale, relapse from t...

Authors: Saber Dini, Nicholas M. Douglas, Jeanne Rini Poespoprodjo, Enny Kenangalem, Paulus Sugiarto, Ian D. Plumb, Ric N. Price and Julie A. Simpson

Measuring resilience prospectively as the speed of affect recovery in daily life: a complex systems perspective on mental health

There is growing evidence that mental disorders behave like complex dynamic systems. Complex dynamic systems theory states that a slower recovery from small perturbations indicates a loss of resilience of a sy...

Authors: Anna Kuranova, Sanne H. Booij, Claudia Menne-Lothmann, Jeroen Decoster, Ruud van Winkel, Philippe Delespaul, Marc De Hert, Catherine Derom, Evert Thiery, Bart P. F. Rutten, Nele Jacobs, Jim van Os, Johanna T. W. Wigman and Marieke Wichers

C-reactive protein as a potential biomarker for disease progression in dengue: a multi-country observational study

Dengue infection can cause a wide spectrum of clinical outcomes. The severe clinical manifestations occur sufficiently late in the disease course, during day 4–6 of illness, to allow a window of opportunity fo...

Authors: Nguyen Lam Vuong, Huynh Thi Le Duyen, Phung Khanh Lam, Dong Thi Hoai Tam, Nguyen Van Vinh Chau, Nguyen Van Kinh, Ngoun Chanpheaktra, Lucy Chai See Lum, Ernesto Pleités, Nick Keith Jones, Cameron Paul Simmons, Kerstin Rosenberger, Thomas Jaenisch, Christine Halleux, Piero Luigi Olliaro, Bridget Wills…

A cluster-randomized field trial to reduce cesarean section rates with a multifaceted intervention in Shanghai, China

Cesarean section (CS) rate has risen dramatically and stayed at a very high level in China over the past two to three decades. Given the short- and long-term adverse effects of CS, effective strategies are nee...

Authors: Lulu Zhang, Lin Zhang, Meng Li, Jie Xi, Xiaohua Zhang, Zhenni Meng, Ying Wang, Huaping Li, Xiaohua Liu, Feihua Ju, Yuping Lu, Huijun Tang, Xianju Qin, Yanhong Ming, Rong Huang, Guohong Li…

The complex neurobiology of resilient functioning after childhood maltreatment

Childhood maltreatment has been associated with significant impairment in social, emotional and behavioural functioning later in life. Nevertheless, some individuals who have experienced childhood maltreatment...

Authors: Konstantinos Ioannidis, Adrian Dahl Askelund, Rogier A. Kievit and Anne-Laura van Harmelen

Effect of tuberculosis screening and retention interventions on early antiretroviral therapy mortality in Botswana: a stepped-wedge cluster randomized trial

Undiagnosed tuberculosis (TB) remains the most common cause of HIV-related mortality. Xpert MTB/RIF (Xpert) is being rolled out globally to improve TB diagnostic capacity. However, previous Xpert impact trials...

Authors: Andrew F. Auld, Tefera Agizew, Anikie Mathoma, Rosanna Boyd, Anand Date, Sherri L. Pals, Christopher Serumola, Unami Mathebula, Heather Alexander, Tedd V. Ellerbrock, Goabaone Rankgoane-Pono, Pontsho Pono, James C. Shepherd, Katherine Fielding, Alison D. Grant and Alyssa Finlay

Mapping malaria seasonality in Madagascar using health facility data

Many malaria-endemic areas experience seasonal fluctuations in case incidence as Anopheles mosquito and Plasmodium parasite life cycles respond to changing environmental conditions. Identifying location-specific ...

Authors: Michele Nguyen, Rosalind E. Howes, Tim C.D. Lucas, Katherine E. Battle, Ewan Cameron, Harry S. Gibson, Jennifer Rozier, Suzanne Keddie, Emma Collins, Rohan Arambepola, Su Yun Kang, Chantal Hendriks, Anita Nandi, Susan F. Rumisha, Samir Bhatt, Sedera A. Mioramalala…