Welcome to Biomedicine & Prevention

Biomedicine & Prevention is a peer-reviewed, open access journal that publishes original research articles as well as review articles in several areas of the life sciences. The journal’s Editorial Board covers several subject areas mainly focusing on prevention and health promotion. Prevention is covered not as an exclusive health competence discipline but in a holistic way, including environmental sciences, engineering, physics, legal implications and legislation.

Anaemia and prolonged length of stay: a retrospective analysis of a 1-year cohort of inpatients.

Anaemia is a very common pathologic condition and is associated with frailty in the elderly and with development of multiple-comorbidities. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of anaemia as an independent factor on inpatients length of stay (LOS) and mortality. Anaemia, particularly chronic anaemia, showed to be a strong independent predictor of prolonged LOS. Due to its chronic nature and its multi-factorial pathogenesis, it needs to be managed with a multi-dimensional approach, with structured paths connecting the hospitals to primary health care professionals at the outpatient level.

Frailty in Emergency Departments: a new challenge? A risk factor and an unsolved health demand marker

Frailty is a majorn concern in Publich Health. Frail elderly in ED represent a huge problem in terms of services organization, quality of life and outcome. Screening frailty in the ED represents one of the most important issue to recognize patients at major risk of adverse outcomes. Indeed, frail elderly in ED have a higher risk of hospitalization and all negative consequences related to it.

Review of upstream Petrochemical Occupational Exposure and Risk Personnel and Ambient Sampling

Aim of the study was to assess the occupational risk due to petroleum facility exposure, by sampling at the Oil and Gas plant in Southern Italy on both personnel and area. For chemicals with no available TLV, an extensive review of scientific literature on the issue was achieved, in order to define international benchmarks, for comparison. Concerning benzene, neither the outdoor area maximum value of 0.072 mg/m3 nor the personal maximum value of 0.22 mg/m3 were over the occupational exposure limit (OEL) at the Oil and Gas center plant. Similarly, the indoor area maximum value of 0.055 mg/m3 was below the OEL. Also the indoor and outdoor maximums for total VOC were below the LEED requirement, and the total VOC outdoor personal maximum was slightly above the LEED requirement. However, since the LEED requirement is for indoor air quality, this recommendation is not directly applicable to the determined total VOC maximum for outdoor personal samples.

The "ease of use" of vaccines: a simulation study of factors impacting the efficiency of the organizational models of vaccination centers.

Since health care institutions are particularly concerned with resource savings, optimizing the efficiency of vaccination point of dispensing is a significant policy priority during epidemics or low-resource settings. In this regard, the decision to adopt proper organizational models and take the ease-of-use of vaccines into account is of paramount importance for resource-saving. Evidence is therefore urgently needed for healthcare decision-makers. In this paper we propose the use a simulation optimization approach. In particular, as a specific case study, we show how it could be possible to obtain up to 17.5% time saving during a meningococcal vaccination session and overall cost-savings (e.g., up to 24M Euros in real world vaccination scenarios).

Preventing child mortality through the enhancement of integrated community-based programmes for under-five malnutrition management: results from the Rainbow Project study in Zambia

Childhood malnutrition remains a major public health problem throughout the developing world. When CMAM is not fully covered or scaled-up in all its components by local health authorities, nutritional programs already existing and implemented in the field hold a great potential for cooperating to children treatment and care, not neglecting any form of child malnutrition. Identification of main gaps in programmes’ performance, with targeted and sustainable changes made accordingly, even when they seem small, can have high impact on programmes’ outcomes, therefore saving even more children lives.

Legionella detection in hot water distribution systems of closed community and tourist accommodation facilities in the Lazio Region, Italy: risk assessment and prevention

Legionella colonization in hot water systems belongs to a great number of factors, while the prevention of infection cases is based, above all, on the correct management of water systems, which includes several continuous disinfection and acute decontamination systems. The aim of our study was to establish Legionella prevalence and load in different types of structures and evaluate the effectiveness of the decontamination treatments most frequently carried on in our territory. We collected hot water samples from the distal points of sports centers, tourist accommodation facilities, retirement homes and group homes. All water samples were tested by culture method for the presence of Legionella, and species and serogroup identification were carried out through Latex test and PCR. For each water sample we determined also the Heterotrophic Plate Count (HPC) at 22 °C and 37 °C. Statistics were performed through STATA. Legionella was found in 26% samples collected from 29% of the inspected structures. L. pneumophila sg1 was detected in 12.4% of samples, while L. pneumophila sg2-14 in 11.6%. The bacterium was more commonly found in Hotels’ (57%), Sports centers’ (41%) and Retirement homes’ (29%) hot water systems. We often identified a high microbial contamination and a significantly higher prevalence of Legionella for both intermediate values of HPC 22 °C and HPC 37 °C. Legionella was still found in the water systems after decontamination in 68% of inspected facilities.The high prevalence of Legionella found represents a health risk for general population, suggesting that the management of the water systems of private facilities often needs to be improved.

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