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Survey Tool and Guidance: Rapid, simple, flexible behavioural insights on COVID-19

World Health Organization WHO (2020) C_WHO

This document provides guidance to Member States in the WHO European Region that wish to conduct behavioural insights studies related to COVID-19. Studies can be used to monitor public knowledge, risk perceptions, behaviours and trust with the overall aim to inform national COVID-19 outbreak respons ... e measures, including policies, interventions and communications. more

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Climate Change and Pollen Allergies

Damialis, A.; Traidl-Hoffmann, C.; Treudler, R. (2019) CC

Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change pp 47–66 This chapter reviews the emerging importance of pollen allergies in relation to ongoing climate change. Allergic diseases have been increasing in prevalence over the last decades, partly as the result of the impact of climate change. ... Increased sensitisation rates and more severe symptoms have been the partial outcome of: increased pollen production of wind-pollinated plants resulting in long-term increased abundance of pollen in the air we breathe; earlier shifts of airborne pollen seasons making occurrence of allergic symptoms harder to predict and deal with efficiently; increased allergenicity of pollen causing more severe health effects in allergic individuals; introduction of new, invasive allergenic plant species causing new sensitisations; environment-environment interactions, such as plants and hosted microorganisms, i.e. fungi and bacteria, which comprise a complex and dynamic system, with additive, presently unforeseeable influences on human health; environment-human interactions, as the consequence of a combination of environmental factors, like air pollution, global warming, urbanisation and microclimatic variability, which create a multi-resolution spatiotemporal system that requires new processing technologies and huge data inflow in order to be thoroughly investigated. We suggest that novel, real-time, personalised pollen information services, like mobile-app risk alerts, must be developed to provide the optimum first line of allergy management. more

How to respond to vocal vaccine deniers in public: best practice guidance
recommended

World Health Organization WHO, Regional Office of Europe (2021) C_WHO

This guidance document provides basic principles for a spokesperson of any health authority on how to respond to vocal vaccine deniers. The suggestions are based on psychological research on persuasion, on research in public health, communication studies and on WHO risk communication guidelines.

2020 Brazilian Thoracic Association recommendations for the management of asthma

Menezes Pizzichini, M. M.; de Carvalho-Pinto, R. M.; Delfini Cançado, J. E.; et al. (2020) CC2

The pharmacological management of asthma has changed considerably in recent decades, as it has come to be understood that it is a complex, heterogeneous disease with different phenotypes and endotypes. It is now clear that the goal of asthma treatment should be to achieve and maintain control of the ... disease, as well as to minimize the risks (of exacerbations, disease instability, accelerated loss of lung function, and adverse treatment effects). That requires an approach that is personalized in terms of the pharmacological treatment, patient education, written action plan, training in correct inhaler use, and review of the inhaler technique at each office visit. A panel of 22 pulmonologists was invited to perform a critical review of recent evidence of pharmacological treatment of asthma and to prepare this set of recommendations, a treatment guide tailored to use in Brazil. The topics or questions related to the most significant changes in concepts, and consequently in the management of asthma in clinical practice, were chosen by a panel of experts. To formulate these recommendations, we asked each expert to perform a critical review of a topic or to respond to a question, on the basis of evidence in the literature. In a second phase, three experts discussed and structured all texts submitted by the others. That was followed by a third phase, in which all of the experts reviewed and discussed each recommendation. These recommendations, which are intended for physicians involved in the treatment of asthma, apply to asthma patients of all ages. more

Recomendações para o manejo da asma da Sociedade Brasileira de Pneumologia e Tisiologia – 2020

Menezes Pizzichini, M. M.; de Carvalho-Pinto, R. M.; Delfini Cançado, J. E.; et al. (2020) CC2