Caribbean

AIMS: The aim of this study is to compare quality of diabetes care in people with type 2 diabetes by ethnicity, in Scotland. METHODS: Using a linked national diabetes registry, we included 162,122 people newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes between 2009 and 2018. We compared receipt of nine guideline indicated processes of care in the first-year post-diabetes diagnosis using logistic regression, comparing eight ethnicity groups to the White group. We compared annual receipt of HbA1c and eye screening during the entire follow-up using generalised linear mixed effects...

Chagas cardiomyopathy (ChC) presents many biopsychosocial complexities, highlighting the need to have patient self-report questions. This study demonstrates the scope of the use of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) in patients with ChC and highlights the main research gaps. This is a scoping review and the search strategy was performed in the Online Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System (MEDLINE), Excerpta Medica database (EMBASE), Accumulated Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Cochrane Central, Latin American Literature and Caribbean in Health Sciences (LILACS) and Diagnostic Test Accuracy (DITA)...

Choledochal cysts are uncommon dilatations of the biliary tree. Giant choledochal cysts are those that exceed a maximum diameter of 10cm. Our case describes a female infant who presented to our paediatric surgery department with a three-day history of vomiting, abdominal distention, pale stool, and irritability. On palpation, she was found to have a large abdominal mass and the computed tomography (CT) scan showed a giant choledochal cyst. The patient underwent laparotomy with cholecystectomy, choledochal cyst drainage and complete excision, with hepaticojejunosotomy...

Latin America and the Caribbean has made significant progress toward universal health coverage (UHC), but health spending efficiency, equity, and sustainability remain major challenges-and progress is hindered by the difficult macroeconomic context. Health technology assessment (HTA) can make resource allocation more efficient and equitable when systematically used to inform coverage decisions. We highlight five considerations that need to be taken into account to realize the full potential of HTA in the LAC region: i) explicitly link HTA to decision-making and anchor it in legal frameworks, ii) systematically incorporate the opportunity cost as a core principle into HTA activities informing coverage decisions, iii) make the internationally available evidence more fit for purpose for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), iv) incorporate pragmatism as a key principle of HTA activities in the region, and v) institutionalize the monitoring of HTA processes and results...

BACKGROUND: Our objective is to describe the current prevalence and death of ischemic heart disease (IHD) in women of childbearing age (WCBA) at the global, regional, and national levels and to analyze its temporal trends from 1990 to 2019. METHODS: WCBA was defined as women aged 15-49 years. Estimates and 95% Uncertainty Intervals (UI) of IHD prevalence and death numbers for seven age groups were extracted from the 2019 Global Burden of Disease Study. The age-standardized prevalence and death rate (ASPR and ASDR) of IHD in WCBA was estimated using the direct age-standardization method...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

Exploring the spatio-temporal variations of COVID-19 transmission and its potential determinants could provide a deeper understanding of the dynamics of disease spread. This study aimed to investigate the spatio-temporal spread of COVID-19 infections in England, and examine its associations with socioeconomic, demographic and environmental risk factors. We obtained weekly reported COVID-19 cases from 7 March 2020 to 26 March 2022 at Middle Layer Super Output Area (MSOA) level in mainland England from publicly available datasets...

Tropical Small Island Developing States (SIDS), such as those in the Caribbean, are among the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, most notably sea-level rise. The current sea-level rise in the Caribbean is 3.40 ± 0.3 mm/year (1993-2019), which is similar to the 3.25 ± 0.4 mm/year global mean sea-level (GMSL) rise (1993-2018). Throughout the year, Caribbean seasonal sea-level variability is found to respond to sea surface temperature variability. Over the past few decades, the trend in Caribbean Sea-level rise is also found to be variable...

The lifespan is influenced by adverse childhood experiences that create predispositions to poor health outcomes. Here we propose an allostatic framework of childhood experiences and their impact on health across the lifespan, focusing on Latin American and Caribbean countries. This region is marked by significant social and health inequalities nested in environmental and social stressors, such as exposure to pollution, violence, and nutritional deficiencies, which critically influence current and later-life health outcomes...

The mass mortality event of the herbivorous sea urchin Diadema antillarum in 1983-1984 has been a major contributor to the diminished resilience of coral reefs throughout the Caribbean. The reduction in grazing pressure resulted in algae proliferation, which inhibited coral recruitment after disturbances such as disease, hurricanes, pollution and climatic change induced marine heat waves. Natural recovery of D. antillarum after the 1983-1984 die-off has been slow. However, the few locations with recovered populations exhibit signs of improvement in coral reef health, prompting interest in D...

This Data in Brief (DiB) article addresses the relationships among individuals' transport habits, perceptions, and attitudes regarding transport-related pollution, as well as their willingness to act for environmental change. There are presented descriptive statistics, basic comparisons, and bivariate correlations among the core variables of the study. Additionally, the attached dataset appends information from a nationwide sample of 1,250 citizens in the Dominican Republic, with sex, age and habitat distribution proportional to the national census...

This study compares the humoral immune response of a cohort of renal transplant recipients (RTRs), in Trinidad & Tobago following two-dose primary immunization with non-mRNA vaccines amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. RTRs along with healthy, age-and gender-matched controls received either the adenoviral vector vaccine, AstraZeneca-Vaxzevria (AZ) or the inactivated vaccine, Beijing CNBG-BBIBP- CorV/Sinopharm (SP). Samples were taken after completion of a two-dose primary immunization during the period November 2021 to December 2021, at a mean interval of 138 days following immunization...

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted mental health in the general population in Britain. Ethnic minority people suffered disproportionately, in terms of health and economic outcomes, which may contribute to poorer mental health. We compare the prevalence of depression and anxiety across 18 ethnic groups in Britain during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Secondary analysis of cross-sectional data (February-November 2021) from 12,161 participants aged 18-60 years old (N with data on outcomes = 11,540 for depression & 11,825 for anxiety), obtained from the Evidence for Equality National Survey (EVENS)...

As the world becomes warmer and precipitation patterns less predictable, organisms will experience greater heat and water stress. It is crucial to understand the factors that predict variation in thermal and hydric physiology among species. This study focuses on investigating the relationships between thermal and hydric diversity, and their environmental predictors, in a clade of Hispaniolan anole lizards, which are part of a broader Caribbean adaptive radiation. This clade, the 'cybotoid' anoles, occupies a wide range of thermal habitats (from sea level to several kilometers above it) and hydric habitats (such as xeric scrub, broadleaf forest, and pine forest), setting up the possibility for ecophysiological specialization among species...

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to assess direct costs of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) without hospital admission versus PCI with hospital admission longer than 24 hours in a private hospital-institutional perspective in the Dominican Republic in 2022. METHODS: This study has a comparative approach based on a prospective cross-sectional partial-cost analysis. We evaluated the direct costs of 10 patients from PCI without hospital admission approach and 10 patients from a hospital admission longer than 24 hours as a control group...

Many Caribbean coral reefs are near collapse due to various threats. An emerging threat, stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD), is spreading across the Western Atlantic and Caribbean. Data from the U.S. Virgin Islands reveal how SCTLD spread has reduced the abundance of susceptible coral and crustose coralline algae and increased cyanobacteria, fire coral, and macroalgae. A Caribbean-wide structural equation model demonstrates versatility in reef fish and associations with rugosity independent of live coral...

UNLABELLED: Resistance to ceftazidime-avibactam (CZA) due to Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPC) variants is increasing worldwide. We characterized two CZA-resistant clinical Klebsiella pneumoniae strains by antimicrobial susceptibility test, conjugation assays, and WGS. Isolates belonged to ST258 and ST45, and produced a KPC-31 and a novel variant KPC-197, respectively. The novel KPC variant presents a deletion of two amino acids on the Ω-loop (del_168-169_EL) and an insertion of two amino acids in position 274 (Ins_274_DS)...

The Caribbean region has a diverse population of about 40 million people, spread over 13 sovereign states. This review aims to describe the existing studies on hereditary hearing loss (HL) in the Caribbean population. We systematically reviewed scientific articles on HL prevalence, genetic causes, technology use, and environmental effects in Caribbean nations and the Caribbean diaspora in the United States. Key findings show that HL rates, with diverse genetic variables, vary across Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic...

Caribbean small island developing states are becoming increasingly vulnerable to compounding disasters, prominently featuring climate-related hazards and pandemic diseases, which exacerbate existing barriers to cancer control in the region. We describe the complexities of cancer prevention and control efforts throughout the Caribbean small island developing states, including the unique challenges of people diagnosed with cancer in the region. We highlight potential solutions and strategies that concurrently address disaster adaptation and cancer control...

OBJECTIVES: Diabetes is a non-communicable disease where the patient's glucose level in the blood is too high. Diabetes is prevalent among ethnic minority groups in the United Kingdom (UK). Type 2 diabetes is a major cause of premature mortality in England. Unfortunately, the lifestyle of these minority groups has become a barrier to diabetes healthcare treatment. The timely intervention of programmes targeting risk factors associated with diabetes may reduce the prevalence of diabetes among these ethnic minority groups...