Medical use of cannabis in Switzerland: analysis of approved exceptional licences (Publications)
files of approved requests. We extracted the duration of the licence, the year it was granted, and the payer of the therapy. At the level of the patient we collected the date of birth, sex, region of residence [...] AIMS OF THE STUDY: In recent years, the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) granted exceptional licenses for the medical use of cannabinoids, typically for 6 months with possible extensions. A [...] cannabinoids. We aimed to study medical uses of cannabinoids as part of the...
Spread and establishment of <em>Aedes albopictus</em> in southern Switzerland between 2003 and 2014: an analysis of oviposition data and weather... (Publications)
albopictus, is a highly invasive mosquito species of public health importance. In the wake of its arrival in neighbouring Italy the authorities of the canton of Ticino in southern Switzerland initiated a s [...] explored the unique data set, compiled from 2003 to 2014, to analyse the local dynamic of introduction and establishment of Ae. albopictus, its relative density in relation to precipitation and temperature [...] fewer eggs laid during periods of intensive precipitation. In the North, the...
Source apportionment of population representative samples of PM2.5 in three European cities using structural equation modelling (Publications)
Apportionment of urban particulate matter (PM) to sources is central for air quality management and efficient reduction of the substantial public health risks associated with fine particles (PM(2.5)). [...] significant source of resuspended particles that chemically resemble Earth's crust and that are not affected by development of cleaner motor technologies. A substantial fraction of urban ambient PM originates [...] secondary particles formed from gaseous emissions of mainly sulphur, nitrogen...
Evaluation of nanopore sequencing for <em>Mycobacterium tuberculosis </em>drug susceptibility testing and outbreak investigation: a genomic analysis (Publications)
precision of 99.3% (IQR 99.1-99.6) and recall of 90.2% (88.1-94.2) compared with a precision of 99.6% (99.4-99.7) and recall of 91.9% (87.6-98.6) using the Illumina COMPASS pipeline. Using a threshold of 12 SNPs [...] used independently or together by public health laboratories performing M tuberculosis genotypic DST and outbreak investigations. As a result, clinical and public health institutions making decisions on [...] Illumina technology is used by most public health laboratories; however,...
Human benefits of animal interventions for zoonosis control (Publications)
reservoir. In this respect, ministries of health question whether the public health sector really benefits from interventions for livestock. Cross-sectoral assessments of interventions such as mass vaccination [...] vaccination for brucellosis in Mongolia or vaccination of dogs for rabies in Chad consider human and animal health sectors from a societal economic perspective. Combining the total societal benefits, the intervention [...] Although industrialized countries have been able to contain...
Smoking cessation in pharmacies: evaluation of the smoking cessation campaign "Tobacco adieu!" among pharmacists in Basel (Publications)
this context. Expansion of this programme in public pharmacies seems justified. However, continuing education and a motivated team are the prerequisites for successful counselling of smokers in pharmacies [...] is a major health problem in Switzerland. Efforts to reduce tobacco consumption include different preventive strategies. Although dispensary pharmacists have increased their efforts in health promotion [...] pharmacies as a low threshold offer in Basle in 1996. This paper assesses the...
The economic impact of schistosomiasis (Publications)
economic impact of schistosomiasis and the underlying tradeoffs between water resources development and public health concerns have yet to be quantified. Schistosomiasis exerts large health, social and financial [...] it is both a driver and a consequence of poverty. It further quantifies the tradeoff between the economics of water infrastructures and their impact on public health. Although we focus on Burkina Faso, our [...] densities of the intermediate host snails of schistosomiasis as...
The hidden economic burden of air pollution-related morbidity: evidence from the Aphekom project (Publications)
Morbidity effects thus impact the health system more directly and strongly than previously believed. These findings may clarify the full extent of benefits from any public health or environmental policy involving [...] Public decision-makers commonly use health impact assessments (HIA) to quantify the impacts of various regulation policies. However, standard HIAs do not consider that chronic diseases (CDs) can be both [...] away, and if annual mean concentrations of both PM10 and NO2-taken as...
Socio-environmental modifiers of heat-related mortality in eight Swiss cities: a case time series analysis (Publications)
In the light of growing urbanization and projected temperature increases due to climate change, heat-related mortality in urban areas is a pressing public health concern. Heat exposure and vulnerability [...] features and socioeconomic factors. This study examined the effect modification of the temperature-mortality association of three socio-environmental factors in eight Swiss cities and population subgroups
Identification of risk factors for rabies exposure and access to post-exposure prophylaxis in Chad (Publications)
Rabies remains a global public health problem, with Africa as one of the most affected continents. Endemic transmission in the unvaccinated domestic dog population of developing countries leads to many [...] context. During the health facility study, 1540 bite cases were registered, of which 58% originated from urban areas and 42% from rural areas. Demographic characteristics of the health facility data subset [...] death in humans due to lack of access to existing effective prevention tools....