Recent years have witnessed the tremendous growth of the online social media. In China, Weibo, a Twitter-like service, has attracted more than 500 million users in less than five years. Connected by online social ties, different users might share similar affective states. We find that the correlation of anger among users is significantly higher than that of joy. While the correlation of sadness...

BACKGROUND Adequate nutrition is needed to ensure optimum growth and development of infants and young children. Understanding of the risk factors for stunting and severe stunting among children aged less than five years in North Maluku province is important to guide Indonesian government public health planners to develop nutrition programs and interventions in a post conflict area. The purpose ...

OBJECTIVE To estimate the smoking attributable medical expenditures and productivity loss of people aged 35 and over in Taiwan in 2001 from a societal viewpoint. METHODS A prevalence based approach was used to estimate smoking attributable costs. Epidemiological parameters were obtained from two follow up studies and government statistics. Data on medical care utilisation and expenditure were...

BACKGROUND This study was designed to assess the prevalence of smoking at time of lung cancer diagnosis in a surgical patient cohort referred for cardiothoracic surgery. METHODS Retrospective study of lung cancer patients (n = 626) referred to three cardiothoracic surgeons at a tertiary care medical center in Southern California from January 2006 to December 2008. Relationships among years of...

OBJECTIVES The main objective of this study was to explore differences in mortality patterns among two large immigrant groups in Germany: one from Turkey and the other from the former Soviet Union (FSU). To this end, we investigated indicators of premature mortality. DESIGN This study was conducted as a retrospective population-based study based on mortality register linkage. Using mortality ...

AIMS AND BACKGROUND There are several barriers to smoking cessation that are unique to women. Compared to men, women report lower levels of motivation to quit and greater perceived difficulty with cessation. However, recent studies might favor commitment by women to quit through higher risk perception related e.g. to the development of premature facial wrinkling or the decrease in mammographic ...

BACKGROUND The study of mortality differentials by class or socio-economic group is underdeveloped in Ireland in comparison to other countries. The work that has been done has used a standardized mortality ratio (SMR) methodology to measure deaths. There has been no previous work exploring the social gradient in years of potential life lost (YPLL) in Ireland. METHODS The aim is to investigate...

BACKGROUND Despite the burden of acute respiratory illnesses (ARI) among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children being a substantial cause of childhood morbidity and associated costs to families, communities and the health system, data on disease burden in urban children are lacking. Consequently evidence-based decision-making, data management guidelines, health resourcing for primary he...

BACKGROUND The Fagerström Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND) and Heaviness of Smoking Index (HSI) are extensively used methods to measure the severity of nicotine dependence among smokers. The primary objective of the study was to assess the nicotine dependence amongst currently smoking Nepalese population. METHODS A community based cross-sectional study was conducted between August and Nove...

BACKGROUND Measuring the impact of competing risks of death on society is important for setting public health policy and allocating resources. However, various indicators may result in inconsistent conclusions. The potential gains in life expectancy (PGLE) by elimination of deaths from HIV/AIDS, diseases of the heart and malignant neoplasms were compared to the years of potential life lost (YPL...