Background: Arithmetic average values about disease burden across aging adults are often used in the absence of having reliable access to real life data. Those values however assume group homogeneity in characteristics such as age, sex, disease incidence rates, or costs. The question arises about how much the overall outcome results, like total disease management costs, obtained under those homogeneity assumptions may deviate from real-world population data that may manifest non-homogeneous distributions. Without being able to have easily access to those real-world data and for getting a good approximation of the deviations in outcome results, a calculation method is proposed that should also indicate which factor may have a dominant influence on the cost difference between homogeneous and non-homogeneous results. The method should help focus the research for obtaining more accurate information from real-world data in subsequent steps that better estimate control gain of infectious diseases through new interventions. Methods: The method explores, as the outcome measure to assess, the relative deviation in overall infection management costs measured with homogeneity versus non-homogeneity design in the datasets of aging adults. Population modelling is used with an Extended Sensitivity Analysis Plan (ESAP) that simulates non-homogeneous, but realistic, approximates of age-specific distributional spread in demography, infectious disease, and its severity in people aged > 65 years old over a 1-year period in univariant and multivariant assessments. Disease management costs are adjusted for 3 infection severity levels with increased differences between them using multiplication factors up to 20 times the initial unit cost. Results: The assumed full homogenous dataset systematically overestimates up to 10% the overall disease management cost in aging adults when compared with a group simulated with non-homogeneous, but realistic distributions for age, infection, severity, and cost, mainly due to the difference in the demographic age composition. However, overall costs of a proposed homogeneous condition tend to underestimate the spending of non-homogeneous conditions when the reference case has a partially homogeneous setup instead of a full condition or when the demographic age-change in the non-homogeneous condition evolves towards age-demographic homogeneity (same number of people at each age with increasing age), a likely evolution in the coming 15 to 30 years. Conclusion: Assessing the current cost burden of infectious diseases in aging adults must consider exact age-composition of the demography, the type of infection spread with severity levels in function of age and their cost differences between severity levels to avoid unrealistic cost estimates when assuming unreal homogeneous group conditions that could currently overestimate the real costs.
The Health and Social Care Act 2012 implemented the most central and divisive structural changes to the NHS since the service’s inception
Background: The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) has been a stigmatized illness as well as a medical condition. Attitudes toward HIV/AIDS testing have been shown to suggest an individual’s predisposition to test for HIV. The objectives of this study were to develop an instrument examining the attitudes towards HIV/AIDS by adapting and validating the HIV Antibody Testing Attitude Scale for use in HIV self-testing among young people in Nigeria.
Background: Epidemics are devastating as they cause mortality, and morbidity and are associated with a lot of stigma. Uganda experienced an outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) for 4 months from September 2022 to January 2023. Ebola Virus, from the filoviridae family, is a highly contagious viral hemorrhagic infection with a mortality rate of up to 90%. Of 164 cases, 18 were health workers, of whom 7 died. Health professions students formed a part of these health workers, and are frontline providers in managing epidemics through community interventions such as prevention, preparedness, and emergency response. They are often involved in initial clinical care, and are also custodians of knowledge, availing a large workforce that can be leveraged amongst their non-medical communities. This project targeted prevention, preparedness, and response to the current and future EVD epidemics within Mbarara through capacity building and information sharing led by health professional students.
Long Covid is an ongoing health hazard to many patients who had an original Covid-19 diagnosis. Whilst there has been much debate about the phenotypic nature of the disease, the implications of these among differing populations is yet to be comprehensively reviewed. This is particularly important for low-to-middle-income countries such as Brazil, that have limited resources and infrastructure within their healthcare systems to manage patients long-term that have had Covid-19 and Long covid. Brazil have had to stare at the Covid abyss with over-crowding of their intensive care units that left their healthcare system in chaos. The ongoing long-Covid case numbers therefore are exacerbating an ongoing issue for patients, policy makers and healthcare professionals. In line with this, and the population density of Brazil, we have explored the prevalence of long-Covid in one of the largest municipalities in northeast Brazil to report active patient and clinical reported outcomes that would enable a better understanding of the next steps require to curb these issues to a manageable situation. Methods: We designed a two-step approach to demonstrate the wider implications of long-covid using a commentary and a retrospective, cross-sectional study using realworld data. Findings: In this commentary we highlight the current issues and potential barriers Brazil faces. We will follow this up with a retrospective, cross-sectional study using real world data to report on the prevalence of long covid within 1,600 patients.
