Early-life environment and the risk of eczema at 2 years-Meta-analyses of six Finnish birth cohorts.

BACKGROUND: Urban-related nature exposures are suggested to contribute to the rising prevalence of allergic diseases despite little supporting evidence. Our aim was to evaluate the impact of 12 land cover classes and two greenness indices around homes at birth on the development of doctor-diagnosed eczema by the age of 2 years, and the influence of birth season. METHODS: Data from 5085 children were obtained from six Finnish birth cohorts. Exposures were provided by the Coordination of Information on the Environment in three predefined grid sizes. Adjusted logistic regression was run in each cohort, and pooled effects across cohorts were estimated using fixed or random effect meta-analyses. RESULTS: In meta-analyses, neither greenness indices (NDVI or VCDI, 250 m × 250 m grid size) nor residential or industrial/commercial areas were associated with eczema by age of 2 years. Coniferous forest (adjusted odds ratio 1.19; 95% confidence interval 1.01-1.39 for the middle and 1.16; 0.98-1.28 for the highest vs. lowest tertile) and mixed forest (1.21; 1.02-1.42 middle vs. lowest tertile) were associated with elevated eczema risk. Higher coverage with agricultural areas tended to associate with elevated eczema risk (1.20; 0.98-1.48 vs. none). In contrast, transport infrastructure was inversely associated with eczema (0.77; 0.65-0.91 highest vs. lowest tertile). CONCLUSION: Greenness around the home during early childhood does not seem to protect from eczema. In contrast, nearby coniferous and mixed forests may increase eczema risk, as well as being born in spring close to forest or high-green areas.

Assessing restoration potential of semi-natural grasslands by landscape change trajectories.

Species-rich semi-natural grasslands have rapidly declined and become fragmented in Northern Europe due to ceased traditional agricultural practices and animal husbandry. Restoration actions have been introduced in many places to improve the habitat conditions and increase the area to prevent any further losses of their ecological values. However, given the limited resources and long time span needed for successful restoration, it is essential to target activities on sites having a suitable initial state and where the effects of restoration are most beneficial for the habitat network. In this paper we present a conceptual framework for evaluating the restoration potential of partially overgrown and selectively managed semi-natural grasslands in a moderately transformed agricultural environment in south-western Finland. On the basis of the spatio-temporal landscape trajectory analysis, we construct potential restoration scenarios based on expected semi-natural grassland characteristics that are derived from land productivity, detected grassland continuum, and date of overgrowth. These scenarios are evaluated using landscape metrics, their feasibility is discussed and the effects of potential restoration are compared to the present extent of open semi-natural grasslands. Our results show that landscape trajectory analysis and scenario construction can be valuable tools for the restoration planning of semi-natural grasslands with limited resources. The approach should therefore be considered as an essential tool to find the most optimal restoration sites and to pre-evaluate the effects.

Habitat fragmentation and reproductive success: a structural equation modelling approach.

1. There is great interest on the effects of habitat fragmentation, whereby habitat is lost and the spatial configuration of remaining habitat patches is altered, on individual breeding performance. However, we still lack consensus of how this important process affects reproductive success, and whether its effects are mainly due to reduced fecundity or nestling survival. 2. The main reason for this may be the way that habitat fragmentation has been previously modelled. Studies have treated habitat loss and altered spatial configuration as two independent processes instead of as one hierarchical and interdependent process, and therefore have not been able to consider the relative direct and indirect effects of habitat loss and altered spatial configuration. 3. We investigated how habitat (i.e. old forest) fragmentation, caused by intense forest harvesting at the territory and landscape scales, is associated with the number of fledged offspring of an area-sensitive passerine, the Eurasian treecreeper (Certhia familiaris). We used structural equation modelling (SEM) to examine the complex hierarchical associations between habitat loss and altered spatial configuration on the number of fledged offspring, by controlling for individual condition and weather conditions during incubation. 4. Against generally held expectations, treecreeper reproductive success did not show a significant association with habitat fragmentation measured at the territory scale. Instead, our analyses suggested that an increasing amount of habitat at the landscape scale caused a significant increase in nest predation rates, leading to reduced reproductive success. This effect operated directly on nest predation rates, instead of acting indirectly through altered spatial configuration. 5. Because habitat amount and configuration are inherently strongly collinear, particularly when multiple scales are considered, our study demonstrates the usefulness of a SEM approach for hierarchical partitioning of habitat amount vs. habitat configuration in landscape ecology that may have bearing on biological conclusions.

Landscape characterization integrating expert and local spatial knowledge of land and forest resources.

In many developing countries, political documentation acknowledges the crucial elements of participation and spatiality for effective land use planning. However, operative approaches to spatial data inclusion and representation in participatory land management are often lacking. In this paper, we apply and develop an integrated landscape characterization approach to enhance spatial knowledge generation about the complex human-nature interactions in landscapes in the context of Zanzibar, Tanzania. We apply an integrated landscape conceptualization as a theoretical framework where the expert and local knowledge can meet in spatial context. The characterization is based on combining multiple data sources in GIS, and involves local communities and their local spatial knowledge since the beginning into the process. Focusing on the expected information needs for community forest management, our characterization integrates physical landscape features and retrospective landscape change data with place-specific community knowledge collected through participatory GIS techniques. The characterization is established in a map form consisting of four themes and their synthesis. The characterization maps are designed to support intuitive interpretation, express the inherently uncertain nature of the data, and accompanied by photographs to enhance communication. Visual interpretation of the characterization mediates information about the character of areas and places in the studied local landscape, depicting the role of forest resources as part of the landscape entity. We conclude that landscape characterization applied in GIS is a highly potential tool for participatory land and resource management, where spatial argumentation, stakeholder communication, and empowerment are critical issues.

Residential green environments are associated with human milk oligosaccharide diversity and composition.

Increased exposure to greener environments has been suggested to lead to health benefits in children, but the associated mechanisms in early life, particularly via biological mediators such as altered maternal milk composition, remain largely unexplored. We investigated the associations between properties of the mother's residential green environment, measured as (1) greenness (Normalized Difference Vegetation index, NDVI), (2) Vegetation Cover Diversity (VCDI) and (3) Naturalness Index (NI), and human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs), known for their immune- and microbiota-related health effects on the infant (N = 795 mothers). We show that HMO diversity increases and concentrations of several individual HMOs and HMO groups change with increased VCDI and NI in residential green environments. This suggests that variation in residential green environments may influence the infant via maternal milk through modified HMO composition. The results emphasize the mediating role of breastfeeding between the residential green environments and health in early life.

Residential greenness and risks of depression: Longitudinal associations with different greenness indicators and spatial scales in a Finnish population cohort.

We carried out a longitudinal study on the associations between residential greenness and depression risk in urban areas in Finland. Residential greenness indicators were estimated within various buffer sizes around individuals' home locations (selected n = 14424) using time-series of normalized differential vegetation index (NDVI) and CORINE land cover data (CLC). We estimated individuals' cumulative exposure to residential greenness over a 5-years and 14-years follow-up. We used doctor-diagnosed depression and Beck Depression Inventory for depression assessment. Our multi-logistic model showed an inverse association between residential greenness and depression, implying lowered depression risk for individuals with higher residential greenness. The association was particularly evident when using NDVI-based residential greenness (within a buffer of 100 m radius) and doctor-diagnosis depression data, adjusted with individual-level covariates. The odds ratio was 0.56 (95% CI 0.33 to 0.96) for the 5-years follow-up, and 0.54 (95% CI 0.30 to 0.98) for the 14-years follow-up. The associations between CLC-based total residential green space and depression varied across the different buffer sizes. In general, all the associations depended on the type of depression assessment, quality of greenness indicators, and the spatial scale of analysis. The associations also varied across the socio-demographic groups and neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage level.

Changing role of EMS -analyses of non-conveyed and conveyed patients in Finland.

BACKGROUND: Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and Emergency Departments (ED) have seen increasing attendance rates in the last decades. Currently, EMS are increasingly assessing and treating patients without the need to convey patients to health care facility. The aim of this study was to describe and compare the patient case-mix between conveyed and non-conveyed patients and to analyze factors related to non-conveyance decision making. METHODS: This was a prospective study design of EMS patients in Finland, and data was collected between 1st June and 30th November 2018. Adjusted ICPC2-classification was used as the reason for care. NEWS2-points were collected and analyzed both statistically and with a semi-supervised information extraction method. EMS patients' geographic location and distance to health care facilities were analyzed by urban-rural classification. RESULTS: Of the EMS patients (40,263), 59.8% were over 65 years of age and 46.0% of the patients had zero NEWS2 points. The most common ICPC2 code was weakness/tiredness, general (A04), as seen in 13.5% of all patients. When comparing patients between the non-conveyance and conveyance group, a total of 35,454 EMS patients met the inclusion criteria and 14,874 patients (42.0%) were not conveyed to health care facilities. According the multivariable logistic regression model, the non-conveyance decision was more likely made by ALS units, when the EMS arrival time was in the evening or night and when the distance to the health care facility was 21-40 km. Furthermore, younger patients, female gender, whether the patient had used alcohol and a rural area were also related to the non-conveyance decision. If the patient's NEWS2 score increased by one or two points, the likelihood of conveyance increased. When there was less than 1 h to complete a shift, this did not associate with either non-conveyance or conveyance decisions. CONCLUSIONS: The role of EMS might be changing. This warrants to redesign the chain-of-survival in EMS to include not only high-risk patient groups but also non-critical and general acute patients with non-specific reasons for care. Assessment and on-scene treatment without conveyance can be called the "stretched arm of the emergency department", but should be planned carefully to ensure patient safety.

Using change trajectories to study the impacts of multi-annual habitat loss on fledgling production in an old forest specialist bird.

The loss and subdivision of habitat into smaller and more spatially isolated units due to human actions has been shown to adversely affect species worldwide. We examined how changes in old forest cover during eight years were associated with the cumulative number of fledged offspring at the end of study period in Eurasian treecreepers (Certhia familiaris) in Central Finland. We were specifically interested in whether the initial level of old forest cover moderated this relation. We applied a flexible and powerful approach, latent growth curve modelling in a structural equation modeling (SEM) framework, to create trajectories describing changes in old forest cover through time, and studied how this change at both the territory core and landscape scales impacted fledging numbers. Our main finding was that at the territory core scale the negative impact of habitat loss on fledging numbers was lessened by the higher levels of initial forest cover, while no association was found at the landscape scale. Our study highlights a powerful, but currently under-utilised methodology among ecologists that can provide important information about biological responses to changes in the environment, providing a mechanistic way to study how land cover dynamics can affect species responses.