Variation in the Proportion of Adults in Need of Blood Pressure-Lowering Medications by Hypertension Care Guideline in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Cross-Sectional Study of 1 037 215 Individuals From 50 Nationally Representative Surveys.

BACKGROUND: Current hypertension guidelines vary substantially in their definition of who should be offered blood pressure-lowering medications. Understanding the effect of guideline choice on the proportion of adults who require treatment is crucial for planning and scaling up hypertension care in low- and middle-income countries. METHODS: We extracted cross-sectional data on age, sex, blood pressure, hypertension treatment and diagnosis status, smoking, and body mass index for adults 30 to 70 years of age from nationally representative surveys in 50 low- and middle-income countries (N = 1 037 215). We aimed to determine the effect of hypertension guideline choice on the proportion of adults in need of blood pressure-lowering medications. We considered 4 hypertension guidelines: the 2017 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association guideline, the commonly used 140/90 mm Hg threshold, the 2016 World Health Organization HEARTS guideline, and the 2019 UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guideline. RESULTS: The proportion of adults in need of blood pressure-lowering medications was highest under the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association, followed by the 140/90 mm Hg, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, and World Health Organization guidelines (American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association: women, 27.7% [95% CI, 27.2-28.2], men, 35.0% [95% CI, 34.4-35.7]; 140/90 mm Hg: women, 26.1% [95% CI, 25.5-26.6], men, 31.2% [95% CI, 30.6-31.9]; National Institute for Health and Care Excellence: women, 11.8% [95% CI, 11.4-12.1], men, 15.7% [95% CI, 15.3-16.2]; World Health Organization: women, 9.2% [95% CI, 8.9-9.5], men, 11.0% [95% CI, 10.6-11.4]). Individuals who were unaware that they have hypertension were the primary contributor to differences in the proportion needing treatment under different guideline criteria. Differences in the proportion needing blood pressure-lowering medications were largest in the oldest (65-69 years) age group (American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association: women, 60.2% [95% CI, 58.8-61.6], men, 70.1% [95% CI, 68.8-71.3]; World Health Organization: women, 20.1% [95% CI, 18.8-21.3], men, 24.1.0% [95% CI, 22.3-25.9]). For both women and men and across all guidelines, countries in the European and Eastern Mediterranean regions had the highest proportion of adults in need of blood pressure-lowering medicines, whereas the South and Central Americas had the lowest. CONCLUSIONS: There was substantial variation in the proportion of adults in need of blood pressure-lowering medications depending on which hypertension guideline was used. Given the great implications of this choice for health system capacity, policy makers will need to carefully consider which guideline they should adopt when scaling up hypertension care in their country.

Global, regional, and national survey on the burden and quality of care of pancreatic cancer: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease study 1990-2017.

BACKGROUND: Pancreatic cancer (PC) is among the most lethal cancers worldwide, and the quality of care provided to PC patients is a vital public health concern. We aimed to investigate the quality of care of PC globally and to report its current burden. METHODS: The Quality of Care Index (QCI) was achieved by performing a Principal Component Analysis utilizing the results of the GBD study 2017. The QCI was defined as a range between 0 and 100, in which higher QCIs show higher quality of care. Possible gender- and age-related inequalities in terms of QCI were explored based on WHO world regions and the sociodemographic index (SDI). RESULTS: In 2017, Japan had the highest QCI among all countries (QCI = 99/100), followed by Australia (QCI = 83/100) and the United States (QCI = 76/100). In Japan and Australia, males and females had almost the same QCIs in 2017, while in the United States, females had lower QCIs than males. In contrast to these high-QCI nations, African countries had the lowest QCIs in 2017. Besides, QCI increased by SDI, and high-SDI regions had the highest QCIs. Regarding patients' age, elderly cases had higher QCIs than younger patients globally and in high-SDI regions. CONCLUSION: This study provides clinicians and health authorities with a wider vision around the quality of care of PC worldwide and highlights the existing disparities. This could help them investigate possible effective strategies to improve the quality of care in regions with lower QCIs and higher gender- and age-related inequities.

A Report on Statistics of an Online Self-screening Platform for COVID-19 and Its Effectiveness in Iran.

BACKGROUND: The most recent emerging infectious disease, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), is pandemic now. Iran is a country with community transmission of the disease. Telehealth tools have been proved to be useful in controlling public health disasters. We developed an online self-screening platform to offer a population-wide strategy to control the massive influx to medical centers. METHODS: We developed a platform operating based on given history by participants, including sex, age, weight, height, location, primary symptoms and signs, and high risk past medical histories. Based on a decision-making algorithm, participants were categorized into four levels of suspected cases, requiring diagnostic tests, supportive care, not suspected cases. We made comparisons with Iran STEPs (STEPwise approach to Surveillance) 2016 study and data from the Statistical Centre of Iran to assess population representativeness of data. Also, we made a comparison with officially confirmed cases to investigate the effectiveness of the platform. A multilevel mixed-effects Poisson regression was used to check the association of visiting platform and deaths caused by COVID-19. RESULTS: About 310 000 individuals participated in the online self-screening platform in 33 days. The majority of participants were in younger age groups, and males involved more. A significant number of participants were screened not to be suspected or needing supportive care, and only 10.4% of males and 12.0% of females had suspected results of COVID-19. The penetration of the platform was assessed to be acceptable. A correlation coefficient of 0.51 was calculated between suspected results and confirmed cases of the disease, expressing the platform's effectiveness. CONCLUSION: Implementation of a proper online self-screening tool can mitigate population panic during wide-spread epidemics and relieve massive influx to medical centers. Also, an evidence-based education platform can help fighting infodemic. Noticeable utilization and verified effectiveness of such platform validate the potency of telehealth tools in controlling epidemics and pandemics.

How the scientific community responded to the COVID-19 pandemic: A subject-level time-trend bibliometric analysis.

BACKGROUND: COVID-19 has triggered an avalanche of research publications, the various aspects of which need to be assessed. The objective of this study is to determine the scientific community's response patterns to COVID-19 through a bibliometric analysis of the time-trends, global contribution, international collaboration, open-access provision, science domains of focus, and the behavior of journals. METHODS: The bibliographic records on COVID-19 literature were retrieved from both PubMed and Scopus. The period for searching was set from November 1, 2019, to April 15, 2021. The bibliographic data were coupled with COVID-19 incidence to explore possible association, as well as World Bank indicators and classification of economies. RESULTS: A total of 159132 records were included in the study. Following the escalation of incidences of COVID-19 in late 2020 and early 2021, the monthly publication count made a new peak in March 2021 at 20505. Overall, 125155 (78.6%) were national, 22548 (14.2%) were bi-national, and 11429 (7.2%) were multi-national. Low-income countries with 928 (66.8%) international publications had the highest percentage of international. The open-access provision decreased from 85.5% in February 2020 to 62.0% in April 2021. As many as 82841 (70.8%) publications were related to health sciences, followed by life sciences 27031 (23.1%), social sciences 20291 (17.3%), and physical sciences 15141 (12.9%). The top three medical subjects in publications were general internal medicine, public health, and infectious diseases with 28.9%, 18.3%, and 12.6% of medical publications, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The association between the incidence and publication count indicated the scientific community's interest in the ongoing situation and timely response to it. Only one-fifth of publications resulted from international collaboration, which might lead to redundancy without adding significant value. Our study underscores the necessity of policies for attraction of international collaboration and direction of vital funds toward domains of higher priority.

Estimating the attributable risk of vascular disorders in different ranges of fasting plasma glucose and assessing the effectiveness of anti-diabetes agents on risk reduction; questioning the current diagnostic criteria.

INTRODUCTION: Attributable risk of cardiovascular disorders (CVDs) and chronic kidney disease (CKD) in association with diabetes and pre-diabetes is under debate. Moreover, the role of anti-diabetes agents in risk reduction of such conditions is obscure. The purpose of this work is to define the population attributable fraction (PAF) of CVDs and CKD in different rages of plasma glucose. METHOD: Iranian stepwise approach for surveillance of non-communicable disease risk factors (STEPs) was used to calculate PAF in four subsequent phases. Phase 0: whole population regardless of diagnosis; Phase I: in three CVD risk groups: minimal risk (FPG < 100 mg/dL), low risk (FPG 100-126 mg/dL), and high risk (FPG ≥ 126 mg/dL) groups; Phase II: three diagnostic groups: normal, pre-diabetes, and diabetes; Phase III: diabetes patients either receiving or not receiving anti-diabetes agents. RESULT: A total of 19,503 participants [female-to-male ratio 1.17:1] had at least one FPG measurement and were enrolled. Phase 0: PAF of young adults was lower in the general population (PAF range for CVDs 0.05 ─ 0.27 [95% CI 0.00 ─ 0.32]; CKD 0.03 ─ 0.41 [0.00 ─ 0.62]). Phase I: High-risk group comprised the largest attributable risks (0.46 ─ 0.97 [0.32 ─ 1]; 0.74 ─ 0.95 [0.58 ─ 1]) compared to low-risk (0.16 ─ 0.41 [0.04 ─ 0.66]; 0.29 ─ 0.35 [0.07 ─ 0.5]) and minimal risk groups (negligible estimates) with higher values in young adults. Phase II: higher values were detected in younger ages for diabetes (0.38 ─ 0.95 [0.29 ─ 1]; 0.65 ─ 0.94 [0.59 ─ 1] and pre-diabetes patients (0.15 ─ 0.4 [0.13 ─ 0.45]; 0.26 ─ 0.35 [0.22 ─ 0.4]) but not normal counterparts (negligible estimates). Phase III: Similar estimates were found in both treatment (0.31 ─ 0.98 [0.17 ─ 1]; 0.21 ─ 0.93 [0.12 ─ 1]) and drug-naïve (0.39 ─ 0.9 [0.27 ─ 1]; 0.63 ─ 0.97 [0.59 ─ 1]) groups with larger values for younger ages. CONCLUSION: Globalized preventions have not effectively controlled the burden of vascular events in Iran. CVDs and CKD PAFs estimated for pre-diabetes were not remarkably different from normal and diabetes counterparts, arguing current diagnostic criteria. Treatment strategies in high-risk groups are believed to be more beneficial. However, the effectiveness of medical interventions for diabetes in controlling CVDs and CKD burden in Iran is questionable.