Assessing public health and economic loss associated with black carbon exposure using monitoring and MERRA-2 data.

Black carbon (BC) exposure in China continues to be relatively high, prompting researchers to assess BC exposure levels using data from monitoring sites, satellite remote sensing, and models. However, data regarding the application of a combined strategy comprising the analysis of monitoring data and various types of data to simulate BC exposure levels are lacking. Hence, the current study seeks to estimate short- and long-term BC exposure levels by combining national monitoring data with data from the second Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA-2). Furthermore, this study attempts to improve the spatio-temporal resolution of BC exposure levels using Bayesian maximum entropy (BME). The BME model performed well in terms of estimating short- (R2 = 0.74 and RMSE = 1.76 µg/m3) and long-term (R2 = 0.76 and RMSE = 1.3 µg/m3) exposure. Premature mortalities and economic losses were also assessed by applying localised concentration-response coefficients simulated in China. A total of 74,500 (95% confidence interval (CI): 23,900-124,500) and 538,400 (95% CI: 495,000-581,300) all-cause premature mortality cases were found to be associated with short- and long-term BC exposure, respectively. Meanwhile, short-term BC exposure was associated with economic losses ranging from 7.5 to 13.2 billion US dollars (USD) (1 USD = 6.36 RMB on January 19, 2022) based on amended human capital (AHC) and willingness to pay (WTP), accounting for 0.06%-0.1% of China's total gross domestic product (GDP) in 2017 (1.2 × 104 billion USD), respectively. The economic losses for long-term exposure varied from 53 to 93.2 billion USD based on AHC and WTP, accounting for 0.4%-0.8% of China's total GDP in 2017, respectively.

Assessment of the eco-toxicological effects in zoxamide polluted soil amended with fertilizers-An indoor evaluation.

Zoxamide is a benzamide fungicide applied to control diseases caused by oomycete fungi. Fertilizers are important agricultural supplies to adjust soil properties and increase nutrition. To investigate the impact of zoxamide and seven fertilizers urea, phosphate fertilizer, potash fertilizer, compound fertilizer, organic fertilizer, vermicompost and soya bean cakes on the soil environment, the enantioselective dissipation characteristics of zoxamide, soil enzyme activities, pH and N, P nutrition changes were comprehensively analyzed in our present study. The enantioseparation method was successfully validated to quantify the zoxamide enantiomers in soil by HPLC using Chiral NQ (2)-RH column. Our results demonstrated that the R-(-)- and S-(+)-zoxamide half dissipated in the range of 10.88-17.81 and 8.05-14.41 days, respectively. S-(+)-zoxamide disappeared faster in soil. The vermicompost accelerated the dissipation rate of S-(+)-zoxamide, while urea, phosphate, organic and vermicompost fertilizer increased the dissipation selectivity. Zoxamide and fertilizers other than urea caused soil acidification during 80 days. Zoxamide was beneficial to soil catalase, instead inhibited soil urease, dehydrogenase activities and available phosphorus content. No significant effects on sucrase activity and available nitrogen content were found by zoxamide. Vermicompost and soya bean cakes had lasting and outstanding performance in efficiently improving soil enzyme activity and N, P nutrition. The comprehensive understanding of the ecological impact induced by chiral pesticide enantiomers and fertilizers on soil is vital to ensure the sustainable development and safety of agricultural production.

[Application of Mindfulness-Based Health-Promotion Behavior in People With Chronic Diseases: SMILE Strategy].

Chronic diseases often impact the quality of life of the patient, causing complications and increased mortality and medical costs. The World Health Organization proposed applying mindfulness as an important strategy to help transform the situation faced by chronic disease cases and to promote their mental flexibility and adaptability. The author reviewed the related literature on mindfulness and introduces the "SMILE" strategy in this article. This strategy includes several stages, including 1) Starting where I am, 2) Motivating patients to become self-aware of the experience of self and internal and external environment interactions, 3) Developing individual health beliefs, 4) Learning mindfulness-based health-promotion behaviors, 5) Evaluating the efficacy of mindfulness-based health-promotion behaviors and self-regulation. SMILE is a powerful strategy with the potential to promote patient wellbeing, acceptance of the need to coexist with chronic disease, and freedom. Mindfulness is an abstract concept. This article provides a reference on mindfulness intervention for healthcare providers.

The relationship between selected developmental assets and health-promoting behaviours of adolescents in Southern Taiwan.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To examine the relationship between selected developmental assets and health-promoting behaviours of adolescents. BACKGROUND: Developmental assets can be considered as potential health assets for adolescents. Understanding the relationship between developmental assets and health-promoting behaviours among adolescents could provide nurses with a new approach to design intervention programmes for adolescent health-promoting behaviours. DESIGN: A cross-sectional study design. METHODS: Anonymous questionnaires were administered to 453 adolescents aged between 13-16 years. Canonical correlation analysis was used to examine the relationship between selected developmental assets and health-promoting behaviours. RESULTS: Canonical correlation analysis indicated two significantly meaningful variate pairs between selected developmental assets and health-promoting behaviour sets. The first pair variate accounted for 51.3% of the total variance, which showed that adolescents who had better self-esteem, future aspirations, responsible choices, family communication, non-parental adult role models, peer role models and community involvement had better behaviours of life appreciation, health responsibility, social support, stress management, nutrition and exercise. The second pair variate accounted for 9.6% of the total variance, which showed that adolescents who had better responsible choices had better stress management behaviours. CONCLUSION: Developmental assets are important to adolescents' health-promoting behaviours. Interventions focusing on strengthening developmental assets can potentially provide an innovative approach for nurses to improve health-promoting behaviours of adolescents. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: Strengthening developmental assets can potentially improve the health-promoting behaviours of adolescents. Individual and sociopolitical domains should be incorporated into programmes for enhancement of developmental assets. School nurses can cooperate with family and community and provide environments improving adolescents' developmental assets. Nurses should actively engage in developmental asset programmes for adolescents. The tools for measuring developmental assets modified and developed in this study were valid and reliable. They can be used for further examination of the developmental assets for adolescents in various subset populations.