Perception of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic by pregnant women during the first lockdown in France: worry, perceived vulnerability, adoption and maintenance of prevention measures according to the Covimater study.

Background: We aimed to describe pregnant women's worry about the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the associated reasons, their perceived vulnerability to this infection, and factors influencing continued poor/non-existent or decreased implementation of preventive measures over time. Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted in July 2020 using a web-questionnaire completed by 500 women who were pregnant during the first lockdown in France (March-May 2020). Questions focused on worry caused by the pandemic, perceived vulnerability to infection by SARS-CoV-2 and implementation of preventive measures during and after lockdown. A robust variance Poisson regression model was used to estimate adjusted prevalence ratios (aPR) for perceived vulnerability and continued poor/non-existent or decreased implementation of preventive measures. Results: Participants felt significantly more vulnerable to infection than women of childbearing age who were included in a parallel study on the French general population, but were significantly less worried about the pandemic. Obese participants and those who unsuccessfully sought exchanges with healthcare professionals about their infection risk felt significantly more vulnerable (aPR = 1.32 95%CI[1.05-1.64] and 1.88 [1.43-2.48], respectively). Participants with continued poor/non-existent or decreased implementation of preventive measures two months after the lockdown ended were more likely to have experienced violence during the lockdown (2.06, [1.32-3.22]), or to live in areas less affected by the pandemic (1.66 [1.05-2.62]). A good knowledge of viral transmission (0.54 [0.30-0.97]) and a high perceived vulnerability score (0.66 [0.44-0.99]) were associated with maintained/increased implementation of preventive measures. Conclusions: Our results can guide prevention and support policies for pregnant women during pandemics, current or future.

Neighbourhood socio-economic characteristics and the risk of preterm birth for migrant and non-migrant women: a study in a French district.

Neighbourhood-level deprivation is associated with preterm birth; preterm birth rates are also higher for some, but not all migrant groups. We studied the impact of neighbourhood characteristics (a deprivation score and the proportion of foreign-born residents) on singleton preterm birth in the French district of Seine-Saint-Denis for women born in France, North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and other countries. Multilevel logistic regression models were adjusted for maternal demographic and health care characteristics. For women born in France, the preterm birth rate rose with neighbourhood deprivation quintile (3.8% in the first to 5.7% in the fifth, adjusted odds ratio: 1.40 [95% confidence interval 1.14, 1.72]) and with increasing proportions of foreign-born residents. Preterm birth rates were not higher in more deprived neighbourhoods for women born outside of France and were lower in neighbourhoods with more foreign-born residents; in multilevel models, the inverse association with deprivation remained significant for women from sub-Saharan Africa. Area-based deprivation measures should be used with caution in populations with large numbers of migrants. These results raise questions about the health benefits of clustering for migrant communities as well as the negative consequences of acculturation.

Determinants of Preventive Behaviors in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in France: Comparing the Sociocultural, Psychosocial, and Social Cognitive Explanations.

In absence of effective pharmaceutical treatments, the individual's compliance with a series of behavioral recommendations provided by the public health authorities play a critical role in the control and prevention of SARS-CoV2 infection. However, we still do not know much about the rate and determinants of adoption of the recommended health behaviors. This paper examines the compliance with the main behavioral recommendations, and compares sociocultural, psychosocial, and social cognitive explanations for its variation in the French population. Based on the current literature, these 3 categories of factors were identified as potential determinants of individual differences in the health preventive behaviors. The data used for these analyses are drawn from 2 cross-sectional studies (N = 2,000 in survey 1 and 2,003 in survey 2) conducted after the lockdown and before the peak of the COVID-19 epidemic in France. The participants were drawn from a larger internet consumer panel where recruitment was stratified to generate a socio-demographically representative sample of the French adult population. Overall, the results show a very high rate of compliance with the behavioral recommendations among the participants. A hierarchical regression analysis was then performed to assess the potential explanatory power of these approaches in complying with these recommendations by successively entering sociocultural factors, psychosocial factors, social cognitive factors in the model. Only the inclusion of the cognitive variables substantially increased the explained variance of the self-reported adoption of preventive behaviors (R 2 change = 23% in survey 1 and 2), providing better support for the social cognitive than the sociocultural and psychosocial explanations.

Dysgeusia following consumption of pine nuts: more than 3000 cases in France.

INTRODUCTION: In March 2008, French poison centres (PCs) recorded the first calls reporting persistent bitterness following the ingestion of pine nuts. METHODS: The French toxic exposure surveillance system (French-Tess) was searched and a descriptive analysis of cases was performed on data recorded from 13 March 2008 to 31 January 2010. RESULTS: Some 3111 cases of bitterness were reported to PCs. The number of cases rose sharply from May 2009 to reach a peak in August 2009 with 697 cases. The median time to onset of dysgeusia was 24 hours and it lasted less than 14 days in 95% of cases. Raw as well as cooked or processed pine nuts were implicated. DISCUSSION: The delayed onset and persistence of dysgeusia suggest that the toxin may act via an unknown toxic mechanism on the receptor. The aetiological agent could be an unidentified toxin present in some varieties of non-edible pine nuts. CONCLUSION: The high incidence of the event and the lack of understanding of the nature of the toxin and its pathophysiological mechanism require continued monitoring of poison cases, botanical and biochemical analysis, and experimental studies.