Sex/gender and socioeconomic differences in modifiable risk factors for dementia

in Scientific Reports (2023)

PRELIMINARY RESULTS ON THE COGNITIVE PROFILE IN PRODROMAL PARKINSON’S DISEASE – A PROSPECTIVE STUDY 

Poster (2022, September)

Country-level Variation of Dementia Prevalence in Europe - Comparing OECD and SHARE Data

Presentation (2022, July 07)

The Role of Country-Level Availability and Generosity of Healthcare Services, and Old-Age Ageism for Missed Healthcare during the COVID-19 Pandemic Control Measures in Europe

in Journal of Aging and Health (2022)

Objectives: The effects of the COVID-19 outbreak on non-COVID-19-related healthcare need further investigation. Methods: Using the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe’s COVID-19 module (2020 ... [more ▼]

Objectives: The effects of the COVID-19 outbreak on non-COVID-19-related healthcare need further investigation. Methods: Using the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe’s COVID-19 module (2020) (N = 57,025), country-level data from the European Social Survey (2008) and OECD (2020), and logistic regressions, this study examines predictors of older Europeans’ forgone, postponed, and denied healthcare during the pandemic. Results: Country-level availability of physicians, healthcare systems’ generosity, and beliefs that older persons burden healthcare systems all increased forgone healthcare. Healthcare system generosity increased postponed and denied healthcare. Greater medical resources decreased denied healthcare. Furthermore, missed healthcare varied by individual-level gender (higher rates among women), age, education, and health. Discussion: This study reveals predictors of missed healthcare during the pandemic. To decrease unintended health consequences of a pandemic, both individual-level determinants, such as gender and health, and contextual-level determinants, such as healthcare systems’ characteristics, should be considered in research and practice. [less ▲]

Individual factors and beliefs determining COVID-19 vaccination willingness

Poster (2022, April)

Background: High vaccination coverage rates are necessary to reduce infections and transmissions of the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19 and to allow successful mitigation of the current pandemic. To ... [more ▼]

Background: High vaccination coverage rates are necessary to reduce infections and transmissions of the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19 and to allow successful mitigation of the current pandemic. To date, we are still lacking information to explain the hesitancy in Luxembourg towards uptake of the available COVID-19 vaccines. The present study explored motivations for and against vaccination in a population-representative sample of residents across Luxembourg to identify hesitant groups and develop strategies to increase population immunity against SARS-CoV-2. Methods: In the framework of the nationwide, representative longitudinal CON-VINCE study, a sample of 1589 respondents (49.6% women, 84.3% Luxembourg nationality) ranging from 18-84 years, participated in the survey in spring 2021. The protocol of the CON-VINCE study has been described in detail elsewhere (Snoeck et al. 2020). Results: 52% of the respondents had at least partial vaccination at time of assessment between April to June 2021. The most common reasons for vaccination of those willing to be vaccinated (81.2%) were altruistic motivations. Prevalent reasons against vaccination for those undecided (8.7%) or reluctant (10.2%) to be vaccinated were that the vaccine had not been tested sufficiently and the fear of long-term vaccine side effects. Only very few of the vaccination-hesitant or -reluctant respondents reported that they did not believe in vaccination in general. Conclusion: The present study identified motivations for and against COVID-19 vaccination and determined demographic and socio-economic factors associated with vaccination willingness. To increase vaccination rates, public health communication needs to target those unsure or unwilling to be vaccinated. We will continue to study the vaccination uptake in the Luxembourg population, as CON-VINCE is now part of the H2020-funded international ORCHESTRA project (https://orchestra-cohort.eu), research into comparing these results on a Pan-European level. [less ▲]

Retrograde Procedural Memory in Parkinson's Disease

Poster (2022, March)

Mapping of machine learning approaches for description, prediction, and causal inference in the social and health sciences

in Science Advances (2022), 8

Machine learning (ML) methodology used in the social and health sciences needs to fit the intended research purposes of description, prediction, or causal inference. This paper provides a comprehensive ... [more ▼]

Machine learning (ML) methodology used in the social and health sciences needs to fit the intended research purposes of description, prediction, or causal inference. This paper provides a comprehensive, systematic meta-mapping of research questions in the social and health sciences to appropriate ML approaches by incorporating the necessary requirements to statistical analysis in these disciplines. We map the established classification into description, prediction, counterfactual prediction, and causal structural learning to common research goals, such as estimating prevalence of adverse social or health outcomes, predicting the risk of an event, and identifying risk factors or causes of adverse outcomes, and explain common ML performance metrics. Such mapping may help to fully exploit the benefits of ML while considering domain-specific aspects relevant to the social and health sciences and hopefully contribute to the acceleration of the uptake of ML applications to advance both basic and applied social and health sciences research. [less ▲]

Which demographic and socio-economic factors are associated with vaccination willingness and beliefs towards vaccination? Rapid report with first results

Report (2021)

In the framework of the CoVaLux project on vaccination and long COVID in Luxembourg, the project “Socio-economic determinants of long COVID and vaccination, and economic consequences with focus on labour ... [more ▼]

In the framework of the CoVaLux project on vaccination and long COVID in Luxembourg, the project “Socio-economic determinants of long COVID and vaccination, and economic consequences with focus on labour market and health care” aims to triangulate evidence from different data sources such as social security and general population data, the national cohort CON-VINCE as well as national health surveys. We seek to arrive at robust assessments of how socio-economic determinants shape vaccination willingness, occurrence, severity and persistence of long COVID, and economic consequences of long COVID in Luxembourg. [less ▲]

The prevalence of mild cognitive impairment in Latin America and the Caribbean: a systematic review and meta-analysis

in Aging and Mental Health (2021)

The retrograde procedural memory in people with Parkinson’s disease with or without freezing of gait – a cross-sectional study

Poster (2021, September 17)

Objective: To investigate the retrograde procedural memory in people with typical Parkinson’s disease (PwP) with or without freezing of gait (FOG). We hypothesized that the retrograde procedural memory is ... [more ▼]

Objective: To investigate the retrograde procedural memory in people with typical Parkinson’s disease (PwP) with or without freezing of gait (FOG). We hypothesized that the retrograde procedural memory is more strongly impaired in patients with FOG (FOG+) than in patients without FOG (FOG-). Background: Given that cognitive functions, like executive control and automaticity, are crucial for mobility, it is of great importance to get a deeper knowledge of the cognitive impairment that may interfere with walking and causing gait disturbances in PwP, i.e. FOG. The integrity of retrograde procedural memory, the ability to execute skills that have been learned in earlier life stages, is essential for a person’s ability to complete routine, procedural activities like walking. As FOG is characterized as a de-automatization disorder, we hypothesized an impairment of the retrograde procedural memory in patients with FOG. Methods: A total of 194 patients from the Luxembourg Parkinson’s study were included into the cross-sectional study. All patients were assigned to the FOG+ / FOG- groups based on a semi-structured interview conducted by a study physician. The extended evaluation system of the cube copying test was applied to evaluate both the cube-drawing procedure, representing the retrograde procedural memory, and the final result, representing the visuo-constructive abilities (Pauly et al., 2020, MDS abstract). We compared the cube copying performance of n=97 FOG+ with n=97 age-, gender- and education-matched FOG-. Results: FOG+ scored lower on the cube copying procedure compared to the FOG- (p=0.027), which is suggestive of an impaired retrograde procedural memory in FOG+. No significant differences in the visuo-constructional abilities were detected (p=0.945). Conclusion: In line with FOG being considered a de-automatization of walking, a skill acquired in earlier life stages, the present results suggest that PwP with FOG have an impaired retrograde procedural memory in comparison to PwP without FOG. The results lend support to the ability of the extended evaluation system of the cube copying test to assess impaired retrograde procedural memory and help improve our understanding of behavioral symptoms in PwP. [less ▲]