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Preventing ischemic heart disease in women: a systematic review of global directives and policies

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of mortality in women worldwide. Yet cardiovascular disease in women remains underdiagnosed and undertreated, especially among vulnerable populations such as older women, low-income populations, and ethnic minorities. Resultantly, reduction in cardiovascular mortality among women has stagnated. To examine, consolidate current research findings and policies to identify gaps in women’s heart health practice, this review screened 21476 records and synthesized results from 124 English language publications worldwide. Using a life course approach, we assessed the connection between clinical recommendations and policy, and documented global recommendations and policies addressing prevention of cardiovascular disease in women. Key recommendations include fostering environments that encourage sustainable health behaviors for young women, advocating for national surveillance systems and guidelines for monitoring and increasing the understanding of cardiovascular health in high-risk pregnancy/postpartum groups, developing community prevention programs for midlife/menopause, and implementing direct population health management initiatives for elderly women, with an emphasis on higher risk groups. Inequalities still exist among women with varying socioeconomic status and race between countries, and even within countries.

Navigating health communication in China: a corpus-based critical discourse analysis of COVID-19 news from 2020 to 2023

This study delves into the communication of the COVID-19 pandemic in China by examining the representation of the pandemic in Chinese news coverage from January 2020 to March 2023. Analyzing 37,484 news reports from leading English newspapers in China, the study employs a corpus-based Discourse-Historical Approach to uncover how specific lexical and discursive strategies construct representations in the Chinese media. Overall, six major representations have been identified: COVID-19 as a lethal global health crisis, the pandemic as an extensive disaster, China’s response as effective, the pandemic fight as a unifying war, steady Chinese economic recovery, and politicization of the pandemic as unethical. Further analysis connects the representations with the sociopolitical and historical context in China. The findings of the study offer insights that can inform precise and culturally sensitive communication strategies for health professionals.

Precise control balances epidemic mitigation and economic growth

The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in 2019 has profoundly affected public health and the global economy. Policymakers face the challenge of evolving virus mutations and one key measure involves the use of Health Code to classify the public and enforce quarantine policies. Despite widespread adoption, its effectiveness in mitigating the epidemic is not well understood. Here, we proposed an infection component model to assess the Health Code’s effectiveness. We found that “Precise control” using Health Code can strike a balance between economic growth and public health, reducing 97% of deaths and improving 1% of GDP compared to “No control” or city shutdown policies. Moreover, its medical costs are only 43% of the latter. However, its effectiveness diminishes if the basic reproductive number (({R}_{0})) exceeds 16.5, indicating the end of this epidemic with “Precise control”. These findings have important implications for policymakers in developing effective strategies to combat the pandemic.

Systemic lupus erythematosus: updated insights on the pathogenesis, diagnosis, prevention and therapeutics

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic inflammatory illness with heterogeneous clinical manifestations covering multiple organs. Diversified types of medications have been shown effective for alleviating SLE syndromes, ranging from cytokines, antibodies, hormones, molecular inhibitors or antagonists, to cell transfusion. Drugs developed for treating other diseases may benefit SLE patients, and agents established as SLE therapeutics may be SLE-inductive. Complexities regarding SLE therapeutics render it essential and urgent to identify the mechanisms-of-action and pivotal signaling axis driving SLE pathogenesis, and to establish innovative SLE-targeting approaches with desirable therapeutic outcome and safety. After introducing the research history of SLE and its epidemiology, we categorized primary determinants driving SLE pathogenesis by their mechanisms; combed through current knowledge on SLE diagnosis and grouped them by disease onset, activity and comorbidity; introduced the genetic, epigenetic, hormonal and environmental factors predisposing SLE; and comprehensively categorized preventive strategies and available SLE therapeutics according to their functioning mechanisms. In summary, we proposed three mechanisms with determinant roles on SLE initiation and progression, i.e., attenuating the immune system, restoring the cytokine microenvironment homeostasis, and rescuing the impaired debris clearance machinery; and provided updated insights on current understandings of SLE regarding its pathogenesis, diagnosis, prevention and therapeutics, which may open an innovative avenue in the fields of SLE management.

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