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Identifying illicit behavior in survey research is inherently problematic, since self-reports are untrustworthy. We argue that fraudulent interviewers can, however, be identified through statistical deviance of the distributional parameters of their interviews. We document that a high proportion of the variation in the data is due to the interviewer. In addition, we show that the incidence of interviewer-induced anomalies is strongly associated with the perceived level of corruption across the countries participating in the European Social Survey 2010. The major implication of the findings is that the data from some countries cannot be used fruitfully for cross-national comparative research.

Given the double risk of exclusion caused for women with a low educational level, adult education can be a fundamental element that allows them to actively participate in their social, political, and cultural environments. Moreover, because educational level has been reported by the scientific literature to be a factor that directly favors personal benefits, such as having better health or greater employability, adult education may be an opportunity to obtain the aforementioned benefits for women with a low educational level. In this study, using the data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies survey, a model was developed to perform a structural equation analysis on a sample of 5,838 European women with an educational level of ISCED 0-2 and to investigate the benefits of participating in nonformal education activities. The results show that this participation provides these women with greater social and political confidence, more intense cultural participation and even better health and employability.

This article explores how higher education institutions (HEIs) internationalize, employing information on the internationalization activities (IA), context and organizational characteristics of 431 HEIs from 33 European countries. A latent cluster analysis identifies three distinct clusters of HEIs with distinct portfolios of IA: "basic, academic and entrepreneurial." The "basic" portfolio includes the most common IA, whereas IA requiring larger organizational capacity are rare. The "entrepreneurial" portfolio distinguishes from the "academic" portfolio as it also includes IA aimed to attract resources. We explore what contextual and organizational traits characterize HEIs with different IA portfolios. Small HEIs tend to display a "basic" portfolio, without national variations. On the contrary, strong national variations exist in the frequency of "academic" and "entrepreneurial" portfolios, which strongly relate to the actual and potential importance of tuition fees as a source of revenues.

Investigation into the earliest signs of autism in infants has become a significant sub-field of autism research. This work invokes specific ethical concerns such as use of "at-risk" language, communicating study findings to parents and the future perspective of enrolled infants when they reach adulthood. This study aimed to ground this research field in an understanding of the perspectives of members of the autism community. Following focus groups to identify topics, an online survey was distributed to autistic adults, parents of children with autism and practitioners in health and education settings across 11 European countries. Survey respondents (n = 2317) were positively disposed towards early autism research, and there was significant overlap in their priorities for the field and preferred language to describe infant research participants. However, there were also differences including overall less favourable endorsement of early autism research by autistic adults relative to other groups and a dislike of the phrase "at-risk" to describe infant participants, in all groups except healthcare practitioners. The findings overall indicate that the autism community in Europe is supportive of early autism research. Researchers should endeavour to maintain this by continuing to take community perspectives into account.

Background Studies confirm the positive effect of sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxation on public health. However, only a few countries in Europe adopt SSB taxes. From a public policy perspective, we investigate the conditions under which countries do or do not follow this evidence. Methods Crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) of 26 European Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development countries with and without an SSB tax. We test which configurations of conditions (problem pressure, governmental composition, strategic planning, health care system, public health policies, inclusion of expert advice in policymaking) emerge as relevant in determining adoption and non-adoption between the years 1981 and 2021. Pathways that lead to the presence and absence of SSB taxes are identified separately. Results At least one of the following configurations of conditions is present in countries that introduced taxation: (i) high financial problem pressure, low regulatory impact assessment activity; (ii) high public health problem pressure, a contribution-financed health care system, no holistic strategy for combatting non-communicable diseases (NCDs); (iii) a tax-financed health care system, a holistic NCD strategy, high strategic and executive planning capacity. In countries that did not adopt SSB taxes, we find (i) high regulatory impact assessment activity, high levels of sugar export; (ii) no holistic NCD strategy, high spending on preventive care; (iii and iv) a lack of strategic planning capacity and either a high share of spending on preventive care or inclusion of expert advice. Discussion Evidence inclusion requires clear policy priorities in terms of strategy and resources to promote public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background To stop the spread of the new coronavirus disease in 2019 (COVID-19), many countries had completely locked down. This lockdown restricted the everyday life of the affected residents and changed their mobility pattern, but its effects on sleep pattern were largely unknown. Methods Here, utilizing one of the largest crowdsourced database (Sleep as Android), we analyzed the sleep pattern of 25 217 users with 1 352 513 sleep records between 1 January and 29 April 2020 in the US and 16 European countries (Germany, UK, Spain, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Czech, Sweden, Austria, Poland and Switzerland) with more than 100 records in all days of 2020. Results During the COVID-19 pandemic, the sleeping pattern before and after the country-level lockdown largely differed. The subjects increased their sleep duration by an average of 11.3 to 18.6 min on weekday nights, except Denmark (4.9 min) and Finland (7.1 min). In addition, subjects form all 16 European countries delayed their sleep onset from 10.7 min (Sweden) to 29.6 min (Austria). Conclusion During the COVID-19 pandemic, residents in the US and 16 European countries delayed their bedtime and slept longer than usual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Non-medical use of benzodiazepines and Z-drugs is common; however, there is limited information available on the extent of harm related to this in Europe, as well as the relationship between misuse and availability.Aim: To describe presentations to the emergency department in Europe related to the recreational use of benzodiazepines and Z-drugs and compare regional differences in these presentations with legal drug sales of benzodiazepines and Z-drugs within each country.Methods: Emergency department presentations with recreational misuse of benzodiazepines and Z-drugs were obtained from the Euro-DEN dataset for the period from October 2013 to September 2015; data extracted included demographics, clinical features, reported coused drugs, and outcome data. Sales figures obtained by QuintilesIMS™ (Atlanta, Georgia) were used to compare regional differences in the proportion of benzodiazepines and Z-drugs in the emergency department presentations and legal drug sales across Europe.Results: Over the 2 years, there were 2119 presentations to the Euro-DEN project associated with recreational use of benzodiazepines and/or Z-drugs (19.3% of all Euro-DEN presentations). Presentations with 25 different benzodiazepines and Z-drugs were registered in all countries, most (1809/2340 registered benzodiazepines and Z-drugs, 77.3%) of which were prescription drugs. In 24.9%, the benzodiazepine was not specified. Where the benzodiazepine/Z-drug was known, the most frequently used benzodiazepines and Z-drugs were respectively clonazepam (29.5% of presentations), diazepam (19.9%), alprazolam (11.7%), and zopiclone (9.4%). The proportions of types of benzodiazepines/Z-drugs related to ED-presentations varied between countries. There was a moderate (Spain, UK, Switzerland) to high (France, Ireland, Norway) positive correlation between ED presentations and sales data (Spearman Row's correlation 0.66-0.80, p < 0.005), with higher correlation in countries with higher ED presentation rates.Conclusion: Presentations to the emergency department associated with the non-medical use of benzodiazepines and/or Z-drugs are common, with variation in the benzodiazepines and/or Z-drugs between countries. There was a moderate to high correlation with sales data, with higher correlation in countries with higher ED presentation rates. However, this is not the only explanation for the variation in non-medical use and in the harm associated with the non-medical use of benzodiazepines/Z-drugs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: We examined changes in the burden of depressive symptoms between 2006 and 2014 in 18 European countries across different age groups., Methods: We used population-based data drawn from the European Social Survey (N = 64.683, 54% female, age 14-90 years) covering 18 countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Ireland, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland) from 2006 to 2014. Depressive symptoms were measured via the CES-D 8. Generalized additive models, multilevel regression, and linear regression analyses were conducted., Results: We found a general decline in CES-D 8 scale scores in 2014 as compared with 2006, with only few exceptions in some countries. This decline was most strongly pronounced in older adults, less strongly in middle-aged adults, and least in young adults. Including education, health and income partially explained the decline in older but not younger or middle-aged adults., Conclusions: Burden of depressive symptoms decreased in most European countries between 2006 and 2014. However, the decline in depressive symptoms differed across age groups and was most strongly pronounced in older adults and least in younger adults. Future studies should investigate the mechanisms that contribute to these overall and differential changes over time in depressive symptoms.

Traditional health systems typologies were based on health system financing type, such as the well-known OECD typology. However, the number of dimensions captured in classifications increased to reflect health systems complexity. This study aims to develop a taxonomy of primary care (PC) systems based on the actors involved (state, societal and private) and mechanisms used in governance, financing and regulation, which conceptually represents the degree of decentralisation of functions. We use nonlinear canonical correlations analysis and agglomerative hierarchical clustering on data obtained from the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policy and informants from 24 WHO European Region countries. We obtain four clusters: 1) Bosnia Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Germany, Slovakia and Switzerland: corporatist and/or fragmented PC system, with state involvement in PC supply regulation, without gatekeeping; 2) Greece, Ireland, Israel, Malta, Sweden, and Ukraine: public and (re)centralised PC financing and regulation with private involvement, without gatekeeping; 3) Finland, Norway, Spain and United Kingdom: public financing and devolved regulation and organisation of PC, with gatekeeping; and 4) Bulgaria, Croatia, France, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia and Turkey: public and deconcentrated with professional involvement in supply regulation, and gatekeeping. This taxonomy can serve as a framework for performance comparisons and a means to analyse the effect that different actors and levels of devolution or fragmentation of PC delivery may have in health outcomes., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Studies from single countries suggest that local labour market conditions, including rates of employment, tend to be associated with the health of the populations residing in those areas, even after adjustment for individual characteristics including employment status. The aim of this study is to strengthen the cross-national evidence base on the influence of regional employment levels and individual worklessness on health during the period of the Great Recession. We investigate whether higher regional employment levels are associated with better health over and above individual level employment. Individual level data (N = 23,078 aged 15-64 years) were taken from 16 countries (Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom) participating in the 2014 European Social Survey. Regional employment rates were extracted from Eurostat, corresponding with the start (2008) and end (2013) of the Great Recession. Health outcomes included self-reported heart or circulation problems, high blood pressure, diabetes, self-rated health, depression, obesity and allergies (as a falsification test). We calculated multilevel Poisson regression models, which included individuals nested within regions, controlling for potential confounding variables and country fixed effects. After adjustment for individual level socio-demographic factors, higher average regional employment rates (from 2008 to 2013) were associated with better health outcomes. Individual level worklessness was associated with worsened health outcomes, most strongly with poor self-rated health. In models including both individual worklessness and the average regional employment rate, regional employment remained associated with heart and circulation problems, depression and obesity. There was evidence of an interaction between individual worklessness and regional employment for poor self-rated health and depression. The findings suggest that across 16 European countries, for some key outcomes, higher levels of employment in the regional labour market may be beneficial for the health of the local population., (Copyright © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)