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Background: Most of the evidence on risk factors for COVID-19 complications comes from North America or Europe with very little research from Latin-America. We aimed to evaluate the association between sociodemographic, clinical factors and the risk of COVID-19 complications among adults in Chile, the fifth Latin-American country with more COVID-19 reported cases since de beginning of the Pandemic., Methods: A retrospective population-based cohort study using data from electronic health records from a large Primary Care Network, linked to national hospital, immunization, Covid-19 PCR surveillance, mortality and birth records. We included people 18+ years old enrolled in the Primary Care Network between 1st January 2020 and 31st December 2021. Using Multivariate Cox proportional hazard models, we evaluate the association between sociodemographic, clinical characteristics with three COVID-19 complications: (1) a hospital admission, (2) an ICU admission, and (3) death due to a COVID-19 infection that occurred between the 1st January 2020 and the 31st December 2021., Results: 44,674 people were included. The mean age was 44.30 (sd 17.31), 55.6% were female, 15.9% had a type of healthcare insurance for people from the lowest category of income, 11.6% and 9.4% had a record of hypertension or diabetes mellitus diagnosis. Among the 44,674 people, 455 (1.02%) had a hospital admission due to a COVID-19 infection and 216(0.48%) of them also had an ICU admission. Among the 44,674 people,148(0.33%) died due to COVID-19 infection. Older age and male sex were consistently associated with a higher risk of the three COVID-19 complications. Hypertension and diabetes were associated with a higher risk of a hospital admission and death, but not with an ICU admissions due to COVID-19 infection. Having two or more COVID-19 vaccine doses compared with no doses was associated with a lower risk of any hospital admission (HR 0.81; 95% CI 0.77-0.84), an ICU admission (HR 0.60; 95% CI 0.57-0.63) and death (HR 0.50; 95% CI 0.46-0.54). Pregnant or puerperal women were more likely to be admitted to hospital (HR 2.89; 95% CI 1.41-5.89) or ICU (HR 3.04; 95% CI 1.01-9.14)., Conclusions: Sociodemographic and clinical factors associated with COVID-19 complications such as age, sex and pre-existing conditions were comparable to those reported in similar studies from higher-income countries, and can be used to predict severity in COVID-19 patients., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Leniz et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Objectives: The burden of cancer is increasing rapidly in Latin America. Primary care has an essential role in cancer prevention, but implementation levels of prevention practices are not well known. This study evaluated implementation levels and associated factors of cancer preventive practices in primary care over time., Study Design: The study incorporated a retrospective multicentre cohort study., Methods: A population of 59,949 patients registered at three primary care clinics was followed from January 2018 to December 2022 in Santiago, Chile. We studied human papillomavirus (HPV) and hepatitis B virus (HBV) immunisation, brief counselling for smoking cessation and alcohol consumption, and cervical and breast cancer screening practices. Standardised electronic medical records were utilised as the source of information. Social, clinical, and organisational factors associated with prevention practices were studied., Results: The cohort attrition level was 17.1%. Most of the population was of a low socioeconomic status, and 70% visited a primary health centre yearly. Implementation rates of immunisation practices were 90.84% for HPV and 80.94% for HBV in 2022. In contrast, brief counselling for smoking and alcohol consumption was below 20% during the study period. Cervical cancer screening decreased by 25.58% between 2018 and 2022, whereas breast cancer screening reached only 41.71% of the target population. Opportunistic medical visits were strongly associated with brief counselling and breast cancer screening., Conclusion: Implementation practices for cancer prevention in a Chilean primary care cohort are high for immunisation and very low for brief counselling and screening practices. A comprehensive non-medical-based model is needed to improve cancer prevention in primary care., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)