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The increase in human population has resulted in environmental alterations and habitat fragmentation, such as those caused by road construction. Since the late 1990s, there has been an increase in studies evaluating the effects of roads on vertebrate populations; however, few studies have considered bats in road ecology studies. In this review on road ecology studies focusing on bats, we evaluated the impacts of roads on bat mortality, commuting, and foraging. We also evaluated the use of road structures as roosts and provide suggestions for future research and mitigation methods based on available results. Road impacts on bat activity and roadkill are strongly influenced by landscape features, and areas with short trees have more impact on roadkill. Also, in open areas, bats prefer to forage near roads whereas in woodland areas activity increases with distance from the road. Most studies evaluating the effects of roads on bats have been conducted in Europe, therefore it is essential that these studies are conducted in other areas, especially in developing countries. To ensure the conservation of bat species, it is imperative that studies consider all impacts that roads have on bat populations and that mitigation measures are applied, especially when road construction meets bat commuting or foraging paths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses the decentralised international co-operation between Brazil and Europe, focusing on two specific issues that are not the main objectives of the literature specialised in paradiplomacy studies: first, how international co-operation can be used as a tool for power projection and second, the effects that the economic, political and institutional asymmetry among the actors involved in co-operation arrangements produces on the co-operation outcomes. For that, a wide range of documents and data was used (interviews, official documents, minutes of meetings and data collected with a survey applied to public managers) related to the international co-operation developed between Brazil and European countries. The conclusions are that even in decentralised co-operation arrangements, power relations matter to the results of co-operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Objectives:Comparable international data on food and nutrient intake is often hindered by the lack of a common instrument to assess food intake. The objective of this study was within the Global Allergy and Asthma European Network of Excellence (GA2LEN), we developed and piloted a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) to assess its validity in Europe.Subjects/Methods:Five countries participating in GA2LEN took part in the pilot study. A total of 200 adults aged 31-75 years were invited to complete a FFQ in two occasions and to give a blood sample. The intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) was used to assess repeatability of the FFQ. Plasma phospholipid fatty acids (FAs) were analysed by gas chromatography. Pearson correlation was used to analyse the correlation between estimated dietary FA intake and plasma phospholipid FA levels.Results:A total of 177 participants (89%) had complete data on FFQ1 and plasma phospholipid FAs. In all, 152 participants (76%) completed both FFQs. ICCs between macronutrients ranged from 0.70 (saturated FAs) to 0.78 (proteins) and between 0.70 (retinol) and 0.81 (vitamin D) for micronutrients. Dietary n-3 FAs showed a good correlation with total plasma phospholipid n-3 FAs and with docosahexaenoic acid in the whole sample (0.40) and in individual countries. Poor correlations were observed for other FAs.Conclusions:The GA2LEN FFQ is an appropriate tool to estimate dietary intake for a range of nutrients across Europe regardless of cultural and linguistic differences. The FFQ seems to be useful to estimate the intake of n-3 FAs but not other FAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secrecy has been the motto of IP law, and treaty-making worldwide—but do policy makers in Europe have a legitimate basis in continuing such a trend? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objective: To describe a protocol to achieve consensus on valid and important indicators to assess primary health care (PHC) quality regarding all clinical contexts of PHC in European health systems., Study Design: Qualitative study using the Delphi technique to gain consensus among European panels of experts comprising a heterogeneous professional background., Methods: Potential candidate indicators were extracted and translated according to a set of informative elements (i.e., name, description, formula, unit of analysis, and sources). This list was then independently reviewed, and duplicates were removed totaling 1726 indicators. To guarantee a good response rate, indicators were distributed across 57 Delphi panels organized by clinical context. Each panel is a Delphi process, assessing between 23 to 33 indicators. Experts' opinions on the validity and importance of the extracted indicators will be obtained through two rounds of online questionnaires, using a 9-point Likert scale and free-text boxes. To prevent biased responses, participation will be anonymous to other participants and to the team administrating panels. Consensus will be considered if at least 70% of ratings (≥7 assuming 10 participants) lie within the 7-9 range and less than 15% of ratings (<2 assuming 10 participants) are in the 1-3 range. Analysis of results will be streamlined and generalizable across panels using scripts., Conclusions: This protocol will contribute to improve the quality of PHC in Europe by achieving a consensual and concise list of PHC quality indicators retrieved from the scientific literature that fit current clinical guidelines and populations' needs in countries from the European region according to the World Health Organization., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Lobo 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.)

Background: The Global Burden of Disease study has generated a wealth of data on death and disability in Europe. At a time of change for the European Union and European Region of WHO, with a new Health Commissioner and Regional Director, respectively, a review of health trends can contribute to identify outstanding needs and gaps. This paper reports a summary of the burden of disease in the European Union (EU) in 2017 (compared with 2007)., Methods: For the whole EU and each country, mortality by causes of death, disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and life expectancies are reported., Results: In 2017, the age-standardized mortality and DALY rates were of 452.6 and 19 663.3 per 100 000 inhabitants, respectively. The diseases contributing most to mortality were ischaemic heart disease (IHD), dementias and stroke, while low back pain and IHD accounted for the highest burden of DALYs., Conclusions: Overall, there was an improvement in the state of health in the EU but substantial differences between countries remain. Cardiovascular diseases still represent the major burden, although there have been substantial improvements. There are many opportunities for mutual learning among otherwise similar countries with different patterns of disease., (© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Public Health Association. All rights reserved.)