Previous research has shown that Dark Triad traits are tied to non-compliance, while there is not enough research regarding sadism. As dark traits are related to risk-taking behaviors, we ...hypothesized that proneness to risk-taking could be a mediating mechanism explaining the relation between dark traits and non-compliance with protective measures. Sample comprised of 348 participants (77% women) who completed the Hateful Eight (a multifaceted Short Dark Tetrad scale), DOSPERT for measuring different aspects of risk-taking tendencies, and questions regarding frequency of compliance with protection measures and vaccination. Results showed that recklessness (aspect of psychopathy) and violent voyeurism (aspect of sadism) had negative effects on compliance with protective measures. These relations were fully explained by health/safety risk tendency. Deviousness (aspect of Machiavellianism) contributed to unwillingness to vaccinate against COVID-19 independently of risk-taking tendencies. Furthermore, selection of particular vaccine was not associated with dark traits, but those who selected all vaccines (both EU-approved and non-approved) had higher scores on social risks compared to those who selected only non-approved vaccines. Additionally, those who selected only EU-approved vaccines showed lower scores on ethical risks compared to the rest of the participants who were vaccinated or applied for vaccination.
•Recklessness and violent voyeurism negatively predicted protective behaviors.•These relations were fully explained by the health and safety risk tendencies.•Deviousness contributed to unwillingness to vaccinate against COVID-19.•Lower ethical risk proneness is related to choosing EU-approved vaccines.•Higher social risk proneness is related to choosing any vaccine.
The United Nations have described the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) as the worst global crisis since the second world war. Behavioral protective measures, such as good hand ...hygiene and social distancing, may strongly affect infection and fatality rates worldwide. In two studies (total N = 962), we aimed to identify central predictors of acceptance and adoption of protective measures, including sociodemographic variables, risk perception, and trust. We found that men and younger participants show lower acceptance and adoption of protective measures, suggesting that it is crucial to develop targeted health messages for these groups. Moreover, trust in politics and trust in science emerged as important predictors for the acceptance and adoption of protective measures. These results show that maintaining and ideally strengthening trust in politics and trust in science might be central for overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic.
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to unprecedented personal, social, and economic costs worldwide.
A better understanding of the acceptance and adoption of protective measures is crucial.
Trust in politics and trust in science emerged as important predictors of protective measures.
Implications for effective health and science communication are derived.
Protective measures such as wearing mask, quarantine, hand washing and so on can prevent and control the spread of infectious diseases. In this paper, a discrete-time model on networks combines ...infectious diseases and protective measures is proposed. Protective measures include voluntary protective measures of susceptible individuals and compulsory protective measures of infected individuals. The epidemic threshold is obtained and the time series of optimal control probability of infected individuals are analyzed by optimal control theory. The results of optimal control are compared with other constant control and the influences of protective measures on infectious diseases are analyzed by simulations. The optimal control results indicate that the greater the control proportion of infected individuals, the greater the average social payoff. It is shown that increasing the effectiveness of protective measures could effectively control the spread of infectious diseases.
•Healthcare workers were at an increased risk of infection as they are in close contact with patients.•China's coronavirus response highlighted the importance of implementing effective public health ...strategies.•Authorities implemented stringent protective measures to safeguard our healthcare workers in order to counteract the threats brought by the pandemic.
The ongoing outbreak of COVID-19, caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, places healthcare workers at an increased risk of infection as they are in close contact with patients. In this article, we report an overview of cases of infected healthcare workers in China and Italy during the early periods of the COVID-19 epidemic. China's coronavirus response highlights the importance of implementing effective public health strategies. The authorities worldwide therefore, need to be extremely cautious when they implement stringent protective measures that safeguard healthcare workers in hospitals and counteract the threats created by the pandemic
Background
During the COVID-19 pandemic we assessed to which extent patients in opioid maintenance treatment (OMT) adhere to official recommendations regarding preventive intervention strategies ...against COVID-19.
Methods
Patients enrolled in two OMT clinics in Germany were interviewed applying a standardized questionnaire, which covered socio-demographic information, recent psychotropic substance use, recent social activities, the history of SARS-CoV-2 infection, attitudes toward official protection recommendations, and levels of adherence to these suggestions. Current mental and medical diagnoses were retrieved from medical files. In subjects without known infection and without vaccination, blood samples were tested for the identification of anti-SARS-CoV-2-S-antibodies. Interviews were performed between the end of May and the end of September 2021.
Results
Patients’ (
n
= 155) average age was 47 years; 74% were males. In addition to the opiate dependence, in nearly 80% of cases another medical disorder was recorded. The range of medical factors that predispose for severe COVID-19 outcomes were present in 39% of patients; 18% of the sample refused to be vaccinated. Nearly all patients reported having carried out a range of activities outside their residence during the week prior to the interviews, including visits of treatment facilities (86.5%; 95% confidence interval 80.2%; 91.0%) or meeting with friends (64.5% 65.7–71.6%). Despite the fact that only about 47.1% 39.2%; 55% felt well informed about measures against infection, adherence to COVID-19 countermeasures was generally high: 83.9% 77.3; 88.8% claimed to have worn face masks always/nearly always; social distancing was performed always/nearly always by 58.7% 50.8%; 66.2%; and hand hygiene was conducted by 64.5% 56.7%; 71.6% of participants. None out of
n
= 25 tests from unvaccinated subjects was positive for anti-SARS-CoV-2-S-antibodies. Psychiatric comorbidity and educational degree were not statistically significantly associated with attitudes and compliance, except that patients with lower education felt relatively worse informed.
Conclusion
Self-reported adherence to recommended non-therapeutic intervention strategies and vaccination rates were similar to the German general population. Provision of more health-related information tailored to OMT patients appears necessary.
Farmers' compliance with common safety practices in pesticide use (i.e., keeping records of pesticide applications, reading the information of pesticide labels, and taking protective measures during ...pesticide handling) and the use of information sources about pesticides were studied in a simple random sample of farmers in Evros Province, northern Greece.
According to the three common safety practices considered in the study, most farmers (56.9%) complied with safety practices. Nevertheless, a noticeable proportion of the farmers never kept records of pesticide applications (33.9%), never read the information of pesticide labels (20.2%), and never took protective measures during pesticide handling (24.8%). Farmers reported using up to six different sources of information about pesticides, but the majority (51.4%) reported using up to one source and almost one-third (33.9%) relied on own sources. The most common information source about pesticides was the staff of the agricultural supply stores, used by 88.1% of the farmers. Safety behavior was positively correlated with total sources of information (P < 0.01) and information by the agricultural supply stores (P < 0.01). Multiple regression analysis showed that safety behavior was reduced in females, whereas it was increased in farmers with high education, high number of plots, and high level of information sources.
Despite good levels of safety behavior by most farmers, keeping records of sprayings should be improved. Using multiple information sources about pesticides is crucial to improve safety behavior of farmers. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Inhalation of laser-induced smoke is a potential health hazard to exposed physicians and laser operators. To date, little is known about the perception of health hazards related to laser-induced ...smoke exposure among physicians and the actual use of safety measures to mitigate these risks.
In May 2020, 514 members of the European Society for Lasers and Energy-Based Devices (ESLD) were invited by email to participate in an online survey. The survey comprised 16 questions including multiple-choice and open-ended questions.
Responses were received from 109 participants. The majority (90%) were aware of potential hazards and highlighted a desire for better protective measures (60%). A smoke evacuation system was frequently used with ablative lasers (66%) and fractional ablative lasers (61%), but less the case with non-ablative lasers (30%) and hair removal lasers (28%). The COVID-19 outbreak had no clear effect on the use of smoke evacuation systems. Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, mainly surgical masks were used (40-57%), while high filtration masks (FFP1, FFP2 or FFP3) were used by only a small percentage (15-30%). Post COVID-19 outbreak, the use of high filtration masks increased significantly (54-66%), predominately due to an increase in the use of FFP2 masks. Reasons mentioned for inadequate protective measures were sparse knowledge, limited availability, discomfort, excessive noise, high room temperatures, and financial costs.
While there is considerable awareness of the hazards of laser-induced smoke among physicians and laser operators, a substantial number of them do not use appropriate protective measures. The implementation of regulations on safety measures is hampered by sparse knowledge, limited availability, discomfort, excessive noise, financial issues, and high room temperatures.
According to observational findings, ionizing radiation (IR) triggers dysbiosis of the intestinal microbiota, affecting the structural composition, function, and species of the gut microbiome and its ...metabolites. These modifications can further exacerbate IR-induced damage and amplify proinflammatory immune responses. Conversely, commensal bacteria and favorable metabolites can remodel the IR-disturbed gut microbial structure, promote a balance between anti-inflammatory and proinflammatory mechanisms in the body, and mitigate IR toxicity. The discovery of effective and safe remedies to prevent and treat radiation-induced injuries is vitally needed because of the proliferation of radiation toxicity threats produced by recent radiological public health disasters and increasing medical exposures. This review examines how the gut microbiota and its metabolites are linked to the processes of IR-induced harm. We highlight protective measures based on interventions with gut microbes to optimize the distress caused by IR damage to human health. We offer prospects for research in emerging and promising areas targeting the prevention and treatment of IR-induced damage.
•Ionizing radiation impacted gut microbiota composition and metabolic profiles.•Gut microbiota and metabolites can minimize radiation toxicity.•Benefit/risk comparison of four types of radiation protection measures.
The adoption and acceptance of protective measures are crucial for containing the ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. In a recent article in this journal, Dohle et al. ...(https://doi.org/10.32872/spb.4315) investigated the influence of risk perceptions and trust in politics and science on those constructs in March/April 2020. Since then, the pandemic has undergone several dynamic changes. We analyzed longitudinal data (N = 800) to investigate whether trust and risk were relevant predictors for pandemic measures at a later stage (October 2020/January 2021). The concept of risk perception was supplemented by risk attitude and affective risk to produce a more comprehensive picture of the risk component. We found that greater trust in science at time point 1 predicted less rejection and more adoption of measures at time point 2. Moreover, trust in politics predicted less rejection of measures. From all aspects of cognitive risk perception, only higher severity predicted lower rejection. All other cognitive aspects were non-significant. However, affective risk was shown to be a major predictor: the more the coronavirus was perceived as frightening and worrisome, the lower the rejection and more frequent the adoption of measures. Also, the higher the risk attitude related to health topics, the less frequent the implementation of measures. We replicated the analysis with predictors from time point 2 and deviations are discussed. Our results indicate that affective risk and general attitude toward health risk are more predictive of taking up measures in the context of COVID-19 than cognitive risk.
Highlights
Longitudinal data from two time points, before and during a peak in the incidence of COVID-19 infections in Germany, were analyzed.
Affective risk and risk attitude toward health were more predictive of taking up measures in the context of COVID-19 than cognitive risk.
Higher trust in science at time 1 predicted less rejection and more adoption of measures at time 2, and higher trust in politics predicted less rejection.
Analyses were replicated with cross-sectional data, it was shown that the estimators at time 1 provided reliable results in a longitudinal analysis, which is an important finding for addressing health crises.
Traditional phased array-based space-time adaptive processing (STAP) suffers from severe performance degradation in the presence of dense false-target jamming, especially mainlobe deceptive jamming. ...In this paper, an enhanced 3-D joint domain localized STAP method, incorporated with deceptive jamming pre-whitening in the transmit-receive spatial domain, is proposed to deal with this problem. It exploits the characteristic that the target, clutter, and deceptive jamming are discriminable in the range-angle-Doppler domain of a frequency diverse array multi-input multi-output radar. The designed pre-whitening filter has excellent performance in deceptive jamming mitigation, since it is constructed by the target-free jamming samples which are obtained by a novel strategy of spectrum feature-based jamming sample selection. As a result of taking the advantage of differences among the 3-D spectra of the true target, clutter, and deceptive jamming, the proposed sample selection strategy can extract unpredictable deceptive jamming samples efficiently even in the presence of strong true targets and heavy ground clutter. Signal-to-interference-plus-noise-ratio loss analysis and numerical examples are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in the dense deceptive jamming scenario.
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