Morningness-eveningness and anxiety among adults: A matter of sex/gender?

People’s health and well-being may be determined by the interaction of endogenous and external rhythms. Late chronotypes should become anxious because of the demand to perform tasks in a society oriented preferentially to morning work. In this study, we examined the relationship between morningness and anxiety in 559 adults (age range 40–63 years) from rural environments who completed morningness–eveningness and anxiety measures. Results indicated a negative correlation between morningness and anxiety in women, but not in men, suggesting the relevance of gender-related variables. When demographic characteristics were considered, women’s anxiety was predicted by low educational level and eveningness, whereas men’s anxiety was predicted by being single, having children, being unemployed, and eveningness. Some hypotheses of gender-related social roles are postulated as a possible explanation of the results.

Introduction of African Swine Fever into the European Union through Illegal Importation of Pork and Pork Products

Transboundary animal diseases can have very severe socio-economic impacts when introduced into new regions. The history of disease incursions into the European Union suggests that initial outbreaks were often initiated by illegal importation of meat and derived products. The European Union would benefit from decision-support tools to evaluate the risk of disease introduction caused by illegal imports in order to inform its surveillance strategy. However, due to the difficulty in quantifying illegal movements of animal products, very few studies of this type have been conducted. Using African swine fever as an example, this work presents a novel risk assessment framework for disease introduction into the European Union through illegal importation of meat and products. It uses a semi-quantitative approach based on factors that likely influence the likelihood of release of contaminated smuggled meat and products, and subsequent exposure of the susceptible population. The results suggest that the European Union is at non-negligible risk of African swine fever.