Could occupational physical activity mitigate the link between moderate kidney dysfunction and coronary heart disease?

Background

Chronic kidney disease is now regarded as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. The impact of occupational or non-occupational physical activity (PA) on moderate decreases of renal function is uncertain.

We aimed to identify the potential association of PA (occupational and leisure-time) on early decline of estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) and to determine the potential mediating effect of PA on the relationship between eGFR and heart disease.

From the PRIME study analyses were conducted in 1058 employed men. Energy expended during leisure, work and commuting was calculated. Linear regression analyses were used to determine the link between types of PA and moderate decrements of eGFR determined with the KDIGO guideline at the baseline assessment. Cox proportional hazards analyses were used to explore the potential effect of PA on the relationship between eGFR and heart disease, ascertained during follow-up over 10 years.

For these employed men, and after adjustment for known confounders of GFR change, more time spent sitting at work was associated with increased risk of moderate decline in kidney function, while carrying objects or being active at work was associated with decreased risk. In contrast, no significant link with leisure PA was apparent. No potential mediating effect of occupational PA was found for the relationship between eGFR and coronary heart disease.

Occupational PA (potential modifiable factors) could provide a dual role on early impairment of renal function, without influence on the relationship between early decrease of e-GFR and CHD risk.

“They should stay at their desk until the work’s done”: a qualitative study examining perceptions of sedentary behaviour in a desk-based occupational setting

Background: Workplace sedentary behaviour is a priority target for health promotion. However, little is known about how to effect change. We aimed to explore desk-based office workers’ perceptions of factors that influenced sedentary behaviour at work and to explore the feasibility of using a novel mobile phone application to track their behaviours.

Methods: We invited office employees (n = 12) and managers (n = 2) in a software engineering company to participate in semi-structured interviews to explore perceived barriers and facilitators affecting workplace sedentary behaviour. We assessed participants’ sedentary behaviours using an accelerometer before and after they used a mobile phone application to record their activities at self-selected time intervals daily for 2 weeks. Interviews were analysed using a thematic framework.

Results: Software engineers (5 employees; 2 managers) were interviewed; 13 tested the mobile phone application; 8 returned feedback. Major barriers to reducing workplace sedentary behaviour included the pressure of ‘getting the job done’, the nature of their work requiring sitting at a computer, personal preferences for the use of time at and after work, and a lack of facilities, such as a canteen, to encourage moving from their desks. Facilitators for reduced sedentariness included having a definite reason to leave their desks, social interaction and relief of physical and mental symptoms of prolonged sitting. The findings were similar for participants with different levels of overall physical activity. Valid accelerometer data were tracked for four participants: all reduced their sedentary behaviour. Participants stated that recording data using the phone application added to their day’s work but the extent to which individuals perceived this as a burden varied and was counter-balanced by its perceived value in increasing awareness of sedentary behaviour. Individuals expressed a wish for flexibility in its configuration.

Conclusions: These findings indicate that employers’ and employees’ perceptions of the cultural context and physical environment of their work, as well as personal factors, must be considered in attempting to effect changes that reduce workplace sedentary behaviour. Further research should investigate appropriate individually tailored approaches to this challenge, using a framework of behaviour change theory which takes account of specific work practices, preferences and settings.

Reframing the Favela, Remapping the City: Territorial Embeddedness and (Trans)locality in “Framing Content” on Brazilian Favela Blogs

In recent years, the internet has become a key site for the portrayal of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas. This article examines blogging by favela residents and argues that digital culture constitutes a vital, and as yet not systematically explored, arena of research on the representation of Rio de Janeiro and its favelas. Based on ethnographically inspired research carried out in 2009–2010, this article examines two examples of blog ‘framing content’ (a sidebar and a static page) encountered during fieldwork, which functioned to establish a concrete link between the posts on the blogs in question, their authors, and a named favela, even when the posts were not explicitly about that favela. At the same time, the framing content also made visible, and affirmed, the translocal connections between that favela, other favelas, and the city as a whole. These illustrative examples from a wider study show how favela bloggers are engaged in resignifying and remapping the relationships between different empirical scales of locality (and associated identities) in Rio de Janeiro, demonstrating the contribution an interdisciplinary approach to the digital texts and practices of favela residents can make to an understanding of the contemporary city and its representational conundrums, from the perspective of ‘ordinary practitioners’.

Urinary thrombomodulin levels were significantly higher following occupational exposure to chemicals, in the presence of dipstick protein, but not in the presence of dipstick blood

Currently, there are no biomarkers which can identify patients with an increased risk of developing urothelial cancer as a result of occupational chemical exposure. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationships between final diagnosis and 22 biomarkers measured in urine, serum and plasma collected from 156 hematuric patients. Fourteen of the 80 patients (17.5%) with urothelial cancer and 13/76 (17.1%) of the controls were deemed to have a history of chemical exposure. We applied Fisher's exact tests to explore associations between chemical exposure and final diagnosis, and tumor stage and grade, where applicable; ANOVA and t-test to compare age across patients with and without chemical exposure; and Zelen's exact test to evaluate relationships across final diagnosis, chemical exposure and smoking. Following pre-selection of biomarkers using Lasso, we identified biomarkers with differential levels across patients with and without chemical exposure using Welch's t-test. Using a one-sided t-test and considering multiple testing using FDR, we observed that TM levels in urine were significantly higher in samples from patients with a history of chemical exposure regardless of their diagnosis as control or urothelial cancer (one-sided t-test, p_UC = 0.014 and p_CTL = 0.043); in the presence of dipstick protein and when urinary pH levels ≤ 6 (p = 0.003), but not in the presence of dipstick blood (p = 0.115). Urothelial cancer patients with a history of chemical exposure were significantly younger (64.1 years) than those without chemical exposure (70.2 years) (one-sided t-test p-value = 0.012); and their tumors were higher grade (Fisher's exact test; p = 0.008). There was a strong association between a history of chemical exposure and smoking in urothelial cancer patients (Zelen's exact test; p = 0.025). Elevated urinary thrombomodulin levels could have the potential to identify chemical exposure in hematuric patients at high risk of developing urothelial cancer.

Selection and combination of biomarkers to control and prevent the risk of occupational exposure to the mixture of lead, arsenic and manganese

Tese de doutoramento, Farmácia (Toxicologia), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Farmácia, 2014

Bridging the Divide in Work and Occupational Psychology: Evidence From Practice

This study explores the extent to which work and organizational (W&O) psychology practitioners use evidence, how they apply it to the everyday contexts in which they work and the types of barriers they encounter in so doing. It adopts a mixed methods approach involving the administration of a survey to a UK sample (N=163) of W&O psychologists and a series of semi-structured interviews (N=25) exploring in greater depth how evidence is applied in practice. Findings reveal that practitioners consult a wide range of different types of evidence which they employ at various stages of engagement with client organisations and that this evidence is pressed into service in the pursuit of solutions which are both acceptable from the client perspective and consistent with the scientific standards underpinning professional knowledge and expertise in W&O psychology. Barriers to evidence-use were mainly practical in nature, concerning issues around managing the client-consultant relationship and the particularities of implementation context, both of which were shown to influence evidence utilisation. The study contributes to current debate on the extent to which W&O psychologists adopt an evidence-based approach and provides a valuable and much called-for empirical insight into the enactment of the scientist-practitioner model in W&O psychology

The First Year Experience of Occupational Therapy Students at an Australian Regional University: Promoting Student Retention and Developing a Regional and Remote Workforce

Abstract Objective: Student retention at regional universities is important in addressing regional and remote workforce shortages. Students attending regional universities are more likely to work in regional areas. First year experience at university plays a key role in student retention. This study aimed to explore factors influencing the first year experience of occupational therapy students at a regional Australian university. Design: Surveys were administered to 58 second year occupational therapy students in the first week of second year. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, inferential statistics (Pearson χ2; Spearman rho) and summarising descriptive responses. Setting: An Australian regional university. Participants: Second year undergraduate occupational therapy students. Main outcome measures: Factors influencing students’ decisions to study and continue studying occupational therapy; factors enhancing first year experience of university. Results: Fifty-four students completed the survey (93.1%). A quarter (25.9%) of students considered leaving the course during the first year. The primary influence for continuing was the teaching and learning experience. Most valued supports were orientation week (36.7%) and the first year coordinator (36.7%). Conclusion: The importance of the first year experience in retaining occupational therapy students is highlighted. Engagement with other students and staff and academic support are important factors in facilitating student retention. It is important to understand the unique factors influencing students’ decisions, particularly those from regional and remote areas, to enter and continue in tertiary education to assist in implementing supports and strategies to improve student retention.

The brain-sex theory of occupational choice: a counterexample

The brain-sex theory of occupational choice suggests that males and females in male-typical careers show a male pattern of cognitive ability in terms of better spatial than verbal performance on cognitive tests with the reverse pattern for females and males in female-typical careers, These differences are thought to result from patterns of cerebral functional lateralisation. This study Sought Such occupationally related effects using synonym generation (verbal ability) and mental rotation (spatial ability) tasks used previously. It also used entrants to these careers as participants to examine whether patterns of cognitive abilities might predate explicit training and practice. Using a population of entrants to sex-differentiated University Courses, a moderate occupational effect on the synonym generation task was found, along with a weak (p<.10) sex effect on the mental rotation task. Highest performance on the mental rotation task was by female Students in fashion design, a female-dominated occupation which makes substantial visuospatial demands and attracts many students with literacy problems such as dyslexia. This group then appears to be a counterexample to the brain-sex theory. However, methodological issues Surrounding previous Studies are highlighted: the simple synonym task appears to show limited discrimination of the sexes, leading to questions concerning the legitimacy of inferences about lateralisation based on scores from that test. Moreover, the human figure-based mental rotation task appears to tap the wrong aspect of visuospatial skill, likely to be needed for male-typical courses such as engineering, Since the fashion-clesign career is also one that attracts disproportionately many male students whose sexual orientation is homosexual, data were examined for evidence of female-typical patterns of cognitive performance among that subgroup. This was not found. This study therefore provides Do evidence for the claim that female-pattern cerebral functional lateralisation is likely in gay males.

Occupational exposure to environmental tobacco smoke in hospitality venues: are genetic- or proteomics-based biomarkers predictive of respiratory diseases?

Environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) is recognized as an occupational hazard in the hospitality industry. Although Portuguese legislation banned smoking in most indoor public spaces, it is still allowed in some restaurants/bars, representing a potential risk to the workers’ health, particularly for chronic respiratory diseases. The aims of this work were to characterize biomarkers of early genetic effects and to disclose proteomic signatures associated to occupational exposure to ETS and with potential to predict respiratory diseases development. A detailed lifestyle survey and clinical evaluation (including spirometry) were performed in 81 workers from Lisbon restaurants. ETS exposure was assessed through the level of PM 2.5 in indoor air and the urinary level of cotinine. The plasma samples were immunodepleted and analysed by 2D-SDSPAGE followed by in-gel digestion and LC-MS/MS. DNA lesions and chromosome damage were analysed innlymphocytes and in exfoliated buccal cells from 19 cigarette smokers, 29 involuntary smokers, and 33 non-smokers not exposed to tobacco smoke. Also, the DNA repair capacity was evaluated using an ex vivo challenge comet assay with an alkylating agent (EMS). All workers were considered healthy and recorded normal lung function. Interestingly, following 2D-DIGE-MS (MALDI-TOF/TOF), 61 plasma proteins were found differentially expressed in ETS-exposed subjects, including 38 involved in metabolism, acute-phase respiratory inflammation, and immune or vascular functions. On the other hand, the involuntary smokers showed neither an increased level of DNA/chromosome damage on lymphocytes nor an increased number of micronuclei in buccal cells, when compared to non-exposed non-smokers. Noteworthy, lymphocytes challenge with EMS resulted in a significantly lower level of DNA breaks in ETS-exposed as compared to non-exposed workers (P<0.0001) suggestive of an adaptive response elicited by the previous exposure to low levels of ETS. Overall, changes in proteome may be promising early biomarkers of exposure to ETS. Likewise, alterations of the DNA repair competence observed upon ETS exposure deserves to be further understood. Work supported by Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, ACSS and FCT/Polyannual Funding Program.