International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Volume 22, Issue 2

For decades, art in its many forms has been used to improve patients’ quality of life and mental health. A growing amount of literature has shown the effectiveness of active visual art therapy (AVAT) on different patient outcomes and highlighte...

Community Restaurants (CRs), part of the Brazilian government’s Popular Restaurant Program (PRP), provide free and/or affordable nutritionally balanced meals as an essential strategy to meet the most vulnerable population’s basic needs an...

Background: Despite scientific breakthroughs in vaccine development, some people remain reluctant to accept the anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. This study evaluates attitudes and behaviours towards the vaccine and factors associated with refusal/hesitancy a...

(1) Background: Home health care (HHC) services guarantee good patient care and family support. Understanding how we can better help our informal caregivers (ICs) by understanding their needs and the burden they experience is crucial. (2) Methods: A...

Background: Current evaluation tools are inadequate for assessing the impact of small-scale interventions, such as farmer’s markets or community meal programs, on fruit and vegetable consumption. This study analyzes the pilot data of a novel to...

One major environmental concern is the lead (Pb) pollution from automobile traffic, especially in highway-side grazing areas. Sheep grazing in Pb-contaminated areas are particularly vulnerable because Pb exposure from soil, water, and feed can have h...

The Psychosocial Rehabilitation Project (PRP) is a tool designed to structure and organize mental health care, guided by the theoretical and practical principles of Psychosocial Rehabilitation (PR). This article aims to identify the initial requireme...

Obesity is a global issue whose prevalence continues to rise at a concerning rate. Over the past 30 years, many countries have witnessed the doubling or tripling of obesity rates. The growing prevalence of obesity in children is particularly worrying...

Introduction: The highly contagious 2019 novel coronavirus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 increased the scientific community’s interest in diagnosing and monitoring COVID-19. Due to the findings about the association between COVID-19 infe...

In 2022, 26–31% of young adults reported using e-cigarettes in the previous 30 days. Research supports the effectiveness of mass media health campaigns in changing targeted attitudes and behaviors regarding nicotine use. However, the effect of...

Ambient air pollution is the most important environmental factor impacting human health. Urban landscapes present unique air quality challenges, which are compounded by climate change adaptation challenges, as air pollutants can also be affected by t...

The Amazon rainforest plays a fundamental role in regulating the global climate and therefore receives special attention when Brazilian environmental issues gain prominence on the global stage. However, other Brazilian biomes, such as the Pampa and t...

(1) Background: This study was conducted in the small island developing state of Barbados, which has dubiously earned the title of “amputation capital of the world”, to understand perspectives of persons living with diabetic foot ulcerati...

The consumer food environment is an important medium for understanding complex interactions regarding food consumption, health outcomes and social vulnerability. We aimed to analyze the diversity, variety and quality of natural and ultra-processed fo...

Background: Youth with disabilities (YWD) often exhibit deficits in physical fitness, but much of the literature is limited by small, non-representative samples. The purpose of this study was to examine differences in musculoskeletal fitness between...

Citizens Advice on Prescription (CAP), a Liverpool (UK)-based service, provides welfare advice and link worker social prescription support to people experiencing and at risk of experiencing financial or social hardship. CAP, which receives referrals...

Background: Raising children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has consistently been found to be challenging for parents. However, available studies have mainly focused on mothers, raising questions about fathers’ involvement in raising child...

This study explored the relationship between the physical activity (PA) environment, nature affinity and wellbeing. An online survey was used incorporating the Nature-Relatedness Scale (NR-6), EQ-5D health questionnaire, WHO-5 wellbeing questionnaire...

There has been increasing interest in the health and environmental benefits of the growth of local food, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. In the United States, local food and labels have many implications and attributes, such as organic, non-G...

Nursing staff have been at the forefront of the pandemic, reporting high traumatic stress and anxiety levels related to high fear of COVID-19. Recommendations from previous studies include using the Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S) as a screening too...

The article examines the changes to Italian legislation on assisted reproductive technology (ART) resulting from rulings by Italian courts, highlighting unresolved ethical–legal issues and potential future regulatory approaches consistent with...

We created a comprehensive, four-part, in-person, interactive community education series to teach informal, unpaid care partners of persons living with dementia (PLWD) how to support their PLWD, negotiate common day-to-day challenges, and navigate pr...

In recent decades, technological shifts within the healthcare sector have significantly transformed healthcare management and utilization, introducing unprecedented possibilities that elevate quality of life. Organizational factors are recognized as...

This is the first study to analyze the coverage and profile of establishments registered on a meal delivery application (MDA) in small and medium-sized cities in Brazil. The app serves 497 municipalities across 22 states, offering 28,325 establishmen...

The role of General Practice Pharmacists (GPPs) has expanded in response to increasing demands on primary care services, particularly in managing chronic conditions. While GPPs are recognised for their contributions to medication optimisation and pat...

Latinx communities face disproportionate environmental injustices and are targeted due to systematic economic and political inequities. This research evaluates the ease at which links between industrial releases and risk of adverse health effects can...

Most drugs excreted in urine are not filtered by wastewater treatment plants and end up in aquatic systems. At concentrations measured in waters, toxic effects on species have been described. Second, most of the drug consumption is attributable to pr...

Problem: Chronic back pain (CBP) is a major cause of disability, contributing significantly to healthcare costs and primary care visits. Pharmacotherapy alone is insufficient in managing CBP. Integrated behavioral health interventions that include ps...

Body image (BI) plays a critical role in mental health, with negative perceptions often linked to feelings of low mood. Physical activity (PA) has been shown to enhance self-acceptance and reduce negative emotions, suggesting it may help mitigate the...

Background: A knowledge gap exists on population understanding and perspectives of menopause. To better support females, it is important to understand different population groups’ perceived knowledge of and attitudes towards menopause. This stu...

This opinion piece postulates that quantitative environmental research and public health spatial analysts unknowingly tolerate certain spatial statistical model specification errors, whose remedies constitute some of the urgent emerging trends and is...

Primary healthcare has an important role in a patient’s long-term health. While patients in most countries are free to change their family physician, fragmented care leads to higher healthcare costs, more preventable hospitalizations, and an in...

Wilderness medicine is a rapidly evolving field and has benefited from expanded research efforts. Moreover, with an escalating occurrence of severe and cataclysmic global climatologic events, human illness arising from interaction with wilderness and...

Background: Digital technologies are increasingly being used to promote effective health interventions in the older adult population. This study aimed to develop and validate instant messages with educational content related to glycemic control, deli...

Introduction: Osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the leading causes of chronic disability in older adults, often causing significant impairment of mobility. OA symptoms have been linked to mental functioning, including depression, anxiety, and negative af...

Adolescent obesity is a growing global health problem all around the world. We reviewed the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) for adolescent obesity, examining improvements in BMI or any metabolic indices of obesity. We performed a...

Myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS) a chronic, disabling illness with no established etiopathology. It has been indicated in some population-based studies that Black and ethnic minority populations are underdiagnosed with ME/CFS. The aims of the prese...

Long COVID can devastate patients’ overall quality of life, extending to economic, psychosocial, and mental health and day-to-day activities. Clinical research suggests that long COVID is more severe among Black and African American populations...

Racial disparities have been found in outpatient substance use disorder (SUD) treatment completion rates. Improvements in access to treatment have sought to decrease these disparities and increase treatment engagement and success. To understand outco...

Exposure to wildfire smoke (WFS) is associated with detrimental physical and mental health. Periods of sustained WFS are predicted to increase with climate change, affecting populations globally. Using a retrospective cross-sectional study, we assess...

Long COVID represents a significant challenge in understanding the prolonged impact of the disease. Despite its increasing recognition, detailed insights into the long-term cardiopulmonary consequences remain sparse. This study aimed to evaluate the...

People with Long COVID, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), and other complex chronic disorders consistently report having difficulty obtaining effective and compassionate medical care and being disbelieved, judged, gaslighte...

Objective: This study aims to adapt the Fear-of-Intimacy Scale for the Portuguese population and examine its association with sociosexual orientation, as measured by the Sociosexual Orientation Inventory, highlighting the relevance of this associatio...

Historically, the attribution of biology to race has shaped societies and manifested in innumerable disparities and irreparable harm, especially in communities of color. From the earliest days of the United States to the present day, the dehumanizati...

Implementation of RSV prevention strategies requires an understanding of seasonal virus epidemiology; yet, such data are lacking in many tropical regions. We describe the seasonality and environmental factors associated with RSV activity in Machala,...

A cross-sectional survey conducted between July and September 2020 and August and September 2021 estimated the prevalence and predictors of common mental disorders (CMDs) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among healthcare workers (HCWs) at an...

Childcare workers are at risk of musculoskeletal complaints due to various stresses. Comparative studies focusing on this group are lacking. In a cross-sectional study, we asked female childcare workers and women from the general population (comparis...

To maintain relevance, youth tobacco control programs must leverage popular social media platforms and address evolving behaviors. Recognizing this, the South Carolina Department of Public Health and Rescue Agency implemented culturally tailored soci...

From both a social and epidemiological perspective, incarcerated individuals in Latin America face a series of accumulated disadvantages in different areas, one of them being the deterioration in their mental health linked to confinement and the nega...

The digital transformation of work and the rise of remote workers (RWs) are gaining growing interest in occupational health science. However, research on managers’ role in well-being can be developed more. Aiming to bridge this gap, this study...