From our ethnographic experience in chats, for the study 'Entre Dones a la Xarxa: Un estudi sobre les interaccions socials entre dones en espais de conversa electronics,' we try to question those methodological approaches to the virtual areas that adapt directly the ethnographic method, which until now has been used in the offline scope: What is new in the ethnographic works online? Is still the participant observation & the semi-structured interview useful for the new virtual scope? Which are their limits & possibilities? During our work of participant observation in chats we have wanted to experiment with the ethnographic method in order to try to respond to all these questions.
Background and aims The economic evaluation of tobacco control policies requires the adoption of assumptions about the impact of changes in smoking status on health related quality of life (HRQOL). Estimates for such impacts are necessary for different populations. This paper aims to test whether smoking status has an independent effect on HRQOL over and above the effect derived from the increased likelihood of suffering a tobacco related disease and to calculate utility values for the Spanish population. Methods Using data from the Spanish Encuesta Nacional de Salud of 2011-12, we estimate statistical models for HRQOL as measured by the EQ5D5L instrument as a function of smoking status. We include a comprehensive set of controls for biological clinical, lifestyle and socioeconomic characteristics. Results Smoking status has an independent, statistically significant effect on HRQOL. However, the size of the effect is small. The typical smoking related disease, such as lung cancer, is associated to a reduction in HRQOL about 5 times larger than the difference between current smokers and never smokers. Conclusion A realistic representation of the effects of smoking on HRQOL in economic evaluation should shy away from attributing large independent changes to quitting smoking or avoiding starting to smoke, since such changes are small once clinical conditions are controlled for. On the other hand, it is necessary to expand the set of classical smoking related diseases used in economic evaluation with other diseases for which new evidence showing a causal link to smoking exists. ; The authors are very grateful to Dr. Toni Mora for his invaluable help and support to finish this paper. This work was partially funded by the European Union's FP7 program (The EQUIPT Project; grant agreement 602270) and partially by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) under the programme "Programa Estatal de Investigación, Desarrollo e Innovación Orientada a los Retos de la Sociedad, Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica Técnica y de Innovación 2013-2016". Grant ECO2013- 48217-C2-1 (http://invesfeps.ulpgc.es/en). The funders had no influence in the conduction of this study or the drafting of this manuscript.
Altres ajuts: The project received a research grant from the Carlos III Institute of Health, Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Spain), awarded on the 2010 call under the Health Strategy Action 2013-16, within the National Research Program oriented to Societal Challenges within the Technical, Scientific and Innovation Research National Plan 2013-16 with reference PI10/01275 co-funded with European Union ERDF funds. Additional support was provided by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), public grants from the Carlos III Institute of Health (RTIC RD06/0020/0095 RD12/0036/0056 and CIBERESP) and the Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (grants AGAUR 2014SGR1077 and 2014SGR2016) and the Primary Health Care Unit IDIAP Jordi Gol and the Catalan Institute of Health resolved 07/04/2014. ; Background. Opportunistic cervical cancer screening can lead to suboptimal screening coverage. Coverage could be increased after a personalised invitation to the target population. We present a community randomized intervention study with three strategies aiming to increase screening coverage.Methods. The CRICERVA study is a community-based clinical trial to improve coverage of population based screening in the Cerdanyola SAP area in Barcelona.A total of 32,858 women residing in the study area, aged 30 to 70 years were evaluated. A total of 15,965 women were identified as having no registration of a cervical cytology in the last 3.5 years within the Public Health data base system. Eligible women were assigned to one of four community randomized intervention groups (IGs): (1) (IG1 N = 4197) personalised invitation letter, (2) (IG2 N =3601) personalised invitation letter + informative leaflet, (3) (IG3 N = 6088) personalised invitation letter + informative leaflet + personalised phone call and (4) (Control N = 2079) based on spontaneous demand of cervical cancer screening as officially recommended. To evaluate screening coverage, we used heterogeneity tests to compare impact of the interventions and mixed ...
