SUMMARY Background Smoking is the leading, preventable risk factor for premature death and disability in Hungary. The objective of this paper was to assess the social acceptability of and the predictors of holding favourable attitudes toward tobacco control policies among the Hungarian population. Methods A self-administered questionnaire-based study was carried out among individuals aged 16–70 years. Logistic regression analysis was used to assess whether support for the ten tobacco control policies varies as a function of age, sex, educational level, and smoking status. Results The majority of the respondents supported the studied tobacco control measures. Over 90 percent of the sample supported: fines for retailers selling tobacco products to minors (92.3%), stricter enforcement of restrictions on selling tobacco products to minors (90.5%), and a ban on smoking in health care institutions (91.4%). The lowest levels of support were for bans on sponsorship by the tobacco industry (52.8%) and price increases on tobacco products (54.9%). For each measure, support was significantly lower among smokers than non-smokers. Age and education were significantly related to support for some but not all measures. Conclusions Strong majorities of Hungarians support the enactment and enforcement of a wide range of tobacco control measures, a fact that was acknowledged by Parliament’s passage of the 2011 Anti-Smoking Law. Advocacy efforts to encourage the acceptance of tobacco control policies should focus not only on smokers, but also on younger and less educated non-smokers.

The aim of this study was to investigate the changes in dietary habits in women with gynecological or breast cancer, and to analyze the role of some demographic factors, type of the malignant tumor, and the role of medical staff's advice in dietary behavior change of these women, after the diagnosis of cancer. A self-administered questionnaire-based retrospective study was performed, and 155 randomly selected patients, treated for gynecological or breast cancer, were involved. A self-developed questionnaire was used to measure the socio-demographic characteristics, the circumstances of visiting the physician, therapy, present health status and lifestyle before and after the diagnosis of neoplasm. More than three-fourths of the women reported changes in nutrition after the diagnosis of cancer. The consumption of fruits and vegetables increased in the highest proportion (70.3%). Women with higher education changed their diet in higher proportion (p=0.031) compared to women with lower education. Women who were advised to change their lifestyle by their therapists were about four times more likely (OR: 3.87; CI: 1.40-10.69 ) to change their nutrition. Patients with breast cancer changed three times more likely (OR: 3.21; CI: 1.05-9.84) their dietary habits than patients with gynecological cancer. The most influential proven factor to make cancer patients alter their diet was being advised for this by physicians. Thus, our study proved that physicians and nurses have a very important role in changing their cancer patients' nutritional habits into a healthier one.

Our objective was to assess how exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke occurs in Hungarian homes, particularly among non-smokers, and to examine the effectiveness of home smoking bans in eliminating exposure to secondhand smoke at home. In 2009, 2286 non-smokers and smokers aged 16-70 years, who were selected randomly from a nationally representative sample of 48 Hungarian settlements, completed paper-and-pencil self-administered questionnaires addressing tobacco-related attitudes, opinions and behaviors. Chi-square tests, one-way analysis of variance and multivariate logistic regression models were used to assess the effect of demographics, socio-economic characteristics and home smoking policies on the risk of exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke at home. Significantly higher risk of exposure was found among younger, lower educated and poorer people and among those having no or partial home smoking restrictions. There was a significant interaction between education level and home smoking policies: the effect of a smoking ban on exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke was stronger for the lower educated group than the higher educated group. The results suggest that Hungarians are making good progress in implementing home smoking bans, and that in the majority of population these bans are working. More can be done to promote the uptake of home smoking bans among poorer and less educated subpopulations.

The aim of our study was to evaluate factors influencing health related quality of life in Hungarian postmenopausal women who underwent osteodensitometry. A questionnaire-based cross-sectional study was carried out; 359 women aged over 40 years were involved, attending the outpatient Bone Densitometry Centre of Szeged. Two kinds of tools were used: a self-developed questionnaire of demographic and health data and the abbreviated version of the World Health Organization Quality of Life instrument. The patients were divided into three groups according to the values of their screened bone mineral density: normal, osteopenic, osteoporotic. Higher education [P<0.001, odds ratio (OR): 6.82, confidence interval (CI): 3.07-15.17] and working status (P<0.001, OR: 4.70, CI: 2.01-10.98 in physical domain) proved to be the most remarkable demographic factors to enhance quality of life. With regard to health status, not suffering from any chronic disease seemed to be influential (P=0.05, OR: 7.75, CI: 0.96-62.21). Women in group 'normal' or in group 'osteopenic' (P=0.01, OR: 2.06, CI: 1.18-3.59) were more than two times likely to choose a 'good quality of life' than women in the 'osteoporosis group'. In our study, the most important demographic factors affecting quality of life of bone mineral density-screened postmenopausal women were education and working status. Women with no chronic disease and no osteoporosis had a better quality of life.

Results Maps show the temporal evolution and spatial distribution of dengue fever risk on the territory. Highest risk areas coincide with those of greater movement of people and lack of infrastructure in the municipality. Introduction There are many sample designs for case-control studies. Three of them were simulated to investigate the properties of their risk estimators when the aim of the study is to analyse the space along with other covariates. They are: the case-base sampling, where all controls are selected at the beginning while the cases are sampled during the study as they occurs; the survivor sampling, in which both cases and controls are sampled at the end of the study; and the risk-set sampling, where both cases and controls are sampled during the study. Methods A realistic at risk population was created by sampling individuals from the empirical spatial distributions derived from governmental census information of a Brazilian city. Two epidemic scenarios were built, a transmissible and a nontransmissible disease. We used the generalised additive models to estimate the risks in each different study, fitting semiparametric models with the geographical coordinates and other covariates as age, income, gender and study. Results The results suggest that the estimated spatial risks are similar in the three sample designs, but the standard deviations vary in the space and, the widest variation occurs in the survivor sampling (for the nontransmissible disease) and in the case-base sampling (for the transmissible disease). The parametric estimates that are closest to the initially defined were attained by the risk-set sampling, at the nontransmissible disease scheme. Conclusion We conclude that the best risk estimates are attained by sampling the controls at the same time of the cases, as the epidemic occurs.