AimDental caries is a major public health problem worldwide, with very significant deleterious consequences for many people. The available data are alarming in Canada and the province of Quebec. The water fluoridation program has been shown to be the most effective means of preventing caries and reducing oral health inequalities. This article analyzes the cost-effectiveness of Quebec’s water fluoridation program to provide decision-makers with economic information for assessing its usefulness.MethodsAn approach adapted from economic evaluation was used to: (1) build a logic model for Quebec’s water fluoridation program; (2) determine its implementation cost; and (3) analyze its cost-effectiveness. Documentary analysis was used to build the logic model. Program cost was calculated using data from 13 municipalities that adopted fluoridation between 2002 and 2010 and two that received only infrastructure grants. Other sources were used to collect demographic data and calculate costs for caries treatment including costs associated with travel and lost productivity.ResultsThe analyses showed the water fluoridation program was cost-effective even with a conservatively estimated 1 % reduction in dental caries. The benefit-cost ratio indicated that, at an expected average effectiveness of 30 % caries reduction, one dollar invested in the program saved $71.05–$82.83 per Quebec’s inhabitant in dental costs (in 2010) or more than $560 million for the State and taxpayers.ConclusionThe results showed that the drinking-water fluoridation program produced substantial savings. Public health decision-makers could develop economic arguments to support wide deployment of this population-based intervention whose efficacy and safety have been demonstrated and acknowledged.

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Abstract. Wildfire simulations were carried out using the Prescribed Fire Analysis System (PFAS) to study the effect of landscape composition on fire sizes in eastern Canadian boreal forests. We used the Lake Duparquet forest as reference, plus 13 forest mosaic scenarios whose compositions reflected lengths of fire cycle. Three fire weather risks based on duff moisture were used. We performed 100 simulations per risk and mosaic, with topography and hydrology set constant for the reference. Results showed that both weather and landscape composition significantly influenced fire sizes. Weather related to fire propagation explained almost 79% of the variance, while landscape composition and weather conditions for ignition explained ,14 and 2% respectively. In terms of landscape, burned area increased with increasing presence of shade-tolerant species, which are related to long fire cycles. Comparisons among the distributions of cumulated area burned from scenarios plus those from the Société de Protection des Forêts contre le Feu database archives showed that PFAS simulated realistic fire sizes using the 80-100% class of probable fire extent. Future analyses would best be performed on a larger region as the limited size of the study area could not capture fires larger than 11 000 ha, which represent 3% of fires but 65% of the total area burned at the provincial scale.

The aim of this study was to evaluate a sexual and STD/AIDS prevention program tailored for adolescents with social adaptation difficulties in juvenile rehabilitation facilities. The impact of the intervention on the psychosocial determinants of condom use were assessed, using a pre-test post-test quasi-experimental design. A total of 296 adolescents participated in the program (experimental group) while 240 adolescents did not receive the intervention (control group). The program led to positive outcomes among participants with respect to several of the main psychosocial determinants of condom use for sexual intercourse with a new partner. The results suggest that interventions that draw upon a combination of theoretical knowledge and consideration of the specific characteristics of the milieu could be efficient in promoting safer sexual practices among adolescents in juvenile rehabilitation centers.

This study did not identify specific disease risk variants of trinucleotide repeats in OTX1, EN1, DLX2, HOXA1, and FOXP2 candidate genes in neurodevelopmental psychiatric disorders.

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Autism is a categorical developmental disorder characterized by impairment in socialization, communication, and by restricted and circumscribed interests. Several authors have described the presence of subthreshold autistic traits in the general population, pervasive developmental disorders representing the extreme end of their distribution. In this study, we explored the presence of autistic traits in siblings and parents of a proband with autism, and in siblings and parents of a normally developing child, using the previously validated self-report French Autism Quotient, an adaptation of the AQ developed by S. Baron-Cohen. Scores were distributed between two main factors, F1 corresponding to socialization and communication, F2 to imagination and rigidity. Here, we show that both parents and siblings of a child with autism have more symptomatic scores in the domains of communication and socialization. In addition, we show that in these families the parents, but not the siblings, are distributed across different subcategories, according to their scores for the F1 and F2 domains. We hypothesize that these different subgroups may correspond to different underlying genetic mechanisms.