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Effective management of a pandemic due to a respiratory virus requires public health capacity for a coordinated response for mandatory restrictions, large-scale testing to identify infected individuals, capacity to isolate infected cases and track and test contacts, and health services for those infected who require hospitalization. Because of contextual and socioeconomic factors, it has been hard for Latin America to confront this epidemic. In this article, we discuss the context and the initial responses of eight selected Latin American countries, including similarities and differences in public health, economic, and fiscal measures, and provide reflections on what worked and what did not work and what to expect moving forward.

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O artigo enfoca a relação saúde-meio ambiente e a área de Saúde Ambiental. Apresenta as definições adotadas pela Organização Mundial da Saúde para a Saúde Ambiental, destacando sua preocupação tanto com estudos para verificar as possíveis relações entre os fatores ambientais e a saúde, quanto com a prática de propor formas de eliminar esses fatores de risco à saúde. Aponta, a seguir, as diferentes questões da relação homem-meio, que ganharam destaque em diferentes momentos da história humana. Faz um breve relato da história dessa relação, como campo de conhecimento e de prática, partindo dos trabalhos de Hipócrates e da concepção de saúde dos gregos, passando pela civilização romana, pela Idade Média e pelos progressos havidos nos séculos XVIII e XIX. No século XIX, o novo-Hipocratismo designa as tendências da Saúde Pública: a Reforma Sanitária, a saúde vista como um bem social, o desenvolvimento da engenharia de saúde pública, os progressos da microbiologia. Em seguida, descreve as atuais propostas do setor saúde para a Saúde Ambiental, no mundo e no Brasil, e sua relação com o desenvolvimento sustentável. Apresenta alguns aspectos éticos em Saúde Ambiental, discutindo a incorporação dos conceitos de desenvolvimento sustentável e de eqüidade nas propostas de promoção da saúde ambiental.

While recreational drug use in UK women is prevalent, to date there is little prospective data on patterns of drug use in recreational drug-using women immediately before and during pregnancy. A total of 121 participants from a wide range of backgrounds were recruited to take part in the longitudinal Development and Infancy Study (DAISY) study of prenatal drug use and outcomes. Eighty-six of the women were interviewed prospectively while pregnant and/or soon after their infant was born. Participants reported on use immediately before and during pregnancy and on use over their lifetime. Levels of lifetime drug use of the women recruited were high, with women reporting having used at least four different illegal drugs over their lifetime. Most users of cocaine, 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine (MDMA) and other stimulants stopped using these by the second trimester and levels of use were low. However, in pregnancy, 64% of the sample continued to use alcohol, 46% tobacco and 48% cannabis. While the level of alcohol use reduced substantially, average tobacco and cannabis levels tended to be sustained at pre-pregnancy levels even into the third trimester (50 cigarettes and/or 11 joints per week). In sum, while the use of `party drugs' and alcohol seems to reduce, levels of tobacco and cannabis use are likely to be sustained throughout pregnancy. The data provide polydrug profiles that can form the basis for the development of more realistic animal models.

Young infants are capable of integrating auditory and visual information and their speech perception can be influenced by visual cues, while 5-month-olds are able to detect a mismatch between the mouth articulation and the speech sound. From 6 months of age infants gradually shift their attention away from eyes and towards mouth in articulating faces, potentially to benefit from intersensory redundancy of audio-visual (AV) cues. Using eye-tracking we investigated whether 6-9 month-olds show similar age-related increase of looking to the mouth, while observing congruent and/or redundant vs. mismatch and non-redundant speech cues. Participants distinguished between congruent and incongruent AV cues as reflected by amount of looking to the mouth. They showed age-related increase in attention to the mouth, but only for non-redundant, mismatched AV speech cues. Our results highlight the role of intersensory redundancy and audio-visual mismatch mechanisms in facilitating the development of speech processing of infants under 12 months of age.

Research on audiovisual speech integration has reported high levels of individual variability, especially among young infants. In the present study we tested the hypothesis that this variability results from individual differences in the maturation of audiovisual speech processing during infancy. A developmental shift in selective attention to audiovisual speech has been demonstrated between 6 and 9 months with an increase in the time spent looking to articulating mouths as compared to eyes (Lewkowicz & Hansen-Tift, 2012;Tomalski et al., 2012). In the present study we tested whether these changes in behavioural maturational level are associated with differences in brain responses to audiovisual speech across this age range. We measured high-density eventrelated potentials (ERPs) in response to videos of audio-visually matching and mismatched syllables /ba/ and /ga/; and subsequently examined visual scanning of the same stimuli with eye-tracking. There were no clear age-specific changes in ERPs, but the amplitude of audiovisual mismatch response (AVMMR) to the combination of visual /ba/ and auditory /ga/ was strongly negatively associated with looking time to the mouth in the same condition. These results have significant implications for our understanding of individual differences in neural signatures of audiovisual speech processing in infants, suggesting that they are not strictly related to chronological age but instead associated with the maturation of looking behaviour, and develop at individual rates in the second half of the first year of life.Abbreviations: AV -audiovisual, AVMMR -audiovisual mismatch response, ERPevent-related potential, ET -eye-tracking 3

The study described in this manuscript analyzed the effects of quarantine and social distancing policies implemented due to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on air pollution levels in four western megacities: São Paulo in Brazil; Paris in France; and Los Angeles and New York in the United States. The study investigated the levels of four air pollutants—Carbon monoxide (CO), Ozone (O3), Fine Particulate (PM2.5) and Nitrogen dioxide (NO2)—during the month of March 2020, compared to 2015–2019, in the urban air of these metropolitan areas, controlling for meteorological variables. Results indicated reductions in the levels of PM2.5, CO and NO2, with reductions of the latter two showing statistical significance. In contrast, tropospheric ozone levels increased, except in Los Angeles. The beneficial health effects of cleaner air might also help prevent deaths caused by the epidemic of COVID-19 in megacities by diminishing pressure on hospitals and health equipment. Future actions for the re-starting of non-essential economic activities in these cities should take into consideration the overall importance of health for the individual, as well as for societies.