Microplastics refer to plastic fibers, particles or films less than 5 millimeters, as a new type of environmental pollutants, whose pollution situation and toxic effects have attracted extensive attention. Microplastics are widely distributed in the atmosphere, water and soil, and are enriched in organism through gastrointestinal tract ingestion, respiratory tract inhalation and skin contact. Microplastics can induce cytotoxicity, damage tissues and organs, and cause compound health hazards. In this paper, we systematically reviewed the exposure pathways, health hazards and mechanisms of microplastics in organisms, in order to provide reference for the studies into the environmental health hazards of microplastics.

The management of emerging infectious diseases has always been given a high priority in public health. Identification of the epidemiological characteristics and transmission patterns of emerging infectious diseases is of great significance to contain the disease transmission and reduce the damages to public health and socioeconomic developments. Currently, infectious disease dynamics models are mainly established based on infectious disease surveillance data to predict the epidemiological patterns and trends of emerging infectious diseases; however, many model-based predictions fail to achieve the expected results due to the presence of multiple uncertain factors during the integrated management of infectious diseases. This review describes the basic principles and variables of common infectious disease dynamics models, including the susceptible-infected-recovered ( SIR ) model, susceptible-infected-removed-susceptible ( SIRS ) model, susceptible-exposed-infected-removed ( SEIR ) model and improved SEIR model, compares the advantages and disadvantages of these models, and summarizes the advances of the infectious disease dynamics models in the prediction of trends in incidence of emerging infectious diseases, so as to provide insights into the effective application of infectious disease dynamics models in the management of infectious diseases.

Eating behaviors are closely related to obesity and nutrition-related diseases. Many foreign countries have developed their own scales for adult eating behaviors assessment according to dietary habits and cultures, and the system is well improved; however, the research on adult eating behavior assessment in China is still in the initial stage, which focuses on the revision and application of foreign scales with few self-developed ones. This paper mainly discusses the development and application of adult eating behavior scales at home and abroad, and provides reference for the selection and development of adult eating behavior assessment tools.

Pneumonia is a common lower respiratory tract infection, which causes a large disease and economic burden worldwide, and is an important public health problem to be solved urgently. Based on review of publications pertaining to the epidemiology of pneumonia from 2013 to 2023, this article summaries the epidemiological characteristics and main influencing factors of pneumonia. It is found that the epidemiological characteristics of pneumonia vary in different areas; men, the elderly and children are the high-risk groups of pneumonia incidence and mortality; and age, smoking, alcohol consumption, air pollution, comorbidity and vaccination are the main factors affecting the incidence and mortality of pneumonia. Strengthening health education, reducing exposure to risk factors and promoting vaccination are recommended to lower the morbidity and mortality of pneumonia in susceptible populations.

Objective To compare the effectiveness of seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average (SARIMA) model, additive Holt-Winters model, Holt-Winters' multiplicative model, GM (1, 1) model and linear combination prediction model for prediction of pulmonary tuberculosis incidence. Methods Data pertaining to monthly incidence of pulmonary tuberculosis in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region from 2004 to 2008 were captured from Public Health Sciences Data Center. The SARIMA model, additive Holt-Winters model, Holt-Winters' multiplicative model, GM (1, 1) model and linear combination prediction model were created based on the incidence of pulmonary tuberculosis from January 2004 to June 2018, to predict the incidence of pulmonary tuberculosis from July to December 2018. The predictive value of each model was evaluated using absolute percentage error (APE), mean APE (MAPE) and root mean square error (RMSE), and the best model was selected based on minimum APE, MAPE and RMSE. Results The SARIMA model showed the minimum APE (10.94%), 11.01% and 7.96% MAPE and 564 and 419 RMSE at the model-fitting and prediction phases; followed by the linear combination prediction model, with 13.71% APE, 12.01% and 7.94% MAPE and 600 and 447 RMSE at the model-fitting and prediction phases, while the additive Holt-Winters model, Holt-Winters' multiplicative model and GM (1, 1) model showed a low predictive value. Conclusion The SARIMA and linear combination prediction models are superior to additive Holt-Winters model, Holt-Winters' multiplicative model and GM (1, 1) model for prediction of pulmonary tuberculosis incidence.

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is characterized by long course, poor prognosis, multiple complications and high cost of treatment, thus it has become a major public health problem. Based on review of publications pertaining to the epidemiological study of CKD from February 2002 to March 2023, this article summarizes the epidemiological characteristics, risk factors, prevention and control strategies of CKD. It is found that China has the largest number of adult patients with CKD in Asia, and the prevalence of CKD is higher among females and elderly people. The influencing factors for CKD include cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, hypertension and coronavirus disease 2019. Henceforth, it is of vital importance to emphasize three levels of prevention and optimize the CKD management, so as to support for prevention and control of CKD.

Since coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) broke out, the world has accelerated the development of preventive vaccines. By December 2020, 60 candidate vaccines have been approved for clinical trials, of which 7 vaccines, including 3 inactivated vaccines, 2 mRNA vaccines and 2 vector vaccines, have been authorized for emergency use or conditional marketing. In this paper, we reviewed the development progress in inactivated vaccines, nucleic acid vaccines, vector vaccines, protein subunit vaccines, attenuated vaccines and virus-like particle vaccines, as well as advantages and disadvantages of these vaccines. The studies showed that the vaccines against COVID-19 in phase III clinical trials had good safety and immunogenicity, and those authorized vaccines were declared to have good efficacy. However, attention should be paid to the adverse reactions of the vaccines and the long-term protective effects, in order to improve the immunization strategy for the control of COVID-19 epidemic.