BackgroundInjury is a growing public health concern in China. Injury death rates are often higher in rural areas than in urban areas in general. The objective of this study is to compare the injury mortality rates in urban and rural residents in Hubei Province in central China by age, sex and mechanism of injury.MethodsUsing data from the Disease Surveillance Points (DSP) system maintained by the Hubei Province Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 2006 to 2008, injury deaths were classified according to the International Classification of Disease-10th Revision (ICD-10). Crude and age-adjusted annual mortality rates were calculated for rural and urban residents of Hubei Province.ResultsThe crude and age-adjusted injury death rates were significantly higher for rural residents than for urban residents (crude rate ratio 1.9, 95% confidence interval 1.8-2.0; adjusted rate ratio 2.4, 95% confidence interval 2.3-2.4). The age-adjusted injury death rate for males was 81.6/100,000 in rural areas compared with 37.0/100 000 in urban areas; for females, the respective rates were 57.9/100,000 and 22.4/100 000. Death rates for suicide (32.4 per 100 000 vs 3.9 per 100 000), traffic-related injuries (15.8 per 100 000 vs 9.5 per 100 000), drowning (6.9 per 100 000 vs 2.3 per 100 000) and crushing injuries (2.0 per 100 000 vs 0.7 per 100 000) were significantly higher in rural areas. Overall injury death rates were much higher in persons over 65 years, with significantly higher rates in rural residents compared with urban residents for suicide (279.8 per 100 000 vs 10.7 per 100 000), traffic-related injuries, and drownings in this age group. Death rates for falls, poisoning, and suffocation were similar in the two geographic groups.ConclusionsRates of suicide, traffic-related injury deaths and drownings are demonstrably higher in rural compared with urban locations and should be targeted for injury prevention activity. There is a need for injury prevention policies targeted at elderly residents, especially with regard to suicide prevention in rural areas in Central China.

Melatonin reportedly exerts beneficial effects to attenuate multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) in septic shock. Heatstroke resembles septic shock in many aspects. Thus, this study was performed on the anesthetized rats by using heat exposure to induce heatstroke-associated MODS. We evaluated the effect of melatonin, a versatile molecule synthesized in the pineal gland and in many organs, in heatstroke rats and showed that melatonin (0.2-5.0 mg/kg of body weight, i.v., immediately after the start of heat stress) significantly (i) attenuated hyperthermia, hypotension and hypothalamic ischemia and hypoxia, (ii) reduced plasma index of the toxic oxidizing radicals like nitric oxide metabolites and hydroxyl radicals, (iii) diminished plasma index of hepatic and renal dysfunction like creatinine, blood urea nitrogen, alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, alkaline phosphatase, and lactate dehydrogenase, (iv) attenuated plasma systemic inflammation response molecules like soluble intercellular and lesion molecule-1, E-selectin, tumor necrosis factor-alpha, interleukin (IL)-1β, and IL-6, (v) promoted plasma levels of an anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10, (vi) reduced an index of infiltration of polymorphonuclear neutrophils in the lung like myeloperoxidase activity, and (vii) promoted the survival time to fourfold compared with the heatstroke alone group. Thus, melatonin could be a novel agent for the treatment of heatstroke animals or patients in the early stage.

, an outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has occurred in Wuhan, China, and it has become a global pandemic currently. At the early stage, the Chinese government had adopted strict quarantine and hygiene measures, including disease detection and social distancing. Preventive behaviors, such as mask-wearing and hand-washing, had shown its importance in the control of the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and COVID-19 epidemic. 1-3 Previous studies suggest that individual's health behavior against disease was influenced by knowledge, 4 attitude, 5 and demographic factors. 6 This study investigated Chinese college students' health behavior toward COVID-19 during the quarantine period and identified its influencing factors. A cross-sectional questionnaire survey was conducted among Chinese college students between February 4, 2020, and February 21, 2020. The questionnaire consisted of 4 sections: (1) Demographic characteristics: gender, age, education level, major, residence, infection situation, contact situation, and parents' health condition. (2) Knowledge: included the general nature of virus, infection symptoms, and preventive measures (see Supplemental Table S1, available online). (3) Attitude: included perceived potential risk of infection and confidence on the final control of COVID-19 (see Supplemental Table S2, available online). (4) Health behavior: included hand-washing, mask-wearing, and social distancing. A 5-point Likert-type scale was used ranging from never to always. This study was approved by the Institution Review Board of Wuhan University (Approval Number: 2020YF0026). Informed consent was obtained from all participants. Among 1599 participants, 290 (18.14%) were living in Hubei Province, 902 (56.41%) were female, and 766 (47.90%) majored in medicine (Table 1). The mean knowledge score among participants was 8.63 (SD = 1.32, range = 0-10), and the mean attitude score was 22.51 (SD = 2.59, range = 6-30). Most college students reported a good health behavior in mask-wearing (94.06%), handwashing (91.13%), and social distancing (89.49%) during the epidemic. Results of binary logistic regression analysis on the influencing factors of health behavior are presented in Table 2. Gender, knowledge, and attitude toward COVID-19 were significantly associated with hand-washing. The odds ratio of female students was 1.93 times higher compared with

Zuo D, Wu Z, Li S. Age and intergenerational exchange among older parents in rural China Int J Soc Welfare 2011: 20: S30–S46 © 2011 The Author(s), International Journal of Social Welfare © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. This study examined life‐course differences in the flow of intergenerational exchange in rural China. The analysis used longitudinal data and growth curve models to decompose the distinct effects of age and cohort on the receipt and provision of economic and instrumental support among elder parents and their adult children. The study highlighted the importance of examining the age trajectories of intergenerational support according to cohort‐specific experiences and family life stage. There was a net age effect on intergenerational exchange, with elder parents tending to receive more support from children over time. However, there were indeed significant cohort effects that represented socio‐historical variation in the relationship between aging and intergenerational exchange. The study also observed gender differences in the flow and growth of intergenerational exchange.

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