Alain Levêque

• MD, DTMH, MSc, PhD
• Head of Department at Université Libre de Bruxelles

Background: Fatigue while driving is one of the risk factors of road crashes. It’s still poorly considered in interventions because of insufficient literature. In addition, the literature on this issue doesn’t focus on two-wheelers, the most frequent users in the Benin context. Objective: The study examined the prevalence of fatigue while driving a...

Background: In Benin, due to the unavailability of comprehensive data on road crashes, road safety policies are mainly based on partial statistics provided by the police. These remain unreliable in terms of injury severity and risk factors. This study aims to determine the factors influencing the severity of injuries after a road crash in Benin....

Background In Benin, some riders of two-wheeled vehicles still do not wear helmets, the main protection against head injuries in road accidents. The objective of this study is to describe the characteristics of two-wheeled users, and to determine the factors influencing helmet use among this group. Methods This is a prospective cross-sectional stu...

Contexte L'assimilation de l'accident de la route au terme « traumatisme » se trouve justifiée sur les plans fonctionnel et psychologique. Les conséquences sont sous estimées au Bénin, contribuant à une prise en charge psychologique insuffisante chez des patients dont la vie est brutalement bouleversée. L’étude vise à décrire le faciès des désordre...

Road traffic accidents are the leading cause of death by trauma. Delays in in first aid due, inter alia, to the long time to transfer traffic accident victims to hospital and the lack of pre-hospital emergency care, contribute to the increase in hospital mortality. This study aims to analyse the referral conditions for severe road traffic injuries...

Purpose Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a frequent psychiatric complication in road accident survivors. However, it remains under-explored and is not taken into account in health policies in Benin. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence and risk factors of PTSD after a road traffic accident. This will help to improve its...

The objective of this study was to determine the risk factors for malaria lethality in the MbujiMayi paediatric environment, a follow-up study of hospitalised cases over 5 years was conducted between January 2016 and December 2020 in the four hospitals. The case rate was 6.9% for the total (139 cases of death for 2017 cases of severe malaria for 5...

Background In the large cities of Benin, motorcycle taxi drivers, mainly between the ages of 20 and 40, are particularly exposed to accidents due to their profession. User awareness, along with legislative reforms and enforcement measures, would reduce the incidence of crashes and injuries. This study aims to test the effectiveness of an awareness-...

Background The implementation of road safety interventions in many developing countries usually focuses on the behavior of users. In order to draw more attention on the role of road infrastructure and physical environment in road safety interventions, this study aims to analyze the environmental and road factors associated with the pedestrians invo...

Purpose The situation of road crashes-related deaths remains problematic in low-income countries. The present study aims at analyzing the first-aid knowledge and practices of professional motorcyclists (PMs) in the city of Cotonou in Benin. Materials and Methods This is a cross-sectional analytical study conducted from 25 March to 19 April 2019 in...

Issue/Problem Road crashes are the primary cause of death within the 15-29-year-old age group. In Benin, there is no policy of road safety. The establishment of effective policies requires objective data that can guide decision-making. Research institutions are poorly integrated in this process. To fill the gap in scientific evidence and to partici...

Introduction: The popularity of waterpipe smoking is dramatically increasing in Lebanon, reaching 36.9%, the highest among countries in the region, with a false belief that waterpipe is less dangerous and toxic compared to cigarettes. Aim: To assess factors associated with the quit attempts and the past length of abstinence in a Lebanese sample of...

Data presented in this article are related to the research paper entitled “Short-term effects of nitrogen dioxide on hospital admissions for cardiovascular disease in Wallonia, Belgium.” (Collart et al., in press) [1]. Nitrogen dioxide concentrations showed a strong seasonal pattern with higher levels in the cold period than in the warm period. A m...

Many studies have shown an association between ozone and mortality. However, little data is available on the cumulative effects of ozone on health. A time-series analysis using a Poisson regression was used to measure the impact of ozone on non-traumatic mortality in Wallonia over the period 2000–2012. Initially, a single-lag model was tested. Then...

Abstract Background Newborn hearing screening programs aim to lower the ages at audiological intervention among hearing-impaired children. In Wallonia and Brussels (Belgium), audiological intervention data are not collected in the screening program, and the ages at initiating audiological care have never been assessed. This study aimed to assess th...

Many studies have shown a short-term association between NO2 and cardiovascular disease. However, few data are available on the delay between exposure and a health-related event. The aim of the present study is to determine the strength of association between NO2 and cardiovascular health in Wallonia for the period 2008–2011. This study also seeks...

Background Female genital fistula is a devastating maternal complication of delivery in developing countries. We sought to analyse the incidence and proportion of fistula recurrence, residual urinary incontinence, and pregnancy after successful fistula closure in Guinea, and describe the delivery-associated maternal and child health outcomes. Meth...

Objectives: Summary evidence of influenza vaccine effectiveness (IVE) against hospitalized influenza is lacking. We conducted a meta-analysis of studies reporting IVE against laboratory-confirmed hospitalized influenza among adults. Methods: We searched Pubmed (January 2009 to November 2016) for studies that used test-negative design (TND) to en...

Objective: Despite the widespread awareness of the harms of smoking, millions continue to smoke around the world partly due to the difficulty it takes to quit smoking. Identifying the factors associated with making quit attempts is an essential pillar to reach successful quitting. The purpose of this study is to assess the factors associated with t...

The aim of the present study is to analyse the age effect on the lag patterns of relative risk of hospitalization for acute myocardial infarction and NO2, PM10 and O3. Daily hospitalizations for AMI during the period 2008–2011 were extracted from administrative data. Analyses were performed using the quasi-Poisson regression model adjusted for seas...

Background The prevention and treatment of obstetric fistula still remains a concern and a challenge in low income countries.The objective of this study was to estimate the overall proportions of failure of fistula closure and incontinence among women undergoing repair for obstetric fistula in Guinea and identify its associated factors. Methods Thi...

Abstract: It is known that pictorial Health Warning Labels (HWLs) on cigarette packages outperform text-only HWLs on a range of outcomes; nothing is known about waterpipe in this regard. The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the perceived effectiveness of shocking pictures versus textual HWLs in Lebanon on quitting waterpipe smoking a...

Background: Obstetric fistula is a serious medical condition which affects women in low income countries. Despite the progress of research on fistula, there is little data on long term follow-up after surgical repair. The objective of this study is to analyse the factors associated with the recurrence of fistula and the outcomes of pregnancy follo...

Objective: To synthesise the evidence on pregnancy and childbirth after repair of obstetric fistula in sub-Saharan Africa and to identify the existing knowledge gaps. Methods: A scoping review of studies reporting on pregnancy and childbirth in women who underwent repair for obstetric fistula in sub-Saharan Africa was conducted. We searched rele...

Contexte La finalité du dépistage néonatal de la surdité est de prendre en charge précocement les enfants déficients auditifs. Un tel dépistage a été mis en place par les régions en Belgique, mais en Wallonie et à Bruxelles, aucune donnée n’a été collectée dans le programme sur la prise en charge des enfants, rendant impossible l’évaluation de l’at...

Background It is well known that a suicide attempt (SA) is one of the main risk factors for a death from suicide and that some events, as occurrence of injuries can be interpreted as predictive factors of future suicidal behaviours. Surveillance of these types of events would permit to better organise the prevention. The use of health administrativ...

Background Over time, the circumstances encountered in case of child maltreatment, can be quite complex and then, can lead to methodological questions for the analysis of the data. Based on data coming from 395 children hospitalised, alone (66.1%) or in siblings (33.9%), in a paediatric ward between 2007 and 2012 for mistreatment or because of a se...

Introduction: It is known that pictorial Health Warning Labels (HWLs) on cigarette packages outperform text-only HWLs on a range of outcomes; nothing is known about waterpipe in this regard. The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the perceived effectiveness of shocking pictures versus textual HWLs in Lebanon on quitting tobacco smoking...

Introduction: This study aimed to determine the influence of the age and the level of malaria transmission on the clinical and biological expression of severe malaria in children. Methods: A prospective descriptive study was conducted in nine referral hospitals in Kinshasa. A total of 1350 children, less than 15years old and hospitalized for sev...

Background: Implementation of newborn hearing screening programmes is widely recommended and programme organisational designs may differ in practice. The objective of this article was to establish an overview of the newborn hearing screening programmes in the 28 countries of the European Union on four topics (policy-decision, financing, general de...

Background Over time, the circumstances encountered in case of child mistreatment, can be quite complex and then, can lead to methodological questions for the analysis of the data. Based on data coming from 395 children hospitalized, alone (66.1 %) or in siblings (33.9 %), in a pediatric ward between 2007 and 2012 for mistreatment or because of a s...

Background: Despite being a well-documented phenomenon, gender differences in psychological health complaints in adolescence are poorly understood. The purpose of this study was to test factors related to well-being as explanatory factors of gender differences in psychological complaints (feeling low, irritability or bad temper, nervousness, and s...

Background: Understanding the risk factors for hearing loss is essential for designing the Belgian newborn hearing screening programme. Accordingly, they needed to be updated in accordance with current scientific knowledge. This study aimed to update the recommendations for the clinical management and follow-up of newborns with neonatal risk facto...

Background Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is one of the leading causes of demises reported during the 21th century. Objective Our objective is to develop a screening score to estimate the probability of cardiovascular events, stressing on the importance of including outdoor air pollution to improve the validity of the scale among the Lebanese adult p...

Auteurs Université libre de Bruxelles, campus Érasme, CP598, 808 route de Lennik, 1070 Bruxelles, Belgique, Institut supérieur des techniques médicales de Kinshasa, École de santé publique, Centre de recherche en épidémiologie, biostatistiques et recherche clinique, Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgique Mots-clés : paludisme grave, enfants, lét...

Résumé Position du problème De nombreuses études mettent en évidence un lien entre maladie cardiovasculaire et pollution atmosphérique. L’analyse cas-croisé est une méthode permettant d’étudier les effets à court terme de la pollution atmosphérique. Cette étude démontre son intérêt en évaluant l’effet modificateur des saisons ainsi que les effets...

The case-crossover design is frequently used for analyzing the acute health effects of air pollution. Nevertheless, only a few studies compared different methods for selecting control periods. In this study, the bidirectional method and three time-stratified methods were used to estimate the association between air pollution and acute myocardial in...

Background: Malaria is a major health problem in tropical Africa. In DRC, little is known about the characteristics of households of children with severe malaria or the factors associated with its lethality, especially relative to hospital status. Methods: This study of 9 hospitals of the city-province of Kinshasa studied 1350 children younger t...

Outdoor air pollution is increasingly considered as serious threat for cardiovascular diseases (CVD).The aim of this study is to investigate the association between outdoor pollutants and cardiovascular diseases among adults in Lebanon and to examine the possible moderator effect of cigarette smoking status on this association. A multicenter case-c...

Introduction: The objective of this study was to determine the source of health care funding for heads of households related to the management of severe malaria in children admitted to a Kinshasa reference hospital. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 1,350 hospitalised children under the age of 15 years treated for severe malaria...

Introduction : L’objectif de cette étude est de déterminer les sources de financement de soins pour les gestionnaires des ménages confrontés à la prise en charge du paludisme grave de l’enfant en milieu hospitalier de référence à Kinshasa. Méthodes : Il s’agit d’une étude transversale, portant sur 1350 enfants âgés de moins de 15 ans hospitalisés e...

Air pollution is a widespread environmental concern. Considerable epidemiological evidence indicates air pollution, particularly particulate matter (PM), as a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in the developed countries. The main objective of our review is to assess the levels and sources of PM across the Middle East area and to s...

Malaria remains a real problem of public health. Its hospital care generates important expenditures for affected households. The present study aimed to estimate direct and indirect costs of severe child malaria in reference hospitals in Kinshasa. This prospective study included 1,350 children under 15 years of age suffering from severe malaria. The...

This study aimed to estimate the incidence of catastrophic health expenditures faced by households in Kinshasa with children affected by severe malaria. A total of 1350 children below the age of 15 year who were hospitalized due to severe malaria were included in the study. We analyzed the incidence of households facing catastrophic expenditures ac...

Introduction La maltraitance envers les enfants est un problème connu mais encore peu documenté épidémiologiquement. En 2005, le Centre SOS Enfants-ULB a souhaité mettre en place un monitoring des caractéristiques des enfants hospitalisés en pédiatrie suite à des (suspicion de) maltraitances. Depuis 2007, un recueil systématique des données a donc...

Health information systems in developing countries are often faulted for the poor quality of the data generated and for the insufficient means implemented to improve system performance. This study examined data quality in the Routine Health Information System in Benin in 2012 and carried out a cross-sectional evaluation of the quality of the data u...

Background The Kingdon model, based on the convergence of three streams (problem, policy, and politics) and the opening of a policy window, analyses the process by which a health issue is placed on the political agenda. We used this model to document the political agenda-setting process of the newborn hearing screening programme in Belgium. Method...

Objective: To present the outcomes of the newborn hearing screening program in Belgium (French-speaking area) since its implementation and to analyze its evolution between 2007 and 2012 in the neonatal population without reported risk factors for hearing loss. Methods: The study was descriptive and based on a retrospective analysis of six annual...

Objective To estimate the influence of well-being related factors (life satisfaction, self-confidence, helplessness and body image) on gender differences in psychological complaints (PC) (feeling low, irritability, nervousness and sleeping difficulties) over the life-course. MethOds 9th Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study, conduct...

Objectives: Investigating injuries in terms of occurrences and patient and hospital stay characteristics. Methods: 17370 stays, with at least one E code, were investigated based on data from 13 Belgian hospitals. Pearson's chi-square and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to assess the variations between distributions of the investigated factors acc...

The effects of air pollution on health are quite well-documented and the influence of particulate pollution on morbidity and mortality from myocardial infarction and stroke is increasingly evident. The objective of this literature review is to identify and synthesize articles on the impact of air pollution by PM10 and PM2.5 of myocardial infarction...

Aims: Investigating the E codes related to suicide and self-inflicted injuries through the prevalence, the patient characteristics, the methods and means employed and the characteristics of the hospital stays; and compare them with the others E codes group. Study Design: Retrospective hospital-based analytical study. Place and Duration of Study: Th...

Few studies have addressed the patterns of injuries in Africa, and most of them were based on hospital data. The objectives of this study were to describe, on the basis of the "First Survey Health Young People" performed in 2008 in Cameroon, the prevalence and the patterns of injuries and to investigate the relationship between these injuries and s...

Aims: Establish profiles of young “at risk” of injuries, first, on an overall point of view and, secondly, for some types of injuries (sport, home, road traffic, school and work injuries). Methods: We have taken nearly 50 variables into consideration: 17 variables for construction of the socioeconomic status, 9 variables for the investigation of sy...

The landmark Convention on the Rights of the Child states that children around the World have right to safe environment. In Belgium, as in many countries, children spend, on average, 4.5 weekdays at school, during nearly 8 hours per day. Studies have shown that, the risk of school-related injury exceeds the risk during leisure time. Literature repo...

Self-rated health is a frequently used measure, notably in the field of gerontology. Different authors have studied factors that can influence self-rated health among older persons and, according to studies, the factors taken into account and their influence vary. This article aims at synthesising the biomedical literature, published since 1993, on...

The effects of air pollution on health are quite well-documented and the influence of particulate pollution on morbidity and mortality from myocardial infarction and stroke is increasingly evident. The objective of this literature review is to identify and synthesize articles on the impact of air pollution by PM10 and PM2.5 of myocardial infarction...

Privacy is an important concern in any research programme that deals with personal medical data. In recent years, ethics and privacy have become key considerations when conducting any form of scientific research that involves personal data. These issues are now addressed in healthcare professional training programmes. Indeed, ethics, legal framewor...

Introduction: This study focuses on accidents in artisanal mining, to support policies improving miners' employability. Materials and methods: Based on a questionnaire administered in November 2009 to a sample of 180 miners from the artisanal mining of LUPOTO, in the Province of Katanga, we explored significant trends between the accidents and t...

The aim of the study consists in analyzing the evolution of acute coronary risk factors as well as the 28 days case fatality and the therapeutic practices over 12 years of follow-up in Charleroi. The factors influencing the mortality of these patients are also investigated. The Charleroi register of ischaemic cardiopathies is the oldest register of...

A universal newborn hearing screening programme based on the voluntary participation of maternity hospitals has been implemented in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation since November 2006. This paper presents the results of this programme and its evolution since its implementation (2007-2011). Two-step screening by automated otoacoustic emissions is p...

Objective: The study aims to identify barriers to annual dental visits in the Belgian population. Methods: We conducted a secondary analysis of data collected through the 2004 National Health Interview Survey in Belgium. Only respondents aged 15 years and older with complete information on dental consultations and the independent variables (n =...

This article aims at describing, in a Belgian town, the frequency of the fear of falling and of subsequent activity restriction among non-institutionalised people aged 65 years and over, and at identifying persons affected by these two issues. Cross-sectional survey conducted in Fontaine l'Evêque (Belgium) in 2006, using a self-administered questio...

Dental hygiene and prothetic characteristics of the belgian population: data analysis of the survey national of health 2004 Aim: To explore potential associations between sociodemographic, health and lifestyle and oral health. Methods: A secondary analysis of the database of the 2004 National Health Survey conducted in Belgium was performed (n = 12...

Introduction. Les maladies cardiovasculaires restent la première cause de mortalité en Belgique malgré la diminution progressive du poids de la pathologie coronarienne. En Communauté française, un processus de mobilisation d'acteurs a été mis en place pour produire et mettre en œuvre un Plan de promotion de la santé cardiovasculaire. L'objectif est...

To describe the evolution of the therapeutic practices over 10 years of follow-up of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in Charleroi and to analyse the factors influencing the choice of treatments and the mortality of these patients. The Charleroi register of ischaemic cardiopathies is the oldest register of infarctions in the French-speaking commun...

The French-speaking Community of Belgium has set up a register of ischaemic cardiopathies (1983-2007). The aim consists in analyzing the evolution of fatal and non-fatal acute coronary events rates as well as the 28days case fatality on a 25-year period and examine sex differences in lethality. This register assures a standardized procedure accordi...

Cet article se propose d’une part de décrire le dispositif mis en place tant en présentiel qu’à distance dans le cadre de notre formation en analyse multivariable appliquée à l’épidémiologie ; et d’autre part d’analyser le dispositif et les fonctions spécifiques du tuteur en biostatistique qui accompagne l’apprentissage à distance. En ce qui concer...

The Belgian situation in road safety is one of the poorer in European Union. Moreover, the barometers of road safety show, between 2006 and 2007, increases of 4.6% in accidents and 4.3% of death. Beside this increase in mortality, they contribute to an important part of morbidity. The objective of this study is to describe the epidemiology of injur...

It is known that school injuries are still occupy an important part of morbidity in young, although these accidents are predictable and targeted preventive measures can be implemented. In order to identify predictors of school injuries, we conducted a study on the basis of accidents declarations. The main objectives are to investigate (1) the relat...

In Belgium, suicide is still a public health problem. Until recently, there was no real public policy of prevention. However, it has been demonstrated that for injury prevention, actors must have access to relevant and structured informations in order to choose the most efficient actions to (try to) solve the problem. The objective of our research...

Sexual criminality is a well-known problem but the problem of youth sex offender is poorly documented, especially in Belgium. Created in 2001, the team Groupados, from the SOS Enfants centre, is a specialised team which takes in charge this type of youngsters. In order to know better this population, the team had created a data collection form. Bet...