Marc Marí-Dell'Olmo

Marc Marí-Dell'Olmo
Agència de Salut Pública de Barcelona

MPH, PhD

About

136
Publications
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Publications

Publications (136)
Article
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Objectives This study explores the use and perceptions of thermal comfort and wellbeing among the local community in the schoolyards in Barcelona that had been transformed into accessible climate shelters. Methods We conducted a qualitative evaluation through a spontaneous ethnographic approach, combining 22 non-participant observations in the 11...
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More than 110,000 Europeans died as a result of the record-breaking temperatures of 2022 and 2023. A new generation of impact-based early warning systems, using epidemiological models to transform weather forecasts into health forecasts for targeted population subgroups, is an essential adaptation strategy to increase resilience against climate cha...
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Background Distributed lag non-linear models (DLNMs) are the reference framework for modelling lagged non-linear associations. They are usually used in large-scale multi-location studies. Attempts to study these associations in small areas either did not include the lagged non-linear effects, did not allow for geographically-varying risks or downsc...
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Spatial small area estimation models have become very popular in some contexts, such as disease mapping. Data in disease mapping studies are exhaustive, that is, the available data are supposed to be a complete register of all the observable events. In contrast, some other small area studies do not use exhaustive data, such as survey based studies,...
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Under the framework of the Urban Innovative Actions program of the European Commission, in 2020, 11 primary schools in Barcelona were transformed into climate shelters by implementing green, blue, and grey measures. Schoolyards were also opened to the local community to be used during non-school periods. Here we present the study protocol of a mixe...
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Background: The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 affected urban areas. In Barcelona, six waves of COVID-19 hit the city between March 2020 and March 2022. Inequalities in the incidence of COVID-19 have been described. However, no studies have examined the daily trends of socioeconomic inequalities and how they changed during the different phases of the pan...
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Introduction: In the past, health inequalities were not prioritised in the political agenda of Barcelona. The change of city government (2015) was an opportunity to develop a Surveillance System for Social Health Inequalities in the city, which is described in this article. Methods: The design of the Surveillance System formed part of the Joint...
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Air pollution is considered an ongoing major public health and environmental issue around the globe, affecting the most vulnerable, such as pregnant women and fetuses. The aim of this study is to estimate the health impact and economic value on birth outcomes, such as low birthweight (LBW), preterm birth (PTB), small for gestational age (SGA), attr...
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Energy poverty (EP) is becoming an increasingly important problem in the urban contexts of southern Europe. In Barcelona, EP indicators are higher than those of the European Union and are strongly associated with poor health status and high use of health services and medication, becoming a major public health problem. EP is unevenly distributed in...
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The consequences of climate change are becoming increasingly evident and highlight the important interdependence between the well-being of people and ecosystems. Although climate change is a global phenomenon, its causes and consequences vary dramatically across territories and population groups. Among settings particularly susceptible to health im...
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Background The new WHO air quality guidelines indicate that the air pollution disease burden is greater than previously reported. We aimed to estimate the air pollution disease burden and its economic cost in Barcelona to inform local action. Methods We used a quantitative health impact assessment to estimate the non-accidental mortality and incid...
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Energy poverty (EP) is a systemic problem associated with various health effects. The city council of Barcelona carried out an intervention to reduce EP among social services users. The aim of our study was to assess the effects of the intervention perceived by participants and to identify typologies of social vulnerability that could affect these...
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Energy poverty is a serious social problem with well-known adverse health consequences. This problem has been addressed mainly through improvements in the energy efficiency of housing. Still, little is known about the effects of information-based measures on energy poverty and their impacts on health. A quasi-experimental study was implemented to a...
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Several studies have shown how energy poverty (EP) increases morbidity and mortality, being a growing problem worldwide. We conducted a scoping review to synthesize the state of knowledge on the relationship between energy poverty (EP) and health, analysing the results according to different axes of inequality (gender, age, ethnicity/country of bir...
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Objective Obtaining reliable health estimates at the small area level (such as neighbourhoods) using survey data usually poses the problem of small sample sizes. To overcome this limitation, we explored smoothing techniques in order to estimate poor mental health prevalence at the neighbourhood level and analyse its profile by income in Barcelona c...
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Background Spain has been hit hard by COVID-19 since March 2020, especially in its metropolitan areas. We share experiences from Barcelona in measuring socioeconomic inequalities in the incidence of COVID-19 in the different waves, and in implementing coordinated and equity-oriented public health policy responses. Methods We collected daily data o...
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Objective: To analyse the trends in chronic liver diseases and cirrhosis mortality, and the associated socioeconomic inequalities, in nine European cities and urban areas before and after the onset of the 2008 financial crisis. Methods: This is an ecological study of trends in three periods of time: two before (2000-2003 and 2004-2008), and one...
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Background Intraurban sociodemographic risk factors for COVID-19 have yet to be fully understood. We investigated the relationship between COVID-19 incidence and sociodemographic factors in Barcelona at a fine-grained geography. Methods This cross-sectional ecological study is based on 10 550 confirmed cases of COVID-19 registered during the first...
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Children have been identified as being particularly vulnerable to energy poverty (EP), but little empirical research has addressed the effect of EP on children’s health and wellbeing, especially in southern Europe. In this work we aimed to provide an in-depth description of the distribution of EP by sociodemographic, socioeconomic and housing chara...
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The geographical distribution of mortality has frequently been studied. Nevertheless, those studies often consider isolated causes of death. In this work, we aim to study the geographical distribution of mortality in urban areas, in particular, in 26 Spanish cities. We perform an overall study of 16 causes of death, considering that their geographi...
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Background: The objective of this paper is to analyze social inequalities in COVID-19 incidence, stratified by age, sex, geographical area, and income in Barcelona during the first two waves of the pandemic. Methods: We collected data on COVID-19 cases confirmed by laboratory tests during the first two waves of the pandemic (1 March to 15 July and...
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Background The effect of inequalities aggravated by economic recessions in the mortality rates of certain diseases has been previously described. In this study, we analyzed the relationship between socio-economic deprivation and cancer mortality. We focused on lung, colon, prostate, and breast cancers in nine European urban areas over three periods...
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Objective To describe and compare the health status between vulnerable population participating in a program to tackle energy poverty (Energía, la justa) and the non-energy poor Barcelona (Spain) population and to analyse among participants the effect of energy poverty intensity on health. Method Cross-sectional study based on data from program pa...
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Energy poverty (EP) is defined as the inability of a household to secure a socially and materially required level of energy services in the home. The main objective of this study was to analyse the association between EP and distinct indicators of health status, health services utilisation and medication use in southern Europe, using the city of Ba...
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Superblocks are currently being introduced in Barcelona to respond to the city’s scarcity of green spaces and high levels of air pollution, traffic injuries, and sedentariness. The aim is to calm the streets by reducing the number of square meters dedicated to private vehicles and to reclaim part of this public space for people. Salut als Carrers (...
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Numerous studies have demonstrated the relationship between summer temperatures and increased heat-related deaths. Epidemiological analyses of the health effects of climate exposures usually rely on observations from the nearest weather station to assess exposure-response associations for geographically diverse populations. Urban climate models pro...
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The aim of this study is to analyse the time trends in the European Union (EU) before and during the economic crisis in 1) the energy poverty (EP) prevalence; 2) the association between EP and health and 3) the impact of EP on health. We analyse trends among women and men in two EU macro regions, defined by a novel index of structural vulnerability...
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Background: Population health measurements are recognised as appropriate tools to support public health monitoring. Yet, there is still a lack of tools that offer a basis for policy appraisal and for foreseeing impacts on health equity. In the context of persistent regional inequalities, it is critical to ascertain which regions are performing bes...
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Resumen Objetivo Presentar la metodología seguida en el diseño y la implementación de un índice de privación por sección censal, y describir la situación socioeconómica en España en 2011. Método La unidad de análisis fue la sección censal (N = 35.960). Los datos proceden del Censo de Población y Viviendas de 2011. Teniendo en cuenta el carácter m...
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Objective: To analyse socioeconomic inequalities in all-cause mortality among men and women in nine European urban areas during the recent economic crisis, and to compare the results to those from two periods before the crisis. Method: This is an ecological study of trends based on three time periods (2000-2003, 2004-2008 and 2009-2014). The uni...
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Background: Since the 2008 economic crisis in Spain, overall fertility has continued to decrease, while urban inequalities have increased. There is a general lack of studies of fertility patterns in small-areas of Spanish cities. We explored the effects of the economic crisis on fertility during three time periods in urban settings in Spain. Meth...
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Background: In Ecuador, there are inequalities in the completeness and quality of the mortality registry between men and women and among geographical areas. Consequently, using cause of death statistics leads to several difficulties. Our aim was to analyze geographical inequalities in mortality due to some of the main specific causes of death in t...
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Objective: To evaluate the " Energía, la justa " program, aimed at reducing energy poverty in the city of Barcelona, from the point of view of the target population and the workers involved in the intervention. Methods: A qualitative, descriptive and exploratory pilot study was carried out, with a phenomenological approach. Twelve semi-structure...
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Energy poverty (EP) is a growing problem in the European Union (EU) that affects the population's health. EP is structurally determined by broader political and socioeconomic conditions. Our aims were to analyze the configuration of these determinants in each EU-27 country through the creation of a structural energy poverty vulnerability (SEPV) ind...
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Following the publication of this article [1], the authors reported a typesetting error in Table 1 that caused the columns of the table to be ordered incorrectly, and a typographical error in a sentence in the Conclusions section.
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Background Mortality registries are an essential data source for public health surveillance and for planning and evaluating public policy. Nevertheless, there are still large inequalities in the completeness and quality of mortality registries between and within countries. In Ecuador, there have been few nationwide evaluations of the mortality regi...
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This article examines the relationship between fuel poverty and poor health among the population in the two lower income quintiles in Europe using the 2012 EU-SILC dataset. Results confirm that fuel poverty is a key determinant of health among the low-income population: the probability of being fuel poor is substantially higher among the low-income...
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Background Prior studies have identified a decrease in ischaemic heart disease mortality during the recent economic recession. The Spanish population was severely affected by the Great Recession, however, there is little evidence on its effects on socioeconomic inequalities in ischaemic heart disease mortality. This study examines trends in socioec...
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A limited number of studies have addressed environmental inequality, using various study designs and methodologies and often reaching contradictory results. Following a standardized multi-city data collection process within the European project EURO-HEALTHY, we conducted an ecological study to investigate the spatial association between nitrogen di...
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OBJECTIVES: To develop a deprivation index to study health inequalities in 221 areas of Ecuador, to describe the pattern of deprivation in Ecuador, and to explore the applications of the index to study health inequalities by analysing the association between deprivation and mortality in the study areas. METHODS: We performed principal component a...
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Introduction: Low birth weight is one of the main health predictors for childhood and adulthood. It is highly prevalent in developing countries and in children from poorer social classes. Objective: To analyze the geographical distribution and the trends of full-term low birth weight in the 125 municipalities of the department of Antioquia and thei...
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Health surveys are a key tool for decision-making in health policies and health services planning. The use of small-area statistical methods that use information at different geographic levels may be useful for estimating health indicators at a lower geographical level than originally considered in the survey design. Copyright © 2018 SESPAS. Public...
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The aim of this study was to evaluate trends in small-for-gestational age covering the period before and after the Spanish economic crisis, taking into account mother's age, nationality and the autonomous community where she resides. We performed a trend study including children born to fertile women in Spain between 2002 and 2013. Poisson mixed mo...
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The aim of this study was to evaluate trends in small-for-gestational age covering the period before and after the Spanish economic crisis, taking into account mother's age, nationality and the autonomous community where she resides. We performed a trend study including children born to fertile women in Spain between 2002 and 2013. Poisson mixed mo...
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Objective: To determine if the onset of the economic crisis in Spain affected cancer mortality and mortality trends. Method: We conducted a longitudinal ecological study based on all cancer-related deaths and on specific types of cancer (lung, colon, breast and prostate) in Spain between 2000 and 2013. We computed age-standardised mortality rate...
Book
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Despite the significant advances that have been made at the European Union (EU) level in terms of health inequality measurement, there is still a lack of comparable health-related data across countries and regions 1. Existing measures and indicators of health status and quality of life are considered inadequate2 to capture the holistic understandin...
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Background An increase in suicide mortality is often observed in economic recessions. The objective of this study was to analyse trends in socioeconomic inequalities in suicide mortality before and during the economic recession in two geographical settings in Spain. Methods This study analyses inequalities in mortality according to educational lev...
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Background: To estimate the effect of opening two services for people who use drugs and three police interventions on the number of discarded syringes collected from public spaces in Barcelona between 2004 and 2014. Methods: We conducted an interrupted time-series analysis of the monthly number of syringes collected from public spaces during thi...
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Aim To analyze the geographical pattern of diabetes mellitus (DM) mortality and its association with socioeconomic factors in 26 Spanish cities. Methods We conducted an ecological study of DM mortality trends with two cross-sectional cuts (1996–2001; 2002–2007) using census tract (CT) as the unit of analysis. Smoothed standardized mortality rates...
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Background: This study aims to evaluate the effects of a community-based counselling intervention to improve contraception use among immigrant and native residents in deprived neighbourhoods. : Randomized controlled trial. Women aged 14-49 years and men aged 14-39 years from two low-income neighbourhoods with high proportion of immigration in Barc...
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Background: Interventions to mitigate fuel poverty and particularly energy efficiency façade retrofitting (EEFR) have demonstrated positive impacts on health but the impacts of EEFR interventions on cold-related mortality have not been studied in depth. We evaluated the impact of EEFR interventions in Barcelona on the association between cold outdo...
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A large body of literature shows the link between inadequate housing conditions and poor physical and mental health. The aim of this paper is to summarize the research on the impact of local housing policies on health inequalities, focusing on the issues of access to housing and fuel poverty as studied in the SOPHIE project. Our case studies in Spa...
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Objective: To compare the oral health profile of institutionalized elderly persons in Brazil and in Barcelona, Spain, by gender and country of residence. Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed of individuals aged 65 years and above (n=1,440), resident in the health region of Barcelona and in Brazil. Two surveys and exams relating to the or...
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Objective: To provide indicators to assess the impact on health, its social determinants and health inequalities from a social context and the recent economic recession in Spain and its autonomous regions. Methods: Based on the Spanish conceptual framework for determinants of social inequalities in health, we identified indicators sequentially f...
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Background: In Spain, several ecological studies have analyzed trends in socioeconomic inequalities in mortality from all causes in urban areas over time. However, the results of these studies are quite heterogeneous finding, in general, that inequalities decreased, or remained stable. Therefore, the objectives of this study are: (1) to identify t...
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Objective: To examine the differences between Prevalence Ratio (PR) and Odds Ratio (OR) in a cross-sectional study and to provide tools to calculate PR using two statistical packages widely used in substance use research (STATA and R). Methods: We used cross-sectional data from 41,263 participants of 16 European countries participating in the Su...
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The objective of this study was to analyse trends in socioeconomic inequalities in premature mortality in Barcelona from 1992 to 2011, accounting for population changes. We conducted a repeated cross-sectional study of the Barcelona population (25-64 years) using generalized linear mixed models for trend analysis, and found that socioeconomic inequ...
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Objective: To analyse the trend in inequalities in mortality due to external causes among municipalities in Antioquia, department of Colombia, from 2000 to 2010, and its association with socioeconomic conditions. External causes included violent deaths, such as homicides, suicides and traffic accidents, among others. Methods: Ecological design o...
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Background: Despite a concerted policy effort in Europe, social inequalities in health are a persistent problem. Developing a standardised measure of socioeconomic level across Europe will improve the understanding of the underlying mechanisms and causes of inequalities. This will facilitate developing, implementing and assessing new and more effe...
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To describe the magnitude and characteristics of crashes and drivers involved in head-on crashes on two-way interurban roads in Spain between 2007 and 2012, and to identify the factors associated with the likelihood of head-on crashes on these roads compared with other types of crash. A cross-sectional study was conducted using the National Crash R...