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Quantitative Assessment of Preventive Behaviors in France during the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis

BACKGROUND: The Fukushima nuclear disaster has generated worldwide concern on the risk of exposure to nuclear radiations. In Europe, health authorities had to issue statements about the lack of usefulness of iodine based preventive treatments within their borders. However a lack of confidence in off...

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Autores principales: Crépey, Pascal, Pivette, Mathilde, Bar-Hen, Avner
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3591339/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23505499
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0058385
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author Crépey, Pascal
Pivette, Mathilde
Bar-Hen, Avner
author_facet Crépey, Pascal
Pivette, Mathilde
Bar-Hen, Avner
author_sort Crépey, Pascal
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The Fukushima nuclear disaster has generated worldwide concern on the risk of exposure to nuclear radiations. In Europe, health authorities had to issue statements about the lack of usefulness of iodine based preventive treatments within their borders. However a lack of confidence in official messages has developed in various European countries due to recent perceived failures in managing public health crises. The lay population preventive behaviors in this context are largely unknown. Consequently, to examine the effects of public health crisis on lay behaviors leading to pharmaceuticals purchases, we studied the sales of iodine-based products in France before, during and after the crisis. METHODS: We focused our study on 58 iodine-based drugs available with and without a physician prescription. Our data came from a stratified sample of 3004 pharmacies in metropolitan France. Our study period was from January 2010 to April 2012, with a focus on March-April 2011. We differentiated sales of drugs prescribed by physicians from sales of drugs obtained without a prescription. We used a CUSUM method to detect abnormal increases in sales activity and cross-correlations to assess shifts in sales timing. RESULTS: Sales of iodine-based nutritional complements, and later sales of iodine-based homeopathic remedies, substantially increased (up to 3-fold) during a period of 20 days. Their temporal patterns were correlated to specific events during the crisis. Prescriptions for iodine-based homeopathy increased (up to 35% of all sales). Iodine pills, strictly regulated by health authorities, have also been sold but on a very small scale. CONCLUSION: These results indicate uncontrolled preventive behaviors resulting in the potentially unjustifiable consumption of available drugs. They have implications in public policy, and demonstrate the usefulness of drug sales surveillance for instantaneous evaluation of population behavior during a global crisis.
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spelling pubmed-35913392013-03-15 Quantitative Assessment of Preventive Behaviors in France during the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis Crépey, Pascal Pivette, Mathilde Bar-Hen, Avner PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: The Fukushima nuclear disaster has generated worldwide concern on the risk of exposure to nuclear radiations. In Europe, health authorities had to issue statements about the lack of usefulness of iodine based preventive treatments within their borders. However a lack of confidence in official messages has developed in various European countries due to recent perceived failures in managing public health crises. The lay population preventive behaviors in this context are largely unknown. Consequently, to examine the effects of public health crisis on lay behaviors leading to pharmaceuticals purchases, we studied the sales of iodine-based products in France before, during and after the crisis. METHODS: We focused our study on 58 iodine-based drugs available with and without a physician prescription. Our data came from a stratified sample of 3004 pharmacies in metropolitan France. Our study period was from January 2010 to April 2012, with a focus on March-April 2011. We differentiated sales of drugs prescribed by physicians from sales of drugs obtained without a prescription. We used a CUSUM method to detect abnormal increases in sales activity and cross-correlations to assess shifts in sales timing. RESULTS: Sales of iodine-based nutritional complements, and later sales of iodine-based homeopathic remedies, substantially increased (up to 3-fold) during a period of 20 days. Their temporal patterns were correlated to specific events during the crisis. Prescriptions for iodine-based homeopathy increased (up to 35% of all sales). Iodine pills, strictly regulated by health authorities, have also been sold but on a very small scale. CONCLUSION: These results indicate uncontrolled preventive behaviors resulting in the potentially unjustifiable consumption of available drugs. They have implications in public policy, and demonstrate the usefulness of drug sales surveillance for instantaneous evaluation of population behavior during a global crisis. Public Library of Science 2013-03-07 /pmc/articles/PMC3591339/ /pubmed/23505499 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0058385 Text en © 2013 Crépey et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Crépey, Pascal
Pivette, Mathilde
Bar-Hen, Avner
Quantitative Assessment of Preventive Behaviors in France during the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis
title Quantitative Assessment of Preventive Behaviors in France during the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis
title_full Quantitative Assessment of Preventive Behaviors in France during the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis
title_fullStr Quantitative Assessment of Preventive Behaviors in France during the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis
title_full_unstemmed Quantitative Assessment of Preventive Behaviors in France during the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis
title_short Quantitative Assessment of Preventive Behaviors in France during the Fukushima Nuclear Crisis
title_sort quantitative assessment of preventive behaviors in france during the fukushima nuclear crisis
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3591339/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23505499
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0058385
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