Socioeconomic Status and Health Outcomes in a Developing Country

While the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and health is well documented for developed countries, less evidence has been presented for developing countries. The aim of this paper is to analyse this relationship at the household level for Fiji, a developing country in the South Pacific, using original household survey data. To allow for the endogeneity of SES status in the household health production function we utilize a simultaneous equation approach where estimates are achieved by full information maximum likelihood. By restricting our sample to one, relatively small island, and including area and district hospital effects, physical geography effects are unpacked from income effects. We measure SES, as permanent income which is constructed using principal components analysis. An alternative specification considers transitory household income. We find that a 1% increase in wealth (our measure of permanent income) would lead to a 15% decrease in the probability of an incapacitating illness occurring intra-household. While presence of a strong causal relationship indicates that relatively small improvements in SES status can significantly improve health at the household level, it is argued that the design of appropriate policy would also require an understanding of the various mechanisms through which the relationship operates.

The CagA toxin of Helicobacter pylori: abundant production but relatively low amount translocated

CagA is one of the most studied pathogenicity factors of the bacterial pathogen Helicobacter pylori. It is injected into host cells via the H. pylori cag-Type IV secretion system. Due to its association with gastric cancer, CagA is classified as oncogenic protein. At the same time CagA represents the 4th most abundant protein produced by H. pylori, suggesting that high amounts of toxin are required to cause the physiological changes or damage observed in cells. We were able to quantify the injection of CagA into gastric AGS epithelial cells in vitro by the adaptation of a novel protease-based approach to remove the tightly adherent extracellular bacteria. After one hour of infection only 1.5% of the total CagA available was injected by the adherent bacteria, whereas after 3 hours 7.5% was found within the host cell. Thus, our data show that only a surprisingly small amount of the CagA available in the infection is finally injected under in vitro infection conditions

Accelerating Maternal and Child Health Gains in Papua New Guinea

Many priority countries in the countdown to the millennium development goals deadline are lagging in progress towards maternal and child health (MCH) targets. Papua New Guinea (PNG) is one such country beset by challenges of geographical inaccessibility, inequity and health system weakness. Several countries, however, have made progress through focused initiatives which align with the burden of disease and overcome specific inequities. This study identifies the potential impact on maternal and child mortality through increased coverage of prioritised interventions within the PNG health system.The burden of disease and health system environment of PNG was documented to inform prioritised MCH interventions at community, outreach, and clinical levels. Potential reductions in maternal and child mortality through increased intervention coverage to close the geographical equity gap were estimated with the lives saved tool.A set community-level interventions, with highest feasibility, would yield significant reductions in newborn and child mortality. Adding the outreach group delivers gains for maternal mortality, particularly through family planning. The clinical services group of interventions demands greater investment but are essential to reach MCH targets. Cumulatively, the increased coverage is estimated to reduce the rates of under-five mortality by 19 %, neonatal mortality by 26 %, maternal mortality ratio by 10 % and maternal mortality by 33 %.Modest investments in health systems focused on disadvantaged populations can accelerate progress in maternal and child survival even in fragile health systems like PNG. The critical approach may be to target interventions and implementation appropriately to the sensitive context of lagging countries

Modelo para la adopción del comercio electrónico en el sector agroindustrial mexicano

En este trabajo se propone un modelo para la adopción del comercio electrónico en las pequeñas y medianas empresas (pyme´s) del sector agroindustrial mexicano. El modelo final consta de dieciocho variables, distribuidas en siete submodelos, que son: Factores organizacionales, características técnicas, comunicación, factores ambientales, factores psicológicos y culturales, apoyo gubernamental y adopción del comercio electrónico. Para la medición de las variables se aplicó un cuestionario a las empresas de una muestra representativa. En la validación del modelo, se usó la técnica de mínimos cuadrados parciales (PLS). Se validó la consistencia interna del modelo mediante las pruebas de unidimensionalidad, fiabilidad, validez convergente y validez discriminante; así como la validación del modelo estructural

Philippines equity report: Investment case for financing equitable progress towards MDGs 4 and 5 in the Asia-Pacific region

A lack of maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) equity analysis in recent years has led to a substantive gap in the literature. Responding to this, we use the best available country data and the most advanced methods to investigate the levels and distribution of, and the trends in, both MNCH mortality and intervention coverage. The findings shed light on inequities between rural and urban populations, and between different ethnic groups, development regions and wealth quintiles. Analyses of mortality over time allow the backtrack of mortality progress, enabling the evaluation of past policies' influences on reducing health inequity and of the appropriateness of current and potential future policy. Hence, this Equity Report aims to constitute a milestone for MNCH equity analyses in the Philippines ..

Reducing Unnecessary Alerts in Pedestrian Protection Systems Based on P2V Communications

There are different proposals in the literature on how to protect pedestrians using warning systems to alert drivers of their presence. They can be based on onboard perception systems or wireless communications. The evaluation of these systems has been focused on testing their ability to detect pedestrians. A problem that has received much less attention is the possibility of generating too many alerts in the warning systems. In this paper, we propose and analyze four different algorithms to take the decision on generating alerts in a warning system that is based on direct wireless communications between vehicles and pedestrians. With the algorithms, we explore different strategies to reduce unnecessary alerts. The feasibility of the implementation of the algorithms was evaluated with a deployment using real equipment, and tests were carried out to verify their behavior in real scenarios. The ability of each algorithm to reduce unnecessary alerts was evaluated with realistic simulations in an urban scenario, using a traffic simulator with vehicular and pedestrian flows. The results show the importance of tackling the problem of driver overload in warning systems, and that it is not straightforward to predict the load of alerts generated by an algorithm in a large-scale deployment, in which there are multiple interactions between vehicles and pedestrians