32,315 research outputs found
Structure, (governance) and health: An unsolicited response
Background: In a recently published article, it was suggested that governance was the significant
structural factor affecting the epidemiology of HIV. This suggestion was made notwithstanding the
observed weak correlation between governance and HIV prevalence (r = .2). Unfortunately, the
paper raised but left unexamined the potentially more important questions about the relationship
between the broader health of populations and structural factors such as the national economy and
physical infrastructure.
Methods: Utilizing substantially the same data sources as the original article, the relationship
between population health (healthy life expectancy) and three structural factors (access to
improved water, GDP per capita, and governance) were examined in each of 176 countries.
Results: Governance was found to be significantly correlated with population health, as were GDP
per capita, and access to improved water. They were also found to be significantly correlated with
each other.
Conclusion: The findings are discussed with reference to the growing interest in structural factors
as an explanation for population health outcomes, and the relatively weak relationship between
governance and HIV prevalence
Socioeconomic inequalities in access to health care: Examining the case of Burkina Faso
Copyright @ 2011 Johns Hopkins University PressThe past decade has recorded remarkable interest in socioeconomic inequalities in health care. A multivariate analysis of the World Health Survey data for Burkina Faso was conducted using STATA. This included questions on household economic factors, perceived need, and access to health care. Poverty was defined using Principal Components Analysis. There was no significant difference in perceived need on the basis of poverty or gender. The less poor accessed health care more than the poor, but this difference was significant only among males. Respondents who lived in urban areas accessed health care more than those in rural areas, but this difference was significant only among females. We argue that health care financing arrangements affect self-reported need and access to health care. Even when they perceive need, the poor do not access care, probably because of cost, exacerbated by non-availability of readily accessible health care facilities
"Social Medication" and the control of children: A qualitative study of over-the-counter medication among Australian children
Objective. The aim of the study was to
identify the patterns of use of over-the-counter (OTC)
medications among children.
Methods. The study used a qualitative design, with
in-depth interviews of 40 parents with children <5 years
of age.
Results. There were 3 striking and readily apparent
themes in the use of OTC medications among children.
One was the administration of OTC medications as a
form of “social medication,” to give parents control over
children’s behavior that they perceived as fractious and
irritating. A related theme was the use of OTC medications
to reduce the inconvenience to the parents of having
a sick child, again giving parents greater control and
better time-management abilities. Finally, acetaminophen
was considered by many parents to have almost
miraculous properties in calming, sedating, and lifting
the mood of children.
Conclusions. The use of OTC medications for the
treatment of minor ailments among children is widespread,
despite the lack of evidence of efficacy of the
most commonly used medications and the potential for
toxicity. With the increasing propensity to look to medication
as a means of supporting changing lifestyles,
there is an urgent need to review the prevalence and
effects of social medication. Pediatrics 2004;
114:e378 –e383. URL: http://www.pediatrics.org/cgi/
content/full/114/3/e378; parental stress, parental perception,
child behavior, drug safety, over-the-counter
Health systems performance in sub-Saharan Africa: Governance, outcome and equity
Copyright @ 2011 Olafsdottir et al.BACKGROUND: The literature on health systems focuses largely on the performance of healthcare systems operationalised around indicators such as hospital beds, maternity care and immunisation coverage. A broader definition of health systems however, needs to include the wider determinants of health including, possibly, governance and its relationship to health and health equity. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between health systems outcomes and equity, and governance as a part of a process to extend the range of indicators used to assess health systems performance.
METHODS: Using cross sectional data from 46 countries in the African region of the World Health Organization, an ecological analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between governance and health systems performance. The data were analysed using multiple linear regression and a standard progressive modelling procedure. The under-five mortality rate (U5MR) was used as the health outcome measure and the ratio of U5MR in the wealthiest and poorest quintiles was used as the measure of health equity. Governance was measured using two contextually relevant indices developed by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation. RESULTS: Governance was strongly associated with U5MR and moderately associated with the U5MR quintile ratio. After controlling for possible confounding by healthcare, finance, education, and water and sanitation, governance remained significantly associated with U5MR. Governance was not, however, significantly associated with equity in U5MR outcomes. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that the quality of governance may be an important structural determinant of health systems performance, and could be an indicator to be monitored. The association suggests there might be a causal relationship. However, the cross-sectional design, the level of missing data, and the small sample size, forces tentative conclusions. Further research will be needed to assess the causal relationship, and its generalizability beyond U5MR as a health outcome measure, as well as the geographical generalizability of the results
Low Ply Drawings of Trees
We consider the recently introduced model of \emph{low ply graph drawing}, in
which the ply-disks of the vertices do not have many common overlaps, which
results in a good distribution of the vertices in the plane. The
\emph{ply-disk} of a vertex in a straight-line drawing is the disk centered at
it whose radius is half the length of its longest incident edge. The largest
number of ply-disks having a common overlap is called the \emph{ply-number} of
the drawing.
We focus on trees. We first consider drawings of trees with constant
ply-number, proving that they may require exponential area, even for stars, and
that they may not even exist for bounded-degree trees. Then, we turn our
attention to drawings with logarithmic ply-number and show that trees with
maximum degree always admit such drawings in polynomial area.Comment: This is a complete access version of a paper that will appear in the
proceedings of GD201
Impact of school locality on teaching and learning: a qualitative inquiry
This research examined the impact of school location on teaching and learning through a case study oftwo urban, two rural and two remote Fijian secondary schools. A total of 48 semi-structured interviewswere conducted: 16 from each category of urban, rural and remote. Each school was represented bythree teachers, three heads of department and two administrators. The study established that rural andremote schools often face different challenges to their urban counterparts: geography, poverty andfunding influence the quality of education. Leadership support and adequate resources are the key tobreaking the overreliance on traditional methods of teaching and enhancing student classroom interestand participation. Finally, just as schools serve different communities, geographical location impactson external links, cooperation and professional exchange and development. Understanding the impactof school locality on teaching and learning in Fiji should benefit other developing nations and theeducational community at large
Mesh simplification with hierarchical shape analysis and iterative edge contraction
2003-2004 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe
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Spatial and temporal variablity of nonmethane hydrocarbon mixing ratios and their relation to photochemical lifetime
The relationship between temporal and spatial variability of C2-C8 nonmethane hydrocarbon mixing ratios and their HO lifetimes (τ) is presented for samples collected during the 1993 North Atlantic Regional Experiment (NARE) and from other urban and remote sites. The C2-C4 alkanes, acetylene and benzene typically define a trend of the form slnx=Aτ-b where slnx is the standard deviation of the ln of the mixing ratio. The relationship extended over a wider range of hydrocarbons in winter. The exponent b ranged in value from 0.2±0.023 for winter urban data where C2-C8 hydrocarbons defined a strongly correlated trend, to 0.56±0.15 for C2-C4 hydrocarbons at a coastal site in Nova Scotia during NARE. The trends are significantly different from that given by the Junge relationship [Junge, 1974]. Data from the Azores do not display such a trend and were likely influenced by local emissions. Variance trends are a useful analytical tool for examining the validity of hydrocarbon measurements
Novel methods of fabrication and metrology of superconducting nanostructures
As metrology extends toward the nanoscale, a number of potential applications and new challenges arise. By combining photolithography with focused ion beam and/or electron beam methods, superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) with loop dimensions down to 200 nm and superconducting bridge dimensions of the order 80 nm have been produced. These SQUIDs have a range of potential applications. As an illustration, we describe a method for characterizing the effective area and the magnetic penetration depth of a structured superconducting thin film in the extreme limit, where the superconducting penetration depth is much greater than the film thickness and is comparable with the lateral dimensions of the device
A Linked Data Approach to Sharing Workflows and Workflow Results
A bioinformatics analysis pipeline is often highly elaborate, due to the inherent complexity of biological systems and the variety and size of datasets. A digital equivalent of the ‘Materials and Methods’ section in wet laboratory publications would be highly beneficial to bioinformatics, for evaluating evidence and examining data across related experiments, while introducing the potential to find associated resources and integrate them as data and services. We present initial steps towards preserving bioinformatics ‘materials and methods’ by exploiting the workflow paradigm for capturing the design of a data analysis pipeline, and RDF to link the workflow, its component services, run-time provenance, and a personalized biological interpretation of the results. An example shows the reproduction of the unique graph of an analysis procedure, its results, provenance, and personal interpretation of a text mining experiment. It links data from Taverna, myExperiment.org, BioCatalogue.org, and ConceptWiki.org. The approach is relatively ‘light-weight’ and unobtrusive to bioinformatics users
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