PLoS medicine
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In an academic_editorial highlighting the 1,500 documents made public after PLoS Medicine's intervention in a court case, the PLoS Medicine academic_editors call for strong action to be taken to eradicate this practice.
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Louise Degenhardt and colleagues discuss the evidence and the debate about whether Global Burden of Disease estimates should include cannabis use as a risk factor for psychosis.
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Theo Vos discusses how surgery is beginning to be considered an essential component of primary health care in low-income countries, and how we need to improve our understanding of the burden of surgical conditions in these settings.
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Historical Article
Twenty-five years of convoluted health reforms in Mexico.
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The UK Medical Research Council defines complex interventions as those comprising "a number of separate elements which seem essential to the proper functioning of the interventions although the 'active ingredient' of the intervention that is effective is difficult to specify." A typical example is specialist care on a stroke unit, which involves a wide range of health professionals delivering a variety of treatments. Michelle Campbell and colleagues have argued that there are "specific difficulties in defining, developing, documenting, and reproducing complex interventions that are subject to more variation than a drug". These difficulties are one of the reasons why it is challenging for researchers to systematically review complex interventions and synthesize data from separate studies. This PLoS Medicine Debate considers the challenges facing systematic reviewers and suggests several ways of addressing them.