Bulletin of the World Health Organization
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Bull. World Health Organ. · Feb 2006
Re-emerging schistosomiasis in hilly and mountainous areas of Sichuan, China.
Despite great strides in schistosomiasis control over the past several decades in Sichuan Province, China the disease has re-emerged in areas where it was previously controlled. We reviewed historical records and found that schistosomiasis had re-emerged in eight counties by the end of 2004 - seven of 21 counties with transmission control and one of 25 with transmission interruption as reported in 2001 were confirmed to have local disease transmission. The average "return time" (from control to re-emergence) was about eight years. ⋯ Our survey results suggest that environmental and sociopolitical factors play an important role in re-emergence. The main challenge would be to consolidate and maintain effective control in the longer term until "real" eradication is achieved. This would be possible only by the formulation of a sustainable surveillance and control system.
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Bull. World Health Organ. · Dec 2005
Priorities for research to take forward the health equity policy agenda.
Despite impressive improvements in aggregate indicators of health globally over the past few decades, health inequities between and within countries have persisted, and in many regions and countries are widening. Our recommendations regarding research priorities for health equity are based on an assessment of what information is required to gain an understanding of how to make substantial reductions in health inequities. We recommend that highest priority be given to research in five general areas: (1) global factors and processes that affect health equity and/or constrain what countries can do to address health inequities within their own borders; (2) societal and political structures and relationships that differentially affect people's chances of being healthy within a given society; (3) interrelationships between factors at the individual level and within the social context that increase or decrease the likelihood of achieving and maintaining good health; (4) characteristics of the health care system that influence health equity and (5) effective policy interventions to reduce health inequity in the first four areas.
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Bull. World Health Organ. · Nov 2005
Role of socioeconomic markers and state prohibition policy in predicting alcohol consumption among men and women in India: a multilevel statistical analysis.
To investigate the independent contribution of individual socioeconomic markers and state prohibition policy on alcohol consumption among men and women in India. ⋯ Caste, education and standard of living independently influence alcohol use in India. Prohibition policies appear to have little effect on alcohol use by men, but may reduce the proportion of women who consume alcohol. The socioeconomic patterning of health behaviours is likely to feed substantially into inequalities in health outcomes. Further investigation is required to understand how social and cultural factors in more localized contexts (e.g. districts) influence alcohol consumption.
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Bull. World Health Organ. · Nov 2005
A new definition of drowning: towards documentation and prevention of a global public health problem.
Drowning is a major global public health problem. Effective prevention of drowning requires programmes and policies that address known risk factors throughout the world. Surveillance, however, has been hampered by the lack of a uniform and internationally accepted definition that permits all relevant cases to be counted. ⋯ There was also consensus that the terms wet, dry, active, passive, silent, and secondary drowning should no longer be used. Thus a simple, comprehensive, and internationally accepted definition of drowning has been developed. Its use should support future activities in drowning surveillance worldwide, and lead to more reliable and comprehensive epidemiological information on this global, and frequently preventable, public health problem.