Health & place
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To determine if emergency department utilization for pediatric respiratory illness varies across small geographic jurisdictions within a large urban city. ⋯ This suggests that poverty accounts for high utilization of the ED in urban settings, but suggests that environmental exposures that increase the risk of ED care for asthma differ from those that lead to URI and LRI.
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This paper highlights the need for health geographers to consider the social and cultural geographies of who gets to train as a doctor. The paper presents a case study of a scheme intended to widen access to medical education for working class students from inner London. ⋯ It employs ethnographic data to consider how 'non-traditional' learners acclimatise to medical school. Our findings indicate that the students who succeed best are those who can see themselves as belonging within the education system, regardless of their social and cultural background.
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This review examines the association between dog ownership and adult physical activity levels. While there is evidence to suggest that dog ownership produces considerable health benefit and provides an important form of social support that encourages dog owners to walk, there is limited evidence on the physical environmental and policy-related factors that affect dog owners walking with their dog. With the high level of dog ownership in many industrialized countries, further exploration of the relationship between dog ownership and physical activity levels may be important for preventing declining levels of physical activity and the associated detrimental health effects.
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This paper seeks to raise questions about the growing emphasis on public participation in decision-making in the health service. It examines the case study of lay participation on Local Research Ethics Committees (LRECs'). ⋯ It examines members' own conceptualisations of lay involvement and the contributions they are able to make in meetings as a result of these conceptualisations. It concludes that without better-defined roles for lay members on these committees they do not possess the authority or knowledge to challenge the experts' technical rendering of research.
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This paper examines spatial variation in the delivery of out of hours care through general practice, in two Health Authorities in northwest England. It demonstrates considerable variations in the type of care provided to patients in different parts of the region. ⋯ Rather, the type of out of hours care delivered depends much more on variations in the structure and organization of service delivery. These factors, in turn, largely reflect the history of service development in each area and the ethos of individual general practitioners instrumental in establishing the service.