Public health
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The purpose of this study was to determine the extent of non-urgent visits and the effect of different characteristics on such visits to one public hospital emergency department located in Catanzaro, Italy. Of 581 patients aged 15 years and older who were registered for care in the emergency department, 40 were excluded from the study as they were too ill or distressed. The survey questionnaire included questions about the patients' demographic and socio-economic characteristics, distance from home to hospital, usual health status and health status at the time of presentation to the emergency department. ⋯ Moreover, the odds of requiring non-urgent care were significantly higher in patients who present to the emergency department without medical referral and in patients who present with problems of longer duration. The most frequent reason given by patients for their visit to the emergency department was that they felt their problem was an emergency. Further investigations are necessary to evaluate the use of primary care since closer co-operation within the healthcare organization system may provide a more responsive service.
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The objectives of this study were to describe the global profile of biomedical research productivity and to examine any improvement seen in it in the developing world during the period 1990-2000. Biomedical research articles published during 1990-2000 were accessed through the Medline database. The number of (journal) articles originating from each of the countries of the world, normalized to number of publications per million population (PPMP) per year, was elicited. ⋯ The total share of publications coming from low-income countries also fell, from 2% in 1990 to 1.7% in 2000. The imbalance between developed and developing countries in terms of biomedical research is significant. Pragmatic policies should be adopted by the World Bank, World Health Organization, other United Nations bodies, and respective governments to encourage biomedical research in the less-developed parts of the world.