With demand for health services continuing to grow as populations age and new technologies emerge to meet health needs, healthcare policy-makers are under constant pressure to set priorities, ie, to make choices about the health services that can and cannot be funded within available resources. In a recent paper, Smith et al apply an influential policy studies framework – Kingdon’s multiple str...

As the customers are the main reason of the formation and survival of the organization, not only understanding their obvious needs, but also forecasting, determining and guiding their hidden needs, design and implementing plans of offering services for meeting these needs for attracting customers are among cornerstone of any activity in the organization. In this research, one compares the perfo...

National, state, and local policymakers and society at large are paying growing attention to osteoarthritis. This movement is fueled by organizations and coalitions that are championing important initiatives. This article spotlights several initiatives sponsored by the Arthritis Foundation and other organizations.

Belize, Central America, the most sparsely populated country in Central America, has taken gigantic steps to improve the mental health of its citizens. This article profiles mental health in this country and explicates contextual factors circumscribing manifestations, treatment, and care of mental illness. An overview of mental health services is provided, with particular focus on the role of p...

In order to identify differences in risk factors for suicide attempts throughout adolescence, this study utilized a school-based survey of ninth (n = 1,192) and eleventh graders (N = 1,055). Suicide attempts were associated with cigarette and alcohol use, family violence, and depression for ninth graders and with illicit drug use, school violence, and sexual abuse for eleventh graders, while ha...