HE title 'clinical governance' is now part of our vocabulary, although it is not clear to many what it entails. 1 It is stated to be a famework to enable clinicians to continuously improve quality and safeguard standards of care. 2,3 In fact, it is a new label for old ingredients. These ingredients include clinical audit, guidelines, complaint procedures, clinical supervision, risk management ,...

BACKGROUND The population in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) suffers poor health as manifested in high mortality rates and low life expectancy. Economic growth has consistently been shown to be a major determinant of health outcomes. However, even with good economic growth rates, it is not possible to achieve desired improvements in health outcomes. Public spending on health (PSH) has long been viewed...

Invasive alien species (IAS) constitute a major threat to global biological diversity. In order to control their spread, a detailed understanding of the factors influencing their distribution is essential. Although international trade is regarded as a major force structuring spatial patterns of IAS, the role of other social factors remains unclear. Despite studies highlighting the importance of...

The evidentiary data detailing the economic state of low-income developing and least developed countries (‘LDCs) is both well known and relatively uncontroversial. On the whole, these nations can be characterised as having a low per capita gross domestic product (‘GDP’), unfortunate standards of living and extremely poor levels of health and services. Moreover, these nations have high levels of...

The prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity has risen substantially worldwide in less than one generation. In the USA, the average weight of a child has risen by more than 5 kg within three decades, to a point where a third of the country's children are overweight or obese. Some low-income and middle-income countries have reported similar or more rapid rises in child obesity, despite con...