OBJECTIVE (1) To assess the extent to which current English national regulations/policies/guidelines and local hospital practices align with indicators suggested by a European review of effective strategies for infection prevention and control (IPC); (2) to examine the capacity of local hospitals to report on the indicators and current use of data to inform IPC management and practice. DESIGN...

Five integrative biomarker indices are compared: Bioeffects Assessment Index (BAI), Health Status Index (HSI), integrated biological response (IBR), ecosystem health condition chart (EHCC) and Integrative Biomarker Index (IBI). They were calculated on the basis of selected biomarker data collected in the framework of the Prestige oil spill (POS) Mussel Watch monitoring (2003-2006) carried out i...

J.C. Wortmann Department of Indusuial Engineering and Management Science. Eindhoven University of Technology, P.O. Box 513 5600 MB Eindhoven. The Netherlands. This paper gives an overview of the Factory Of the Future (FOF) project (ESPRIT 3143). FOF aims at an integration of several fragmented theories about the (re)design of production systems. Such an integration is a prerequisite for a prope...

BACKGROUND Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) regularly experience homophobic discrimination and stigma. While previous research has examined homophobic and HIV-related intergroup stigma originating from non-MSM directed at MSM, less is known about intragroup stigma originating from within MSM communities. While some research has examined intragroup stigma, this research h...

INTRODUCTION UN global plans on HIV/AIDS have committed to reducing the number of countries with punitive laws criminalizing key populations. This study explores whether punitive laws are associated with countries' performance on targets set in the global plans. METHODS The study used chi-square tests of independence to explore associations between legal status, key population size estimates,...

OBJECTIVE To compare the association between Mutuelles enrolment and medical care utilisation among under-five rural children between 2005 and 2010; that is, before and after substantial improvements in service availability took place in rural areas. METHODS We tracked the change in service availability between 2005 and 2010. Using the nationally representative population-based Rwanda Demogra...

BACKGROUND The goals of this study were to examine 1) longitudinal trajectories of energy expenditure from recreational physical activity (PA) in postmenopausal women, 2) whether women who belong to different PA trajectories engage in different types of PA, and 3) whether baseline sociodemographic, health, psychosocial, and lifestyle characteristics predict membership in PA trajectories. METH...

OBJECTIVE To compare breastfeeding difficulties attributable to the baby and mother/milk and exclusive breastfeeding between a group of late preterm (LP) infants and term infants. METHODS We utilized data from a prospective community-based cohort (n=2977) in Calgary, Alberta, and performed bivariate and multivariable analyses to identify demographic, obstetric, maternal and infant health indi...

Background The strategic importance of monitoring social determinants of health (SDH) and health equity and inequity has been a central focus in global discussions around the 2011 Rio Political Declaration on SDH and the Millennium Development Goals. This study is part of the World Health Organization (WHO) equity-oriented analysis of linkages between health and other sectors (EQuAL) project, w...

In August 2012, a literature search with the aim of describing indicators on food and water security in an Arctic health context was initialized in collaboration between the Arctic Human Health Expert Group, SDWG/AHHEG and the AMAP (Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme within the Arctic Council) Human Health Assessment Group, AMAP/HHAG. In December 2012, workshop discussions were performe...