695 areas for the initiation of elimination programs. Initial mapping of areas of high endemicity could be based on surveys conducted by local field teams using pictorial guides of clinical manifestations of yaws. Progress toward the elimination of transmission could be monitored by means of point-of-care serologic surveys for latent yaws in children.4 Finally, as with mass drugadministration p...

Increasing reports of the appearance of novel nonmultiresistant methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus MRSA (MRSA) strains in the community and of the spread of hospital MRSA strains into the community are cause for public health concern. We conducted two national surveys of unique isolates of S. aureus from clinical specimens collected from nonhospitalized patients commencing in 2000 and ...

Methods: An initial environmental scan provided a comprehensive understanding of the population characteristics needed to design the study and develop the survey questionnaire and focus group materials. Data were collected using telephone surveys with community health personnel and focus groups with community members (e.g., parents, children, and school personnel) affected by asthma to assess t...

We conducted sentinel-based surveillance for norovirus in the Pudong area of Shanghai, China, during 2012-2013, by analyzing 5,324 community surveys, 408,024 medical records, and 771 laboratory-confirmed norovirus infections among 3,877 diarrhea cases. Our analysis indicated an outpatient incidence of 1.5/100 person-years and a community incidence of 8.9/100 person-years for norovirus-associate...

T he Community-Oriented Program for Control of Rheumatic Diseases (COPCORD) was launched through the concerted effort of the International League of Associations for Rheumatology (ILAR) and World Health Organization (WHO) in the early 1980s to acquire data on musculoskeletal (MSK) pain and disability. Its focus was on the developing world. COPCORD was designed a lowcost low-infrastructure model...

The improvement of basic cultural competency skills and the creation of a greater community-minded spirit among dental students are important parts of dental education. The purpose of our study was to assess changes in dental students' attitudes and beliefs about community service and changes in cultural competencies after participation in a two-year program of non-dental community service (Stu...

Growing interest in using consumer satisfaction information to enhance quality of care and promote informed consumer choice has accompanied recent expansions in managed care. This article synthesizes information about consumer satisfaction surveys conducted by managed-care plans, government and other agencies, community groups, and purchasers of care. We discuss survey content, methods, and use...

In this paper we study the impact of news media and public surveys on the electoral campaigns for political competitions. We present an agent-based model that addresses the effective influence of surveys in orienting the opinions of voters before elections. The dynamics of electoral consensus is studied as a function of time by investigating different possible scenarios and the effect of period...

In a house-to-house survey in Kilifi District, Kenya, mothers of 2556 liveborn children were interviewed about neonatal mortality, especially from neonatal tetanus (NNT). The crude birth rate was 60.5 per 1000 population, the neonatal mortality rate 21.1 and the NNT mortality rate 3.1 per 1000 livebirths. The neonatal and NNT mortality rates were higher in boys than in girls. Neonatal tetanus w...