OBJECTIVES To evaluate the capability of accident and emergency (A&E) departments in six health regions of England to safely decontaminate casualties exposed to hazardous chemicals. METHODS In January 1999 a postal questionnaire was sent to the clinical director of all A&E departments in Trent, North and South Thames, South and West, North West and, Anglia and Oxford Health Regions. The quest...

(1) Background: To determine paramedics' frequency of contact with blood and other body fluids, as well as the analysis of knowledge of paramedics about blood-borne infections, their attitudes to patients infected with blood-borne viruses, and the post-exposure procedures implemented by paramedics; (2) Methods: An anonymous questionnaire among 190 paramedics working in various health care facil...

Synthetic pesticides are extensively used in agriculture to control harmful pests and prevent crop yield losses or product damage. Because of high biological activity and, in certain cases, long persistence in the environment, pesticides may cause undesirable effects to human health and to the environment. Farmers are routinely exposed to high levels of pesticides, usually much greater than tho...

Risk factors for HIV transmission within a hospital setting were assessed using pre-structured questionnaires and observations. Of 409 respondents, 66.3% corresponded to the nursing staff, 14.4% doctors and 8.3% laboratory staff. The irregular use of gloves and other protective clothing for risky tasks, and recapping of needles after use were some of the risk factors identified, especially amon...

This study used data on 2,297 families from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine whether Child Protective Services (CPS) involvement varies by maternal relationship status. Families were categorized according to whether the mother was living with a (male) partner or spouse, was involved in a dating relationship, or was not romantically involved. Families in which the mother...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to examine rates of psychotropic medication use over time among a national probability sample of youths involved with child welfare/child protective services (CW/CPS) in the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW). METHODS Growth mixture modeling was used to classify 2,521 youths into groups based on individual medication use trajectories...

The majority of U.S. parents spank their children, often beginning when their children are very young. We examined families (N=2,788) who participated in a longitudinal community-based study of new births in urban areas. Prospective analyses examined whether spanking by the child's mother, father, or mother's current partner when the child was 1-year-old was associated with household CPS involv...

PURPOSE To identify individual, family and community-level risk and protective factors for violence perpetration in a national sample of adolescents. METHODS Analysis of two waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The key outcome variable was Time 2 violence involvement, approximately 1 year after initial data collection, measured by a validated scale of viole...

Risk and resilience as a conceptual model has captured the imagination of researchers and program planners over the past decade. The concept assumes that stress is a universal experience; success in life is less determined by the stress experienced and more related to the resources available to address the stress. Likewise, it assumes that negative life events are not rare experiences; neither ...

The researches that specifically analyse the working conditions of teachers are few in the ergonomic literature. Our research relates more specifically to teachers of physical education and sports in french context of college. The research project described here includes both a quantitative exploratory survey (218 respondents) and qualitative case studies (interviews and observation), using the...