The authors investigated changes in asthma prevalence and perception of bronchoconstriction over 6 yrs in adults of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Postal questionnaires were sent to 6,000 subjects aged 20-44 yrs in 1992-1993 and 1998-1999. Random samples of 600 responders had assessments of atopy, airway responsiveness, and their ability to perceive methacholine-induced bronchoconstriction. The prevalenc...

The development of antidepressants is a continuing process and starting or finishing a review in any particular year risks the creation of arbitrary breaks. However a decade is as reasonable as any other time period to choose for a look to take stock. This editorial will not attempt to be comprehensive, but is a personal view of some issues which have emerged, as seen by a clinician and clinica...

Two strains of Vibrio cholerae are currently significant in cholera: a remnant from the sixth pandemic (1899-1923) still present in South Asia and the seventh pandemic strain which emerged in 1961. The 1990s were marked by spread of the seventh pandemic to South America in 1991 and appearance of an O139 form of the seventh pandemic strain in 1992 (or possibly 1991), which in 1993 predominated i...

This paper processes 76 household surveys from 17 Latin American countries to document changes in poverty and inequality during the 1990s, and performs an analysis of the effect of economic reforms on inequality and poverty by using an expanded data base of 94 surveys spanning the 1977-2000 period. We show that there is no country in Latin America where inequality declined during the 1990s. Pov...

The collapse of the Soviet Bloc caused devastating economic crises in Cuba and in the Russian Federation but triggered remarkably different public health responses: while mortality rates in Russia increased substantially the crisis was barely visible in Cuban public health statistics. Fundamental social, political and cultural differences in the two countries and the respective specificities of...

abstract in this paper we test two versions of convergence hypothesis namely deterministic or conditional convergence and stochastic or catching up hypothesis using carrion-i-silvestre et al. (2005) stationary test. the results show latin and south american countries (lsa) catching up process toward the usa failed in 1980s and somewhat in 1990s. but in 2000s most of them could lie in convergenc...