To cite: Abel G, Lyratzopoulos G. BMJ Qual Saf Published Online First: [please include Day Month Year] doi:10.1136/bmjqs2015-004366 Reducing the number of avoidable deaths in hospital is the focus of many quality improvement initiatives worldwide. Comparing indicators of avoidable mortality between different hospitals could help to target improvement efforts, but optimally defining and measurin...

In a 1981 review, Doll and Peto estimated that approximately 35% of cancer deaths in the United States were potentially avoidable by the modification of diet but that this percentage might be as low as 10% or as high as 70%. Since that time, the epidemiologic literature on diet and cancer has grown greatly, as has understanding of the mechanisms of carcinogenesis. In general, this expanded lite...

Gallai and Roy proved that a graph is k-colorable if and only if it has an orientation without directed paths of length k. We initiate the study of analogous characterizations for the existence of generalized graph colorings, where each color class induces a subgraph satisfying a given (hereditary) property. It is shown that a graph is partitionable into at most k independent sets and one induc...

Evidence that much cancer is preventable derives from observations of time trends and geographic patterns of cancer, birth cohort changes, high risks in groups with well-defined exposures, and experimental studies. In an effort to identify additional opportunities for reducing the impact of cancer on society, this conference assessed avoidable causes of cancer. The magnitude and extent of preve...

BACKGROUND The New South Wales Health (NSW Health) Chronic Disease Management Program (CDMP) delivers interventions to adults at risk of hospitalisation for five target chronic conditions that respond well to ambulatory care: diabetes, hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, congestive heart failure, and coronary artery disease. The intervention consists of two main components: (1)...

To cite: Ko M, Bindman AB. BMJ Qual Saf 2014;23: 177–179. An extensive literature has established the impact of socioeconomic status on health outcomes. Across a wide range of conditions, poorer individuals face barriers in access to healthcare and suffer worse outcomes of that care. However, individuals do not exist in a vacuum; experiences and behaviours are shaped by the contexts in which pe...

BACKGROUND Researchers and policy makers have focussed on the development of indicators to help monitor the success of regionalization, primary care reform and other health sector restructuring initiatives. Certain indicators are useful in examining issues of equity in service provision, especially among older populations, regardless of where they live. AHRs are used as an indicator of primary ...

STUDY OBJECTIVES To analyse over a 20 year period the level and trends in the "EC avoidable death indicators". DESIGN The Years of Potential Life Lost (YPLL) method applied to curative and preventive avoidable mortality indicators in Belgium for four successive five year periods, countrywide as well as by district, separately for women and men. Ratios of YPLL rates (age standardised) describe...

In combinatorics on words, a word $w$ over an alphabet $\Sigma$ is said to avoid pattern $p$ $\Delta$ if there no factor $f$ of such that $f=h(p)$ where $h:\Delta^*\to\Sigma^*$ non-erasing morphism. A be $k$-avoidable exists infinite $k$-letter avoids $p$. \emph{doubled} every variable occurs at least twice. Doubled patterns are known $3$-avoidable. Currie, Mol, and Rampersad have considered ge...