This Brief Report provides a compilation of key population health articles that were published from January through December of 2008. Introduction: This Brief Report provides a compilation of key population health articles that were published from January through December of 2008. This list is not intended to be inclusive of all articles on population health but is representative of current res...

This symposium volume begins with a simple provocation: race and racism are central to the development of medicine and the health sciences. If pursuits of health equity are to be taken seriously, this repositioning of race as central rather than peripheral to science and medicine suggests that improved health outcomes and reduced disparities cannot be attained until we acknowledge that these fi...

OBJECTIVE To describe a primary health care model designed specifically for Guatemala that has been implemented in two demonstration sites since 2004 and present results of a process evaluation of utilization, service coverage, and quality of care from 2005 to 2009. METHODS Coverage, utilization, and quality were assessed by using an automated database linking census and clinical records and ...

It is widely understood that maternal health care relies on the entire health system. However, little empirical, country-specific, research has been done to trace out the ways in which health system elements can shape maternal health outcomes. This study seeks to redress this situation, by providing an example of how a health systems approach can benefit the understanding of maternal health ser...

One in five Americans reports no usual source of health care, and the number of Americans reporting that they have a personal relationship with a usual source of care has declined steadily over the past 15 years. Given the positive association between having a usual source of care and the nation’s Triple Aim initiative of lower health care costs, improved population health outcomes, and better ...

The Israeli health system has made considerable progress in reducing deaths amenable to medical care but has more to do. This commentary describes how progress in this area results from innovation, coverage, quality, and adherence to treatment. It describes what is being done in Israel and beyond to address each of these factors but concentrates on the often poorly recognised problem of adheren...

Socioeconomic position (SEP) can be an important determinant for health. It can be assessed by different measures that look at factors such as occupation, education, income, living standards or area of residence—none of which capture the full picture. Our lead article compares the performance of five measures in predicting health outcomes, concluding that NZiDep (an individual-level index of so...

Exposure to high levels of air pollution can cause a variety of adverse health outcomes. Air quality in developed countries has been generally improved over the last three decades. However, many recent epidemiological studies have consistently shown positive associations between low-level exposure to air pollution and health outcomes. Thus, adverse health effects of air pollution, even at relat...

Being able to identify socially frail older adults is essential for designing interventions and policy and for the prediction of health outcomes, both on the level of individual older adults and of the population. The aim of the present study was to adapt the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) to the Dutch language and culture for those purposes. A systematic cross-cultural adaptation of the init...

The study aims to investigate sleep duration in four different population groups in a national probability sample of older South Africans who participated in the Study of Global Ageing and Adult Health (SAGE) Wave 1. A national population-based cross-sectional study with a sample of 3284 aged 50 years or older in South Africa was conducted in 2008. The questionnaire included socio-demographic c...