According to a review by Campbell and Roland,1 a patient’s decision to consult a doctor is dependent on a multitude of physical, psychological and social reasons, with or without prior self-care. The patient’s journey of seeking medical care is influenced by socio-economic and demographic status, perception of susceptibility and severity, benefits/costs of seeking the interaction, as well as th...

BACKGROUND 'Continuity of personal care by anaesthetist', as defined by a single anaesthetist providing preoperative evaluation, performing anaesthesia, and delivering a postoperative visit to the patient, has been shown to be a major factor for patient satisfaction with anaesthesia care. This prospective randomized study investigated whether a single postoperative visit increased the patient's...

This essay argues that work, and the socioeconomic class polarities it creates, plays a fundamental role in determining inequalities in the distribution of morbidity and mortality. This is by means of uneven exposure to physical hazards and psychosocial risks in the workplace, as well as by inequalities in exclusion from the labour market and the absence of paid work. Furthermore, this essay sh...

A belief that the government does (and should) have broad authority to protect and improve health, coupled with an understanding that collective action is often necessary to address public health challenges effectively, is central to the public health mindset. But many are questioning whether this vision of a strong government role is applicable to non-communicable disease threats and the socia...

O ne of the obstacles to examining academic proposals for major policy change is the tendency to evaluate them in terms of the current political climate. There is certainly a large discontinuity between the politics of the 1990s and the proposals put forth in the two articles by James Walker and by Edward Zigler and Matia Finn-Stevenson. Both articles call for significant, new, and expensive pu...

The sustainability of successful public health programmes remains a challenge in low and middle income settings. These programmes are often subjected to mobilization-demobilization cycle. Indeed, political and organizational factors are of major importance to ensure this sustainability. The cooperation between the World Bank and the Brazilian AIDS programme highlights the role of international ...

This article explores the challenges that emerge at the intersection of economies of compassion and terror: local, national, and international forms of humanitarian assistance; security practices in insecure social and institutional environments; questions of victimization and global reparations; and quests for justice, as revealed through an analysis of political violence and humanitarian inte...

Sierra Leone and Guinea share broadly similar cultural worlds, straddling the societies of the Upper Guinea Coast with Islamic West Africa. There was, however, a notable difference in their reactions to the Ebola epidemic. As the epidemic spread in Guinea, acts of violent or everyday resistance to outbreak control measures repeatedly followed, undermining public health attempts to contain the c...

In this era of globalization, when news about political violence can haunt anyone, anywhere, those whose families have suffered political violence in the past are particularly vulnerable to current distress. Skilled in understanding transgenerational processes, family therapists need to be familiar with the mechanisms by which children are exposed to the effects of political violence suffered b...