OBJECTIVES To evaluate the effects of a government insurance programme covering tertiary care for the poor in Karnataka, India--Vajpayee Arogyashree Scheme (VAS)--on treatment seeking and postoperative outcomes. DESIGN Geographic regression discontinuity. SETTING 572 villages in Karnataka, India. PARTICIPANTS 3478 households in 300 villages where VAS was implemented and 3486 households in...

This article examines the constraints of antiretroviral (ARV) uptake in the villages of Thamaga, Kumakwane, Mankgodi and Gakgatla which are in the Kweneng District of Botswana. The social interactionist approach and theories of health behaviour provided the theoretical basis of the study. Data were obtained by using interviewer-administered questionnaires which were applied to a sample of 145 r...

Background: Artemisinin and partner drug-resistant falciparum malaria is expanding over the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS). Eliminating falciparum malaria in the GMS while drugs still retain enough efficacy could prevent global spread of antimalarial resistance. Eliminating malaria rapidly requires targeting the reservoir of asymptomatic parasite carriers. This pilot trial aimed to evaluate th...

Domestic fleas were collected in 12 villages in the western Usambara Mountains in Tanzania. Of these, 7 are considered villages with high plague frequency, where human plague was recorded during at least 6 of the 17 plague seasons between 1986 and 2004. In the remaining 5 villages with low plague frequency, plague was either rare or unrecorded. Pulex irritans, known as the human flea, was the p...

The relationship between filarial antigenemia and lymphatic pathology was investigated in residents of 11 villages in an area of Papua New Guinea where Wuchereria bancrofti is endemic. Antigenemia was determined in 1322 persons by means of the Og4C3 antibody capture assay. Prevalence of antigenemia by village ranged from 61.7% to 98.2% and did not vary by sex. Antigen level increased with trans...

We analyze the impact of an experimental maternal and child health and family planning program that was established in Matlab, Bangladesh, in 1977. Village data from 1974, 1982, and 1996 suggest that program villages experienced a decline in fertility of about 17 %. Household data from 1996 confirm that this decline in "surviving fertility" persisted for nearly two decades. Women in program vil...

Meeting the food needs of Africa's growing population over the next half-century will require technologies that significantly improve rural livelihoods at minimal environmental cost. These technologies will likely be distinct from those of the Green Revolution, which had relatively little impact in sub-Saharan Africa; consequently, few such interventions have been rigorously evaluated. This pap...

Intensity profiles for helminths are used to describe population infection status, monitor effectiveness of control programs, and provide accurate data to validate transmission models. This study aims to accurately predict age/gender specific intensity profiles of endemic schistosomiasis japonica infection in the Philippines. Poor sensitivity of the Kato-Katz test and large heterogeneity in inf...