................................................................................. 9 ORIGINAL PAPERS I-IV ................................................................ 11 ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................ 12 DEFINITIONS OF TERMS ............................................................. 13 PREUNDERSTANDING ..................................

STUDY OBJECTIVE To examine the impact of a comprehensive periodic health examination programme on health care utilisation and costs in a working population. DESIGN A cohort method was used to observe the trends in health care utilisation and costs for a group of local government employees from 1 February 1986 until 31 January 1992, during which time (in 1988) a comprehensive periodic health e...

CONTEXT In the South African mining sector, cardiorespiratory-specific autopsies are conducted under the Occupational Diseases in Mines and Works Act (ODMWA) on deceased mineworkers to determine eligibility for compensation. However, low levels of autopsy utilisation undermine the value of the service. OBJECTIVE To explore enablers and barriers to consent that impact on ODMWA autopsy utilisat...

Objectives: We compared need for and utilisation of health services among young, healthy smokers who did not want to quit (“the non-motivated”), and “motivated smokers”, relative to never-smokers. Methods: This cross-sectional study included 9,915 Hong Kong Police officers. We assessed smoking status, differentiating non-motivated from motivated smokers. Need was measured as number of respirato...

BACKGROUND Laboratory tests are extensively used for diagnosis and monitoring in UK primary care. Test usage by GPs, and associated costs, have grown substantially in recent years. AIM This study aimed to quantify temporal growth and geographic variation in utilisation of laboratory tests. DESIGN AND SETTING Retrospective cohort study using data from general practices in the UK. METHOD Da...

BACKGROUND This study aimed to investigate groups of patients with a relatively homogenous health status to evaluate the degree to which use of the Australian hospital system is affected by socio-economic status, locational accessibility to services and patient payment classification. METHOD Records of all deaths occurring in Western Australia from 1997 to 2000 inclusive were extracted from t...

This paper explores expertise in industrial (product) design and the contribution of knowledge generated by doctoral research. It stands on the premise that product design research should not function as a distraction from practice, but as a development of it. This is documented by doctoral studies and examples that illustrate how new knowledge can be generated by research and later applied in ...

The paper provides an insight into the changing nature of the learning process through the adoption of interactive new media solutions into a traditional University Campus. The use of software from Blackboard Inc. has provided the foundations for building both a complex and dynamic learning community at Huddersfield University Business School. The specific focus of the research project is on st...