BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Public reporting of quality data is becoming more common and increasingly used to improve choices of patients, providers, and payers. We reviewed the scope and content of stroke data being reported to the public and how well it captures the quality of stroke care. METHODS We performed a cross-sectional survey of all report cards within the Agency for Healthcare Research...

Unregulated fertility leads to population explosion. It is important to know the determinants of contraceptive use among married women. The aim and objective was to find out the prevalence of contraceptive usage among rural Kerala and to find out socio-demographic factors affecting use of contraceptives. A community based cross sectional survey was conducted in rural Kerala and 619 subjects wer...

OBJECTIVE To verify the association between perceived social support and household food insecurity (HFI). DESIGN A cross-sectional survey. SETTING A population-based study with a representative sample of households from a metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, conducted in 2010. HFI was estimated with the Brazilian Food Insecurity Scale (EBIA). Social support was assessed using the ad...

In this study, we test one aspect of Rodin's hypothesis concerning age-related decline in mastery: The effect of frequent contact with the health care sector on mastery. We conducted cross-sectional and longitudinal multiple regression analyses to examine the effect of general physician (GP) visits on mastery. In the cross-sectional analyses, a higher number of GP visits is associated with lowe...

CONTEXT Earnings have been shown to be a critical point in workforce recruitment and retention. However, little is known about how much governmental public health staff are paid across the United States. OBJECTIVE To characterize earnings among state health agency central office employees. DESIGN A cross-sectional survey was conducted of state health agency central office employees in late ...

BACKGROUND Differences in health resulting from differences in socioeconomic status (SES) have been identified around the world. Age, period, and cohort (A-P-C) differences in health are vital factors which are associated with disparities in SES. However, few studies have examined these differences simultaneously. Moreover, although self-rated health (SRH) has been frequently used as an indicat...

BACKGROUND Participation in continuing professional development (CPD) is a professional and regulatory expectation of general practitioners (GPs). Traditionally, CPD activity was undertaken face-to-face in educational settings, but internet based formats have found increasing favour. The need for doctors to use the internet for service and educational purposes is growing, particularly in suppor...

The present paper reports the protocol and some outcomes of a feasibility study of the British National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS) of people aged 65 years or over. The feasibility study was carried out in February and March 1994 in order to develop and test all components of the protocol for the main survey. The fieldwork for the main survey takes place over 12 months and began in October...

This study examined change in self-reported empathy in a four-wave longitudinal study spanning 12 years (1992-2004) and the association between empathy and other measures, including daily reports of relationship experiences. Participants initially ranged in age from 10 years to 87 years. Cross-sectional and longitudinal associations of age with empathy revealed divergent patterns. Whereas cross...

INTRODUCTION As the world is making progress towards elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, poor coverage of PMTCT services in Nigeria remains a major challenge. In order to address this, scale-up was planned with activities organized into 3 phases. This paper describes the process undertaken in eight high burden Nigerian states to rapidly close PMTCT coverage gaps at facility and ...