This contribution concerns the experience of chronic diseases and how it disrupts the trajectory of a person's biography, undermining his/her identity, self-reliance and social relationships. The study focuses particular attention on those diseases which have not yet been fully acknowledged and can, therefore, be considered a socially invisible disease: chronic headache is one of these. Thirty-...

Since the end of apartheid, patterns of migration into South Africa have shifted, and South Africa has become adestination for people from across the African continent and beyond a small but important number of whom arerefugees and asylum seekers. While South Africa has a protective, integrative, urban refugee policy, many ofthese individuals struggle to access the rights to whi...

BACKGROUND Recovery outlooks of physical functioning and quality of life after hip fracture have not changed significantly over the past 25 years. Previous research has mainly dealt with causalities and acute treatment, while the recovery process from the patients' perspective has been less comprehensively described. Expanded knowledge of what the patients consider important in their recovery p...

This study explores rural South Australians' barriers to help-seeking for skin cancer detection. A total of 201 randomly selected rural adults (18-94 years, 66% female) were presented with a skin-cancer-related scenario via telephone and were asked the extent to which various barriers would impede their help-seeking, based on an amended version of the Barriers to Help-Seeking Scale. Older (≥63 ...

As is well understood among clinical researchers, medical diagnoses often suffer from substantial measurement error. This is particularly true for mental health diagnoses.1 Reliance on inaccurate diagnosis indicators can substantially compromise researchers’ and clinicians’ ability to reliably evaluate treatment approaches, measure clinical progress, or estimate relationships between patient at...

Introduction The Twentieth Century has seen efforts to more directly involve individuals in governmental decision-making. A series of policies and methods to accomplish this generally goes under the name of citizen participation. Two threads of thought underlie the notion of citizen participation, individuals as consumers of government services and individuals as citizens with appropriate right...

A comprehensive description of the contributions of Averill A. Liebow to the field of pulmonary pathology would be a monumental task. In preparation for writing this addendum to Dr. Lindskog's tribute to Dr. Liebow, the comments and reflections of former students and colleagues were sought to appreciate the flavor of the man, the personality, and the drive which led to so productive a career. A...

With a noninterventionist government and an ideology emphasizing family self-reliance, yet one of the oldest populations around the world, Hong Kong faces many unresolved policy issues in aging, including public financial support, long-term care, and the lack of health or mental health care policies for older people. Despite funding limitations, research is vibrant and population aging is drawi...

• Families with a disabled child are more likely to be renting their homes than families with non-disabled children. Whilst there has been an increase in the proportion of familes as a whole being home-owners, the proportion of families with a disable child becoming home-owners has remained the same. • Families with a disabled child are less likely to be living in a decent home compared to fami...