OBJECTIVE To study the implications of policy changes on the demand for antenatal care (ANC), HIV testing and hospital delivery among pregnant women in rural Malawi. DESIGN Retrospective analysis of monthly reports. SETTING Malamulo SDA hospital in Thyolo district, Makwasa, Malawi. METHODS Three hospital-based registers were analysed from 2005 to 2007. These were general ANC, delivery and...

INTRODUCTION Smoke-free policies can effectively protect nonsmokers from secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure in multiunit housing. We surveyed all affordable multiunit housing properties in North Carolina to determine the statewide prevalence of smoke-free policies and to identify predictors of smoke-free policies. METHODS Representatives of affordable housing properties in North Carolina complet...

The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control mandates the creation of smoke-free environments to protect non-smokers from second-hand smoke and reduce demand for tobacco. We aimed to examine the extent and nature of smoke-free campus policies at tertiary education institutions throughout New Zealand, and examine the policy development process. Stage one comprised an audit and content analysis of...

In a recent editorial in Biostatistics, Peng (2009) introduced a system for making data and computer code from papers in the journal publicly available so that other researchers can reproduce the statistical analyses in the paper. The editors explain in a short accompanying note (Diggle and Zeger, 2009) that ‘we wish to encourage the practice of making research published in the journal reproduc...

objectivet: to determine the prevalence and risk factors of postpartum depression among women living in zabol, a city in south-east of iran. method: 2 to 8 weeks after delivery, 408 women were assessed for depression and some of its risk factors. results: the prevalence of postpartum depression was (40.4 %). risk factors for the onset of post-partum depression included younger age, low income f...

background: cesarean section (c-section) in the north of iran accounts for 70% of childbirths, which is higher than the national average of 55%. understanding women’s perceptions towards modes of delivery in different cultures can pave the way for promoting programs and policies in support of vaginal delivery. we aimed to investigate women’s perceptions towards modes of delivery in the north of...

BACKGROUND While much is known about the demand for conventional cigarettes, little is known about the determinants of demand for electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS or e-cigarettes). The goal of this study is to estimate the own and cross-price elasticity of demand for e-cigarettes and to examine the impact of cigarette prices and smoke-free policies on e-cigarette sales. METHODS Quar...

Scalable delivery of network services to client applications is a difficult problem. We present a service architecture that is designed to accommodate the scalable delivery of heterogeneous services to clients with different QoS requirements. A prototype was built using the Legion wide-area computing infrastructure to explore the design of applicationand service-based replica selection and crea...