Declining water quality is one of the main reasons of coral reef degradation in the Thousand Islands off the megacity Jakarta, Indonesia. Shifts in benthic community composition to higher soft coral abundances have been reported for many degraded reefs throughout the Indo-Pacific. However, it is not clear to what extent soft coral abundance and physiology are influenced by water quality. In thi...

There is empirical evidence at the national level that suggests the 1999 Indonesian economic crisis impact was very heterogeneous both between urban and rural areas and across regions. A cross sectional study of the nutritional status of children and its determinants was performed in urban poor areas of Jakarta, and rural areas of Banggai in Central Sulawesi, and Alor-Rote in East Nusa Tenggara...

This paper assesses the extent of the financial burden due to out-of-pocket payments for health care incurred by people living with HIV (PLHIV) and the effect of this burden on their financial capacity. Data were collected in a cross-sectional survey of 353 PLHIV from three cities in Indonesia (Jakarta, Jogjakarta and Merauke). Respondents in Jakarta were sampled from one hospital and one non-g...

PURPOSE This study was performed to describe and evaluate the management of male lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS) suggestive of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) by general practitioners (GPs) in Jakarta. METHODS This observational cross-sectional study was peformed between January 2013 and August 2013 in Jakarta. We developed a questionnaire consisting of 10 questions describing the mana...

In this study we analysed fecal bacterial communities and parasites of three important Indonesian fish species, Epinephelus fuscoguttatus, Epinephelus sexfasciatus and Atule mate. We then compared the biodiversity of bacterial communities and parasites of these three fish species collected in highly polluted Jakarta Bay with those collected in less polluted Indonesian areas of Cilacap (E. sexfa...

Urbanisation in Indonesia, as elsewhere in Southeast Asia, has been low up to the 1970s, prompting some authors to speak of urban involution. Since then a giant mega-city has developed around Jakarta, known as Jabotabek, and other cities like Surabaya, Bandung and Medan have grown to metropolitan proportions. This paper is, however, less concerned with the demographic aspects of urbanization, b...

BACKGROUND Periconceptional folic acid reduces neural tube defect (NTD) risk. Red blood cell folate concentration is inversely associated with NTD risk. In many countries there is a lack of information on NTD rates. Red cell folate status in women of childbearing age may be a surrogate for NTD rates and may be helpful in identifying countries or regions most likely to benefit from improved fola...

The view of women as the sexual property of men becomes heightened during periods of political unrest. The rape of Chinese-Indonesian women in Jakarta, Indonesia, during the May 1998 student demonstrations confirms this observation. This article describes interviews with Jakarta rape victims conducted by Volunteers for Humanity--a coalition of nongovernmental organizations established after a...

Asia is home to the largest population of people living in informal settlements and slums. Its southern and eastern sub regions house over 80% of slum dwellers in the entire region. The most notable success stories in Asia, in terms of decreasing slum growth significantly, have occurred in South-East Asia, where policies implemented between the 1970’s to early 2000’s have strongly impacted the ...

OBJECTIVE To generate community-based estimates of the public (paid by the government) and private (paid by households) costs of blood culture-confirmed typhoid fever in Hechi, China; North Jakarta, Indonesia; Kolkata, India; Karachi, Pakistan and Hue, Vietnam. METHODS To measure out-of-pocket costs of illness and lost earnings, families with culture-proven cases were surveyed 7, 14 and 90 da...