The Diptera genus-group names of Charles Henry Tyler Townsend are reviewed and annotated. A total of 1506 available genus-group names in 12 families of Diptera are listed alphabetically for each name, giving author, year and page of original publication, originally included species, type species and method of fixation, current status of the name, family placement, and a list of any emendations ...

BACKGROUND Data on the relationship between plasma levels of cholesterol and triglycerides and social class have been inconsistent. Most previous studies have used one classification of social class. METHODS This was a cross-sectional population based study with data on occupational social class, educational level obtained using a detailed health and lifestyle questionnaire. A total of 10,147...

UNLABELLED Council tax valuation bands (CTVBs) are a categorisation of household property value in Great Britain. The aim of the study was to assess the CTVB as a measure of socio-economic status by comparing the strength of the associations between selected health and lifestyle outcomes and CTVBs with two measures of socio-economic status: the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification ...

OBJECTIVES To determine the accuracy of area based Townsend Deprivation Scores (TDSs) as proxies for individual level deprivation and to compare the ability of TDSs and individual level measures of deprivation to predict selfreported health. METHODS Using data from a self completed health and behaviour survey sent to a random sample of households in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, the ability of TDS...

BACKGROUND The Department of Health is encouraging health authorities to improve health status by tackling health inequalities. We defined ward level spatial health variations in Trent National Health Service Region, England, investigated urban and rural inequalities, and examined the relationship with deprivation, to identify the extent of small area health inequalities and to establish whethe...

Background Previous studies have suggested that modern obesogenic environments accentuate the genetic risk of obesity. However, these studies have proven controversial as to which, if any, measures of the environment accentuate genetic susceptibility to high body mass index (BMI). Methods We used up to 120 000 adults from the UK Biobank study to test the hypothesis that high-risk obesogenic e...

The concepts of poverty, social exclusion and deprivation are widely employed but often problematic. This paper discusses some problems with prominent interpretations of these concepts and how Amartya Sen’s capability approach can provide a conceptual framework that can overcome these problems. It is argued that the capability approach can reflect the many ways that human lives are blighted and...

BACKGROUND: Over recent years increased emphasis has been given to performance monitoring of NHS hospitals, including overall number of hospital readmissions, which however are often sub-optimally adjusted for case-mix. We therefore conducted a study to examine the effect of various patient and disease factors on the risk of emergency medical readmission. METHODS: The study setting was a Distri...

OBJECTIVE To assess the accuracy of computerised matching of postcode to enumeration district (ED) and to determine whether any mismatching reduces the validity of methods to distinguish socioeconomic differences in "small area" deprivation studies. DESIGN Computerised and manual matching of postcodes to EDs were compared and the census based Townsend deprivation score was compared with socio...

BACKGROUND In the UK, obesity is associated with a clear socioeconomic gradient, with individuals of lower socioeconomic status being more likely to be obese. Several previous studies, using individual measures of soecioeconomic status, have shown a more rapid increase in Body Mass Index (BMI) over time among adults of lower socioeconomic status. We conducted a study to further examine whether ...