In this article, we review the limitations of traditional rehabilitation functional outcome instruments currently in use within the rehabilitation field to assess Activity and Participation domains as defined by the International Classification of Function, Disability, and Health. These include a narrow scope of functional outcomes, data incompatibility across instruments, and the precision vs ...

Rheumatologists and other interested professionals at the OMERACT II conference formed small groups to discuss whether it was sensible to use a generic health status instrument in musculoskeletal disease trials. These instruments promise the possibility of comparison of health status between disease states. However, data is lacking on validity of the current generation of instruments to support...

Medical law and public health law have both served extensively as instruments of health protection and promotion-yet both are limited in their effect and scope and do not sufficiently cover nor supply a remedy to systematic, rather than anecdotal, mistreatments in the health care system. A possible solution to this deficiency may be found in the human rights in patient care legal approach. The ...

regarding the need for scientific development and achievement our national goals, it is clear that international cooperation has the main role in this way. here is a report on what we have done during past almost 10 years (2001-2011) in the field of international medical research activities in deputy ministry for research & technology, ministry of health, iran. our effort was focused to identif...

Low back pain represents a serious public health problem. Therefore, great efforts have been made in order to improve and assess the efficacy of its treatment. Reports in international literature have presented important studies concerning instruments to assess pain and functional incapacity in patients with low back pain. This study presents a clinical protocol which was developed by a multidi...

The instrumental use of social networks has become a central tenet of international health policy and advocacy since the Millennium project. In asking, ‘How to facilitate social contagion?’, Karl Blanchet of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine therefore reflects not only on the recent success, but also hints to growing challenges; the tactics of partnerships, alliances and platfo...

Threats posed by new, emerging or re-emerging communicable diseases are taking a global dimension, to which the World Health Organization (WHO) Secretariat has been responding with determination since 1995. Key to the global strategy for tackling epidemics across borders is the concept of global public health surveillance, which has been expanded and formalized by WHO and its technical partners...

BACKGROUND In recent years, there have been numerous calls for global institutions to develop and enforce new international laws. International laws are, however, often blunt instruments with many uncertain benefits, costs, risks of harm, and trade-offs. Thus, they are probably not always appropriate solutions to global health challenges. Given these uncertainties and international law's potent...

OBJECTIVES To link validated and widely used instruments measuring physical functional ability in ankylosing spondylitis to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) and to compare their contents, based on the results of the linking process. METHODS The Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Functional Index (BASFI), the Dougados Functional Index (DFI), the Health Ass...