Standard virulence evolution theory assumes that virulence factors are maintained because they aid parasitic exploitation, increasing growth within and/or transmission between hosts. An increasing number of studies now demonstrate that many opportunistic pathogens (OPs) do not conform to these assumptions, with virulence factors maintained instead because of advantages in non-parasitic contexts...

Background Generalist physician care is associated with improved patient outcomes. Despite initiatives to promote generalism in educational settings, recruitment generalist disciplines remains less than required serve societal needs. Increasingly this impacts not just general practice but also specialties such as internal medicine, surgery, and paediatrics. One potential factor for deficit a la...

I t has often been said that there are 3 types of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. The latter is often used to provide the appearance of substance to an argument that would other wise be laughable. One of those arguments is the health-policy concept that volume is a proxy for quality. On the face of it, the proposition is simple. You cut out low-volume concerns because of “inherent” diff...

BACKGROUND A growing proportion of people are living with long term conditions. The majority have more than one. Dealing with multi-morbidity is a complex problem for health systems: for those designing and implementing healthcare as well as for those providing the evidence informing practice. Yet the concept of multi-morbidity (the presence of >2 diseases) is a product of the design of health ...

Urban ecosystems can sustain populations of wild bees, partly because their rich native and exotic floral resources. A better understanding the urban bee diet, particularly at larval stage, is necessary to understand biotic interactions feeding behaviour in ecosystems, promote bees by improving management We investigated diet distribution patterns four solitary species with different specializa...