Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health articles from June 2003

Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health archives from June 2003

The family tree. (Introducing Hygieia).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... In Greek mythology, Asklepios was the god of healing. He was the son of the Olympian god Apollo and a mortal woman named Koronis. According to some ancient sources, Apollo's twin sister Artemis caught the pregnant Koronis having an affair...

Making things happen versus watching them? (Aphorism of the Month).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... It is said that there are three types of people: people who make things happen, people who watch things happening, and people who wonder what happened. Making things happen is at the heart of public health practice, but so to is observation and...

Iraq: time to focus our response. (Editorials).
June 1, 2003... During the preparation of this piece, the newspaper headline on that day's cover story was "52 die in Baghdad market blast... US declines to comment". The death toll after this attack was put at 58. (1) The media have provided vast coverage of...

Towards legionnaires' disease control: epidemiological or environmental surveillance? (Legionnaires' Disease).
June 1, 2003... Public health efforts need to focus on environmental risk management practices ********** The recent advances in the rapid diagnosis of legionnaire's disease and its increasing use by healthcare professionals,' together with the...

Age in epidemiological analysis: it still merits attention. (Age).
June 1, 2003... Analyses by age are among the most widely used tools from the epidemiological toolbox. They are mostly used to adjust for confounding (as a result of age) or to assess effect modification. The epidemiologist generally handles age in two ways:...

Basic molecular genetics for epidemiologists. (Glossary).(Glossary)
June 1, 2003... This is the first of a series of three glossaries on molecular genetics. This article focuses on basic molecular terms. ********** A general increase in the number of epidemiological research articles that apply basic science methods...

Arts for health: still searching for the Holy Grail. (Public Health Policy and Practice).
June 1, 2003... The potential health benefits of participation in the arts to the person and to the community have received widespread attention in recent years. The arts have been used as a medium for health promotion, as therapeutic interventions, and, in...

Can breast feeding modify the adverse effects of smoking during pregnancy on the child's cognitive development? (Short Report).
June 1, 2003... Harmful effects of maternal smoking during pregnancy on cognitive development of the child have been shown, as have beneficial effects of breast feeding. (2) We examined whether adverse effects of maternal smoking can be modified by breast...

Promotion of health and physical activity improves the mental health of elderly immigrants: results of a group randomised controlled trial among Turkish immigrants in the Netherlands aged 45 and over. (Public Health Policy and Practice).
June 1, 2003... Objectives: Older immigrants from non-industrialised countries are a growing group, they have comparatively many health problems and are often hard to reach through health promotion and other preventive services. The aim of this study was to...

Smoking reduction, smoking cessation, and incidence of fatal and non-fatal myocardial infarction in Denmark 1976-1998: a pooled cohort study. (Public Health Policy and Practice).
June 1, 2003... Objective: To analyse the effects of smoking reduction and smoking cessation on incidence of myocardial infarction after adjustment for established cardiovascular risk factors. Design: Prospective cohort study with record linkage to...

Cervical screening and health inequality in England in the 1990s. (Public Health Policy and Practice).
June 1, 2003... Study objectives: To examine changing inequality in the coverage of cervical screening and its relation to orgonisational aspects of primary care and to inequality in cervical cancer incidence and mortality. Design: Retrospective time...

Socioeconomic disparities in health care use: does universal coverage reduce inequalities in health? (Public Health Policy and Practice).
June 1, 2003... Background: Despite enormous public sector expenditures, the effectiveness of universal coverage for health care in reducing socioeconomic disparities in health has received little attention. Study objectives: To evaluate whether universal...

A matter of life and death: population mortality and football results. (Research Report).
June 1, 2003... Objectives: To determine whether football results are associated with mortality from circulatory disease. Design: Retrospective study, comparing mortality on days of football matches between 1 8 August 1994 and 28 December 1999 with the...

About George W Bush's Iraq war. (Speaker's Corner).
June 1, 2003... I can make no pretence to pacifism. It was out of conviction that, a mere 18 years old in my native South Africa, I volunteered for service in the second world war. And for the next five years I chose to serve in three successive services and...

Register based monitoring shows decreasing socioeconomic differences in finnish perinatal health. (Research Report).
June 1, 2003... Study objective: Several studies on differences in infant outcome by socioeconomic position have been done, but these have usually been based on ad hoc data linkages. The aim of this paper was to investigate whether socioeconomic differences in...

Socioeconomic differences in attitudes and beliefs about healthy lifestyles. (Research Report).
June 1, 2003... Study objectives: The factors underlying socioeconomic status differences in smoking, leisure time physical activity, and dietary choice are poorly understood. This study investigated attitudes and beliefs that might underlie behavioural...

Influence of individual and neighbourhood socioeconomic status on mortality among black, Mexican-American, and white women and men in the United States. (Research Report).
June 1, 2003... Study objectives: This study examines the influence of individual and neighbourhood socioeconomic status (SES) on mortality among black, Mexican-American, and white women and men in the US. The authors had three study objectives. Firstly, they...

Socioeconomic position, occupational exposures, and gender: the relation with locomotor disability in early old age. (Short Report).
June 1, 2003... The direction and magnitude of sex differences in health vary according to the particular health condition and phase of the life cycle. (1) In examining gender differences in health it is necessary to assess the contribution made by the...

The right water and the right to water. (The Jech Gallery).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Twenty per cent of the world's population lack access to clean water, 80% of them being rural dwellers. Some 2.3 billion people each year suffer from diseases linked to water, and a child dies every eight seconds from contaminated water. Clean...

Adverse pregnancy outcomes around incinerators and crematoriums in Cumbria, north west England, 1956-93. (Research Report).
June 1, 2003... Study objective: To investigate the risk of stillbirth, neonatal death, and lethal congenital anomaly among babies of mothers living close to incinerators and crematoriums in Cumbria, north west England, 1956-93. Design: Retrospective...

Association between offspring birth weight and atherosclerosis in middle aged men and women: British Regional Heart Study. (Short Report).
June 1, 2003... Low birth weight is associated with cardiovascular disease in adulthood, but the mechanisms underlying these associations remain unclear. (1) One possibility is that poor intrauterine nutrition "programmes" adult disease. (1) An alternative...

Childhood mental ability and smoking cessation in adulthood: prospective observational study linking the Scottish Mental Survey 1932 and the Midspan studies. (Short Report).
June 1, 2003... Education, childhood IQ, and occupational social class are associated with mortality and morbidity. One possible cause of these associations is via their impact on health behaviours such as smoking. (1) Less educated people are more likely to...

Sporadic cases of community acquired legionnaires' disease: an ecological study to identify new sources of contamination. (Research Report).
June 1, 2003... Study objective: To explore the relation between incidence of sporadic and community acquired legionnaires' disease and exposure to potentially contaminated industrial aerosols. Design: Geographical ecological approach using the postcode as...

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
June 1, 2003... PostScript If you have a burning desire to respond to a paper published in JECH, why not make use of our "rapid response" option? Log on to our web site (www.jech.com), find the paper that interests you, and send your response via...

Trauma, war and violence. Public mental health in soda-cultural context. (Book Reviews).(Book Review)
June 1, 2003... Edited by J de Jong. (Pp 454; price not stated). Kluver Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York, 2002. ISBN 0-306-46709-7. This is a valuable contribution to the scant literature on organising effective public mental health programmes for...

International co-operation in health. (Book Reviews).(Book Review)
June 1, 2003... Edited by M McKee, P Garner, R Stott. (Pp 217; price not stated). Oxford University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-192-63198-5. International co-operation in health focuses on transboundary public health issues and examines the influence of global...