Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health articles from November 2002

Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health archives from November 2002

Francisco Xavier Balmis (1753-1819), a pioneer of international vaccination. (The Jech Gallery).(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... Born in Alicante, Spain, a physician and army surgeon Francisco Xavier Balmis, was the author of the first translation into Spanish of Moreau de La Sarthe's book on vaccine. In his edition, Balmis added a foreword to make the book more complete...

Elephant story 2. (Aphorism of the Month).(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... This is an account of an international agency working in a rural area of Asia where infant mortality rates are very high--often associated with infantile diarrhoea. The development team decide that what is needed is to improve sanitation in the...

Food standards after the BSE Inquiry report; a worrying problem for public health: lessons to be learnt after the BSE Inquiry report. (Food Standards).(bovine spongiform encephalopathy)
November 1, 2002... The population of the Earth is considered to have increased from 1.5 billion to 6 billion over the past 100 years and yet the production of food has been adequate. The racing of farming technology, genetics, chemistry, and international markets...

Nutritional transition: a public health challenge in developing countries; the double burden of undernutrition and overnutriton in developing countries is a public health challenge. (Nutrition).
November 1, 2002... Developing countries are undergoing various types of transitions. The epidemiological transition makes them face a double burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases. Similarly, demographic and socioeconomic transitions are also...

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, persistent organic pollutants, and the achievable utopias. (Speaker's Corner).
November 1, 2002... Does it make much sense to ask your butcher whether a piece of beef contains the bovine spongiform encephalopathy prion protein? I doubt it. Essentially--but not solely, as explained below--because it is unlikely that any prion would be found,...

Basic concepts in medical informatics. (Glossary).(Glossary)
November 1, 2002... This glossary defines terms used in the comparatively young science of medical informatics. It is hoped that it will be of interest to both novices and professionals in the field. Medical informatics is the study and application of methods...

Persistent toxic chemicals in the US food supply *. (Debate).(Editorial)
November 1, 2002... Guest Editor: M Porta Assistant Editor: E Zumeta Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) have spread throughout the global environment to threaten human health and damage ecosystems, with evidence of POPs contamination in wildlife, human...

Persistent organic pollutants exposure assessment using the US Total Diet Study. (Debate).
November 1, 2002... The assessment presented in the core paper of this debate by Schafer and Kegley does not adequately describe the computational methodology or sources of data that were used to estimate exposures. While it is difficult to determine from the...

Persistent organic pollutants in food supplies. (Debate).
November 1, 2002... Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in various food supplies have important health impacts, but are not as devastating as malnutrition and, perhaps, obesity. POPs should be controlled and the Stockholm Convention is having an accelerating...

Organochlorine residues pose surprisingly high dietary risks. (Debate).
November 1, 2002... All US government pesticide residue datasets show that persistent organochlorine (OC) insecticide residues are surprisingly common in certain foods despite being off the market for over 20 years. Residues of dieldrin, in particular, pose...

Persistent organic pollutants: potential health effects? (Debate).
November 1, 2002... It is not a point of debate that the Stockholm Convention for the prevention of further accumulation of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) should be ratified and implemented by all countries. However, in their article, Schafer and Kegley...

Low levels of persistent organic pollutants raise concerns for future generations. (Debate).
November 1, 2002... Bans and regulation in many countries have reduced the environmental levels of many persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Despite these declines, there is still evidence of exposures in a range associated with adverse health effects. This...

Food contamination with polychlorinated biphenyls and dioxins in Belgium. Effects on the body burden. (Debate).
November 1, 2002... The core paper of this debate shows that persistent organic pollutant residues of the 12 chemicals targeted for a phase out under the Stockholm Convention are present in almost all categories of food in the US food supply. For dioxins, the...

Persistent organic pollutants in food: public health implications. (Debate).
November 1, 2002... Persistent organic pollutants are a heterogeneous group of chemicals sharing a number a common properties, including long term persistence and diffusion in the environment, and bioaccumulation through the food chain. Animal experiments and...

Persistent toxic chemicals: more than Stockholm persistent organic pollutants. (Debate).
November 1, 2002... Schafer and Kegley bring up the important issue of excessive chemicals exposure of children. However, they do not consider in depth the "cumulative and simultaneous exposures faced by children, (...) moving beyond the chemical-by-chemical...

Health services and the public health. (Lecture of the Month).(Transcript)
November 1, 2002... The 16th Duncan Memorial Lecture. Given at Henry Cohen lecture theatre, Duncan Building, Daulby Street, Liverpool, UK on Wednesday 25 November 1998 by Professor Sir Liam J Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer for England. Many modern public...

Developing a National Service Framework for older people. (Public Health Policy and Practice).
November 1, 2002... National Service Frameworks are one of the "big ideas" in healthcare policy in England. They are designed to improve the quality of health care by setting standards of care including structures, processes, and intended outcomes for key...

Measuring the health burden of chronic disease and injury using health adjusted life expectancy and the Health Utilities Index. (Theory and Methods).
November 1, 2002... Objectives: To estimate the burden of illness from chronic disease and injury using a population based health survey, which contains both measures of chronic disease and a utility based health related quality of life (HRQOL) measure. ...

Lifetime socioeconomic position in relation to onset of perimenopause. (Research Report).
November 1, 2002... Study objective: To assess the association between lifetime socioeconomic position and onset of perimenopause. Design: Prospective cohort study. Setting: Boston, Massachusetts. Participants: 603 premenopausal women aged 36-45 years...

Parents' labour market participation as a predictor of children's health and wellbeing: a comparative study in five Nordic countries. (Research Report).
November 1, 2002... Objective: To study the association between parents' labour market participation and children's health and wellbeing. Design: Parent reported data on health and wellbeing among their children from the survey Health and welfare among...

Trends in coronary mortality and community services, associated with occupational structure in New York State, 1980-96. (Research Report).
November 1, 2002... Study objective: Examine the association between county occupational structure, services availability, prevalence of risk factors, and coronary mortality rates by sex, for 1980-96, in New York state. Design: New York's 62 counties were...

Descriptive epidemiology of body mass index of an urban adult population in western India. (Research Report).
November 1, 2002... Study objective: To describe height, weight, and body mass index (BMI) of the adult urban population in Mumbai, western India and to estimate the prevalence and severity of thinness and overweight in this population. To describe the association...