The Tikabali tale

The current infant mortality rate (IMR) in India is 80 per 1000 live births. The rate is Orissa, India, however, is 126/1000. Tikabali is a poor, rural block in Phulbani district, Orissa, of 44,000 people living in 144 villages. Research conducted jointly by the Family Planning Foundation of New Delhi and the International Development Research Center, Canada, found the high rate of infant mortality to be caused by the following factors in order of descending importance: maternal malnutrition, morbidity during pregnancy, low birth weight babies, labor complications, the poor health of one child, inadequate supplementary feeding, lack of immunization, unsafe drinking water, poor housing, and low income. Efforts began in 1992 to strengthen the delivery of primary health care service, especially the delivery of maternal-child health care and family planning counseling, and to motivate people to undertake agro-based income generation schemes. 44 trained, full-time Village Mobilizers (VM) are currently working in teams of one male and one female each with an average population of 1000 each to realize these objectives. The VM are from the local villages. A cooperative rapport has successfully been created with village residents who are genuinely interested in the work of the VM. Villagers now realize that a high rate of infant mortality is not only a health problem, but is related to the socioeconomic and educational background of a community. Little progress, however, has been made in increasing the level of women's literacy. Female literacy in the block is as low as 4% and general literacy is as low as 16%. The work of the VM continues.     

另一种可能

建筑就是建筑,是人们用土、石、木、钢、玻璃等一切可以利用的材料,建造的构筑物. 建筑又不仅仅是建筑,建筑是一种力量,一种可以改变社会、经济、文化的力量. 因此,在讨论建筑时,我们同样需要超越建筑学的范畴,探讨其过程及结果. 在传统建筑学被不断深掘的今天,跨界似乎成为建筑学的基本指向.前卫和实验性视觉作品不断出现,各领域间相互交织所形成的复杂性与多元性,以及各领域间的互补、协同作用,为建筑师提供了更多思考的契机,带来更多的机遇与挑战.跨界,是当代建筑学的发展之道.     

The tale of a consortium

Most articles about health service management report successes, but accounts of failure can be no less instructive. Paul Walker describes the failure of a consortium to develop a computer system for the administration of A&E departments and draws some general lessons.     

A tale of two diesels

Two different samples of diesel exhaust particles (DEP) have been used by toxicologists interested primarily in cancer/genotoxicity or noncancer--such as pulmonary inflammation and asthma exacerbation--health end points. These are, respectively, a standard reference material, SRM 2975, from a heavy-duty diesel engine, and a sample collected by researchers at the Japanese National Institute for Environmental Studies from an automobile diesel engine. In this issue of Environmental Health Perspectives companion papers appear, by David DeMarini and co-workers and by Pramila Singh and co-workers, characterizing these samples and contrasting their Salmonella mutagenicity and pulmonary toxicity in mice. This commentary is a plea from an atmospheric chemist for more cooperation among toxicologists, analytical chemists, atmospheric chemists, and automotive and combustion engineers to provide a comprehensive assessment of health risks to humans exposed to contemporary diesel emissions and for greater quantities and more diverse types of DEP and ambient samples (i.e., SRMs) that can be shared and exhaustively characterized. This needs to be a continuing process as diesel engines, fuels, and exhaust components evolve in response to control regulations.