Challenging the world: patient safety and health care-associated infection.

Improving the safety of patient care is an issue which affects health systems in both developed and developing countries. To co-ordinate and accelerate improvements in patient safety, the World Health Organization (WHO) has supported the creation of the World Alliance for Patient Safety which was launched in October 2004. The six action areas of the Alliance are Patients for Patient Safety, Taxonomy, Research, Solutions for Patient Safety, Reporting and Learning, and a biennial Global Patient Safety Challenge. The first Challenge covering 2005-2006 was launched in October 2005 under the banner 'Clean Care is Safer Care'. The Challenge addresses health care-associated infection, a major, patient safety problem affecting hundreds of millions of people worldwide.     

示范区创建活动与社区卫生服务长效机制的建立和可持续发展对策的思考

通过第三方评估全国社区卫生服务示范区是我国社区卫生服务发展史上的一大创举。此项活动的开展,极大的提高了各地政府对发展社区卫生服务的思想认识、政策理解和经费投入力度。通过创建和评估活动,系统总结了各申报地区社区卫生服务的经验和特色,分析了存在的问题和不足,提出了发展社区卫生服务的对策和建议,制定了社区卫生服务可持续发展的长效机制,取得了预期效果,达到了预期目的。随着《国务院关于发展城市社区卫生服务的指导意见》的出台,示范区的典型示范效应会日益凸显出来,对我国社区卫生服务的发展将起到不可估量的作用。     

老年人健康行为与心理健康关系的调查

目的探讨老年人的健康行为与心理健康之间的关系。方法采用候玉波等编制的健康行为量表和症状自评量表（SCL-90）对300名老年人进行测试,并进行相关分析。结果不同年龄和文化程度老年人在健康行为与心理健康方面有显著性差异（P〈0.05）;参与活动与心理健康水平呈显著正相关（P〈0.05）;心理应激、不良生活习惯与心理健康呈显著负相关（P〈0.05）。结论积极参与各项活动、减少各种心理应激和建立良好的生活习惯有利于提高老年人的心理健康水平。     

Relationships between health and culture in Polynesia – A review

This review of journal articles and book chapters discusses the health beliefs characteristic of Polynesia and reveals several themes. These are: commonality in health conceptualisations across the cultures of the region which differ from the conceptualisations of biomedicine; the role of the relational self, traditional living and communalism in understanding health; the place of spirituality and religion in health and illness causation; and pluralism and pragmatism in health-seeking behaviour. Suggestions are made as to how awareness of key ideas might contribute to effective planning of health promotion and intervention activities.     

健康教育对蓝光照射治疗中患儿家长的作用

对蓝光照射治疗黄疸患儿家属实施健康教育的工作实践，证实了采用正确的教育方法，选择适宜的教育时期，提高了家属对黄疸患儿蓝光照射治疗意义的认识，促进护患家属间的交流，获得患儿及家属最大程度的配合与支持，有效地预防新生儿核黄疸的发生。     

标准化个人健康档案内容研究

目的研究标准化个人健康档案的内容及其标准化指标体系。方法综合采用定性方法和定量方法。结果将个人生命周期分为九个阶段，依据不同阶段的主要健康问题、相关危险因素和主要健康事件设计出完整的健康档案内容及指标体系，并确定标准值域。结论标准化健康档案的内容能够满足按照生命周期进行健康管理的要求。同时也还需要实践的进一步检验和调整。     

Developing policy in the provision of parenting programmes: integrating a review of reviews with the perspectives of both parents and professionals

Background   Parenting programmes are a key component of the delivery of children's services, but evidence-based policy has often proved difficult to implement.
Methods   The present review addressed this issue by integrating a review of systematic reviews of parenting programmes and a series of focus groups with parents and professionals involved in parenting across three agencies in a regional area (health, education and social work). The review summarizes parenting interventions targeting infant mental health, emotional and behavioural difficulties, autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, abuse/neglect, alcohol/substance abuse and 'vulnerable' parents. The focus groups discussed topics such as the range of parenting services across the three agencies, accessibility, gaps in the service and future directions.
Results and conclusions   Twenty systematic reviews were summarized. These reviews demonstrated that there is a wide range of parenting programmes available that have the potential to benefit families who are affected by problems ranging from emotional and behavioural difficulties to adolescent substance abuse. However, the findings of the focus groups reveal that the success of these programmes will depend in part on how they can be tailored to meet the social context of the families targeted. These integrated findings are discussed in terms of their implications for policy and practice.     

The costs of atopy and asthma in children: Assessment of direct costs and their determinants in a birth cohort

The aim of this study was to estimate costs accrued by the health care of children with asthma in comparison to children with atopic eczema and seasonal rhinitis and to investigate cost determinants. From the multicenter cohort study (MAS-90), we selected children with an asthma, atopic eczema and/or seasonal rhinitis diagnosis during the first 8 years of life, and overall 8-year health care utilization was estimated retrospectively by reviewing medical records. Asthma treatment (n = 76) incurs an average cost of US$ 627 per year, 44% due to hospital stays. Atopic eczema treatment (n = 91) cost on average US$ 219 and seasonal rhinitis (n = 69) US$ 57 per year. In asthma and atopic eczema, costs increase significantly with disease severity. Allergy diagnostics use accounts for only 1% of total costs. Costs for asthma and atopic eczema treatment are highest in those years when topical steroids are used for the first time, but decrease with every further year of steroid use. A remarkable 25% of asthmatic children with severe symptoms were not treated according to national guidelines, so that most steroid treatment was initiated during the first hospital stay. In the case of asthma, total direct costs increased until the 3rd year of the disease, and then decreased with further years of diagnosis, while steroid use continued to increase. These results indicate a 'learning effect' in the treatment of asthma and atopic eczema for each patient as well as considerable cost-saving potential by preventing severe asthma. Moreover, the importance of considering cost-driving factors and using cohort or longitudinal designs in cost-of-illness approaches is emphasized.     

Is Health Inequality Across Individuals of Moral Concern?

The history of the documentation of health inequality is long. The way in which health inequality has customarily been documented is by comparing differences in the average health across groups, for example, by sex or gender, income, education, occupation, or geographic region. In the controversial World Health Report 2000, researchers at the World Health Organization criticized this traditional practice and proposed to measure health inequality across individuals irrespective of individuals’ group affiliation. They defended its proposal on the moral grounds without clear explanation. In this paper I ask: is health inequality across individuals of moral concern, and, if so, why? Clarification of these questions is crucial for meaningful interpretation of health inequality measured across individuals. Only if there was something morally problematic in health inequality across individuals, its reduction would be good news. Specifically, in this paper I provide three arguments for the moral significance of health inequality across individuals: (a) health is special, (b) health equity plays an important and unique role in the general pursuit of justice, and (c) health inequality is an indicator of general injustice in society. I then discuss three key questions to examine the validity of these arguments: (i) how special is health?, (ii) how good is health as an indicator?, and (iii) what do we mean by injustice? I conclude that health inequality across individuals is of moral interest with the arguments (b) and (c).