PURPOSE To validate a survey research measure of subjective income, as measured by perceived income adequacy, in an international context. DESIGN AND METHODS The study population comprised persons aged 50 years and older in 12 countries from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (n = 28,939). Perceived difficulty in making ends meet was regressed on sociodemographic variables,...

Levels and causes of mortality in mothers and babies are intrinsically linked, occurring at the same time and often to the same mother-baby dyad, although mortality rates are substantially higher in babies. Measuring levels, trends and causes of maternal, neonatal and foetal mortality are important for understanding priority areas for interventions and tracking the success of interventions at t...

AIM The aims of The Danish National Registry for Biological Therapy in Inflammatory Bowel Disease are to ensure that biological therapy and the clinical management of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) receiving biological treatment are in accordance with the national clinical guidelines and, second, the database allows register-based clinical epidemiological research. STUDY POPUL...

Input of contaminants is an important pressure in most urbanized coastal areas, but establishing appropriate indicators of their presence and effects has been challenging. Such indicators would, at the very least, have to integrate chemical and biological data. One difficulty has arisen because the measurements provide information on different levels of biological organization (gene level up to...

1. Traditionally the assessment of river water quality has been based solely on the measurement of physical, chemical and some biological characteristics. While these measurements may be efficient for regulating effluent discharges and protecting humans, they are not very useful for large-scale management of catchments or for assessing whether river ecosystems are being protected. 2. Measuremen...

The study of two biological indicators in monitoring "flash" sterilization demonstrated that indicator construction often leads to a false interpretation of spore survival.

OBJECTIVE To position the concept of sustainability within the context of food security. DESIGN An overview of the interrelationships between food security and sustainability based on a non-systematic literature review and informed discussions based principally on a quasi-historical approach from meetings and reports. SETTING International and global food security and nutrition. RESULTS T...

OBJECTIVE To investigate inequalities in personal health conditions and in the utilization of healthcare services according in relation to the individual's status in the labor market. METHODS This study was based on 39,925 males aged 15 to 64 years living in 10 Brazilian metropolitan regions, who took part in the 1998 National Household Survey. They were classified as formal labor, informal l...

BACKGROUND Recently, quality is a serious concern in development of organizations. There are various indicators to assess quality and the purpose of this study was to identify the main indicators for quality measurement of Iranian health centers. METHODS This qualitative study was conducted in three stages: first, review of the literature was performed to identify different indicators for qua...