This report reviews some of the extensive literature in health literacy, much of it focused on the intersection of low literacy and the understanding of basic health care information. Several articles describe methods for assessing health literacy as well as methods for assessing the readability of texts, although generally these latter have not been developed with health materials in mind. Oth...

Critical illness is hypothesized to associate with loss of "health-promoting" commensal microbes and overgrowth of pathogenic bacteria (dysbiosis). This dysbiosis is believed to increase susceptibility to nosocomial infections, sepsis, and organ failure. A trial with prospective monitoring of the intensive care unit (ICU) patient microbiome using culture-independent techniques to confirm and ch...

In previous articles I have set out the challenges of providing healthcare in prisons and have examined the problems in British prisons of elderly prisoners, women prisoners, and prisoners with mental disorders. In this final article of the series I highlight how prison contributes to the treatment of people who are “hard to reach.” Many British prisoners come from the most economically deprive...

The Commission on the Social Determinants of Health brought the reduction of avoidable health inequalities between social groups to the centre of the political stage. Its three key recommendations—to improve daily living conditions; to tackle the inequitable distribution of power, money, and resources; and to measure and understand the problem—have been widely welcomed. As the commission itself...

The authors describe an approach to primary prevention in which indirect services are redefined to include community services aimed at promoting mental health and preventing emotional and mental disorders. At the Peninsula Hospital Community Mental Health Center such services are family-focused and include consultation, education, collaboration with other agencies, and early intervention with c...

America’s hospitals and health systems are making a significant commitment to improving health care quality and innovation. Hospitals and health systems have demonstrated notable progress in recent years in quality improvement and transformation. As evident in numerous local and national efforts, health care outcomes across the six Institute of Medicine aims (care that is safe, timely, effectiv...

BACKGROUND Hospitals are the central entity of each health care system and Health Promoting Hospitals (HPH) was launched by WHO in 1988. However, there has not been any accurate and detailed model for establishing a HPH in Iran up to now. Therefore, this study aimed to determine factors affecting the establishment of a health promoting hospital in Iran using factor analysis method. METHODS Th...