In the recent past, household hazardous waste has become an issue to more and more communities. In an effort to control the pollution generated within a household, various methods have been set forth in col­ lecting and disposing of these wastes. Unfortunately, all too often the hazardous waste collection days are poorly attended, and the costs become prohibitive when measured against the amoun...

It is estimated that over 60 million Americans (1/3 of the adult population) are functionally or marginally illiterate. To recognize and gain an understanding of illiteracy and its impact on poisoning, we determined if the illiterate in our community could recognize potential poisons. A prospective study involving 29 male and 21 female adult illiterates was undertaken. A personal interview was ...

This technical note introduces the Household Hunger Scale (HHS), a simple, new indicator to assess household hunger in food insecure areas. The HHS consists of three questions and three frequencies that, when administered in a population-based household survey, allows for estimating the percent of households affected by three different severities of household hunger: 1) Little to no household h...

BACKGROUND This article reports on the use of the 'neighborhood method' to measure the prevalence and basic characteristics of children who became separated from their parents or usual caregivers subsequent to an attack by the M23 militia group in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo. METHODS A two-stage household cluster survey was conducted in 522 households in North Kivu in August ...

OBJECTIVE To identify food consumption patterns in the city of S. Paulo, from 1990 to 1996, and compare these patterns with those derived from nutritionally balanced food baskets (FB). METHODS Household budget surveys were verified and the percentage of food expenditures was assessed according to three food groups: semi-elaborated, industrialized and non-processed food (an emphasis was given ...

BACKGROUND Systematic reviews and a network meta-analysis show home safety education with or without the provision of safety equipment is effective in promoting poison prevention behaviours in households with children. This paper compares the cost-effectiveness of home safety interventions to promote poison prevention practices. METHODS A probabilistic decision-analytic model simulates health...

BACKGROUND An earlier randomized, controlled trial showed that weekly or as-needed (as opposed to daily) changes of in-line suction catheters were associated with substantial cost savings, without a higher rate of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). To examine the impact of decreasing the frequency of in-line suction catheter changes in our medical intensive care unit, we conducted an observ...