INTRODUCTION The Leadership Opportunities with Communities, the Underserved, and Special populations (LOCUS) program at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health is a longitudinal, extracurricular experience for medical students who wish to develop leadership skills and expand their involvement in community health activities during medical school. The program consists of ...

BACKGROUND Successful models of nursing and midwifery in the community delivering healthcare throughout the lifespan and across a health and illness continuum are limited, yet necessary to guide global health services. Primary and community health services are the typical points of access for most people and the location where most care is delivered. The scope of primary healthcare is complex a...

This article is concerned with the methodological issues of assessing the effects of casemix funding on hospital utilisation. Time-series analysis and intervention analysis are proposed to ascertain the effects. It was found there had been a decline in average length of stay and number of bed-days, an increase in weighted separations for teaching and non-teaching hospitals, and no apparent incr...

The aim of this study was to explore the ethical challenges in home mechanical ventilation based on a secondary analysis of qualitative empirical data. The data included perceptions of healthcare professionals in hospitals and community health services and family members of children and adults using home mechanical ventilation. The findings show that a number of ethical challenges, or dilemmas,...

Poor people with disabilities who live in poor rural societies experience unique problems in accessing health services. Their situation is influenced by multiple factors which unfold and interplay throughout the person's life course. The difficulties do not only affect the person with a disability and his or her family, but also impact on the relevant care unit. The barriers are rooted in a lif...

Background To explore possible associations between the level of engagement, the strategies workers use to encourage treatment compliance, the therapeutic relationship, perceived coercion and outcomes in a cohort of 'difficult-to-engage' clients receiving either Community Mental Health Team (CMHT) support or Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) support in Northern Ireland. This study also aimed ...

OBJECTIVE Drawing on the experience of conducting the Brain Injury Incidence and Outcomes New Zealand in the Community study, this article aims to identify the issues arising from the implementation of proposed guidelines for population-based studies of incidence and outcomes in traumatic brain injury (TBI). STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING All new cases of TBI (all ages and severities) were ascertai...

BACKGROUND As a developing country with the world's largest population in a state of economic transition, reforms to China's health system, including community health services (CHS), are very complex and difficult. The aim of this study is to provide evidence and policy recommendations for the sustainable development of CHS for China, which could also be applicable to other developing countries...

BACKGROUND A shortage of community health professionals has been a crucial issue hindering the development of CHS. Various methods have been established to calculate health workforce requirements. This study aimed to use an economic-research-based approach to calculate the number of community health professionals required to provide community health services in the Xicheng District of Beijing a...

OBJECTIVE Our objective was to compare access to and satisfaction with school and community health resources among families with a child with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and families of other children with special health care needs (CSHCN). METHODS Parents of 40,256 children aged 0 to 17 were surveyed by the 2005-2006 National Survey of Children With Special Health Care Needs. Autism wa...