OBJECTIVES This study was conducted in order to determine any correlation between experience of harmful shops and adolescent smoking and alcohol drinking in middle and high school students. METHODS The survey was conducted using a self-administered questionnaire online via the homepage of the Ministry of Education student Health Information Center; 1888 and 1563 questionnaires were used for m...

Biologists have been using the internet as a forum for informal discussion — in the form of newgroups — for more than a decade. If you’re looking for the answer to a specific question, or simply want to float an idea with a group of like-minded people, there’s bound to be somewhere on the web you can do it. The challenge is to find the useful discussions among the ‘spam’. Two elements that cont...

the objective of this study was to evaluate the presence of perchloroethylene (pce) and trichloroethylene (tce) in dry cleaning shops in tehran, iran. pce and tce are two most prevalent solvents in dry-leaning shops. air and effluent samples were collected in october to december 2011 from 10 dry-cleaning shops. analyses were performed by head-space gas chromatography technique. gas chromatograp...

BACKGROUND Throughout Africa, many people seek care for malaria in private-sector drug shops where diagnostic testing is often unavailable. Recently, subsidized artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs), a first-line medication for uncomplicated malaria, were made available in these drug shops in Tanzania. This study assessed the prevalence of malaria among and purchase of ACTs by drug sho...

BACKGROUND Takeaway food has a relatively poor nutritional profile. Providing takeaway outlets with reduced-holed salt shakers is one method thought to reduce salt use in takeaways, but effects have not been formally tested. We aimed to determine if there was a difference in sodium content of standard fish and chip meals served by Fish & Chip Shops that use standard (17 holes) versus reduced-ho...

BACKGROUND Little is known about the extent of human isocyanate skin exposure in auto body shops and the effectiveness of personal protective equipment. Animal studies have suggested that skin exposure to isocyanates may be an important risk factor for respiratory sensitization leading to asthma. This study provides initial data on hexamethylene diisocyanate skin exposure in three auto body sho...

Tobacco shops, medical marijuana dispensaries (MMD), and off-sale alcohol outlets are legal and prevalent in South Los Angeles, California-a high-crime, low-income urban community of color. This research is the first to explore the geographic associations between these three legal drug outlets with surrounding crime and violence in a large low-income urban community of color. First, spatial buf...

The objectives of this study were to determine the major components in tea leaves and tea extracts and to study the relationship between chemical content and antimutagenic activity of various tea extracts. The amount of catechins in various tea extracts was in the order: green tea (26.7%) > oolong tea (23.2%) > pouchong tea (15.8%) > black tea (4.3%). The amounts of caffeine and phenolic compou...

In Uganda, around two thirds of medicines are procured from the private sector, mostly from drug shops. The introduction of malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) at drug shops therefore has the potential to make a significant contribution to targeting antimalarial drugs to those with malaria parasites. We undertook formative research in a district in Uganda in preparation for a randomised trial...