BACKGROUND One in four children in England is overweight/obese upon starting school. HENRY (Health Exercise Nutrition for the Really Young) offers a novel, preventive approach to this problem by training practitioners to work more effectively with the parents of preschool children around obesity and lifestyle issues. The programme is being delivered to all Sure Start Children's Centres (the UK ...

Much progress has been made in the provision of palliative care across sub-Saharan Africa, however much still remains to be done, particularly in the area of children's palliative care (CPC). The Beacon Centres programme was set up in 2009, aimed at improving access to CPC in South Africa, Uganda and Tanzania through more and better-trained health professionals and CPC clinical services of a hi...

The Renal Section of the European Union of Medical Specialists is working towards harmonization and optimization of nephrology training across Europe and its Mediterranean borders. In addition to the need for harmonization of the heterogeneous time dedicated to training, it is necessary to ensure that the learning environment is of a sufficiently high standard to develop skilled specialists. Th...

OBJECTIVES As part of the I SEE (Interactive Simulation Exercise for Emergencies) project, financially supported by the Leonardo da Vinci Programme 2000-2006 of the European Commission, a study was planned to assess the type of disaster and to establish the tasks to be included in an emergency exercise to be developed, according to the possible target groups, physicians, nurses, ambulance perso...

BACKGROUND In Latin America radiotherapy quality varies significantly among hospitals, where highly equipped academic centers coexist with others not meeting minimal requirements. In 2007, the International Atomic Energy Agency published guidelines for auditing radiotherapy centers, known as the "Quality Assurance Team for Radiation Oncology" (QUATRO) audits. The present report summarizes a pil...

The relations between 24 hour urinary electrolyte excretion and blood pressure were studied in 10,079 men and women aged 20-59 sampled from 52 centres around the world based on a highly standardised protocol with central training of observers, a central laboratory, and extensive quality control. Relations between electrolyte excretion and blood pressure were studied in individual subjects withi...

BACKGROUND Tanzania, like other African countries, faces significant health workforce shortages. With advisory and partnership from Columbia University, the Ifakara Health Institute and the Tanzanian Training Centre for International Health (TTCIH) developed and implemented the Connect Project as a randomized cluster experimental trial of the childhood survival impact of recruiting, training, a...

Background The author serves in a resource limited and logistically challenging rural district hospital in the state of Sarawak, Malaysia. Transfer of patients requiring higher level of care to our nearest referral centre can only be done with 3 hours of boat ride or 1 hour by helicopter. Subspecialty centres, like our cardiac centres, are located even further away and can only be reached direc...

In the aftermath of the war in Bosnia Herzegovina, a task group of Swedish experts organised and supported training of community psychiatry and social work as part of the mental health reform. Among the basic principles of the programme were a close cooperation with the Ministry of Health, personal continuity, exchange of knowledge and long term engagement. With the support of the programme, co...