Of particular interest in this eBulletin from the World Health
Organization is an editorial on the Bangkok Charter for health promotion
and how it addresses the determinants of health. Also see the Perspectives
article on Health Equity, plus many more.

Alison Stirling

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------

With this e-mail you are receiving the table of contents of the latest
issue of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization which has just been
published on our website at http://www.who.int/bulletin/en/.

We are pleased to announce the availability of HTML abstracts in Arabic,
in addition to the English, French and Spanish versions currently on the
Bulletin's web site.

To go to the December table of contents, click on the following link:
http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/12/en/ or access the articles
directly from the links provided below

Summaries of a selection of articles from this month's issue:

 Translating evidence into practice

In the first editorial, Kamran Siddiqi & James N. Newell (p. 882)
<http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/12/882.pdf>  argue that
translating evidence-based policy into practice is vital for delivering
health care to people in poor settings, as demonstrated in papers from
Mali (pp. 935-941) <http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/12/935.pdf> 
and Cameroon (pp. 895-903)
<http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/12/895.pdf> .

In another editorial, Kwok-Cho Tang et al. (p. 884)
<http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/12/884.pdf>  review the importance
of the Bangkok Charter on Health Promotion, which was adopted at a
conference in August 2005 by 700 participants from 100 countries.


Drop in life expectancy is neglected

In another editorial (p. 883)
<http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/12/883.pdf> , Martin McKee argues
that the drop in life expectancy in countries of the former Soviet Union
and eastern Europe has received "remarkably little notice" from the
international community compared with sub-Saharan African countries. McKee
cites the article by Marc Suhrke et al. (pp. 920-927)
<http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/12/920.pdf> , concluding that
general development assistance to the countries in central and eastern
Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States is not lower than to
other recipient countries, but that health-specific development assistance
to those countries is lower.



Chronic diseases, bird flu, earthquake injuries and the tsunami (pp.
885-894) <http://www.who.int/bulletin/current/news/en/index.html>

In the News, Jacqui Wise reports from Cape Town on global efforts to make
medicines for chronic diseases more accessible to people in developing
countries. Jane Parry reports from Hong Kong SAR on the need to help Asian
countries contain avian flu outbreaks. Khabir Ahmad reports from Mansehra,
Pakistan, on the crush injuries suffered by people in the 8 October
earthquake. In this month's interview, the Regional Director of WHO's
South-East Asia Office, Samlee Plianbangchang, talks about the lessons
learned a year after the Asian tsunami.


Skin disease in developing countries

Also in the News, Sharon Kingman reports (p. 891-892)
<http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/12/news41205/en/index.html>  on
efforts to train health workers to improve diagnosis and treatment of skin
conditions in developing countries because important diseases, such as
HIV/AIDS, leprosy and onchocerciasis, often appear first as skin problems.
In their contribution to Lessons from the Field, Antoine Mahé et al. (pp.
935-941) <http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/12/935.pdf>  describe how
they evaluated the effect of a training programme for health-care workers
in Mali on managing common skin diseases, an often neglected part of
primary health care in developing countries. They found that training
improved the basic dermatological abilities of those health-care workers.


Reproductive health in Cameroon (pp. 895-903)
<http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/12/895.pdf>

In their article, Alan T. N. Tita et al. found that only a small
proportion of the health-care workers they studied in Cameroon keep
abreast of the latest evidence-based maternal and child health-care
interventions, that are recommended by WHO, and therefore did not apply
these in their work. The main reason for this state of affairs was
inadequate education and training.



Trachoma in Sudan; mapping trachoma globally

Following prevalence surveys to determine targets for implementation of
trachoma control programme in Sudan, Jeremiah Ngondi et al. (pp. 904-912)
<http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/12/904.pdf>  investigated how
serious a public health problem trachoma is in southern Sudan. They
concluded that there is an urgent need to implement trachoma control
interventions in endemic parts of southern Sudan. Sarah Polack et al. (pp.
913-919) <http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/12/913.pdf>  collated all
available data on the prevalence of active trachoma in children and of
trichiasis in adults and displayed these data on maps. They concluded that
this approach can be used by public health authorities to identify areas
where data are missing and monitor progress towards the goal of
eliminating the disease by 2020.


Surveillance for chemical incidents (pp. 928-934)
<http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/12/928.pdf>

Countries are becoming increasingly concerned about the effect of acute
chemical incidents on public health. In their paper, Babatunde Olowokure
et al. argue that despite these concerns, the frequency, type and
consequences of chemical incidents that may have potential international
public health implications have not been documented. The authors propose
that countries use a global alert and surveillance system developed by WHO
for early detection of chemical incidents.


Exploiting vector control to the full (pp. 942-947)
<http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/12/942.pdf>

In their policy and practice article, H. Townson et al. argue that
vector-borne diseases account for 17% of the global burden of disease, yet
vector control - such as the use of pesticides - is not being exploited to
its full potential in many countries. The authors call for the restoration
of vector control as a key means of fighting disease, with an increased
emphasis on multiple measures and strengthened managerial and operational
capacity.



Closing gaps in health equity (pp. 948-953)
<http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/12/948.pdf>

Piroska Östlin et al. from the WHO Taskforce on Research Priorities for
Equity in Health and the WHO Equity Team argue that health inequities can
be reduced through research investment into five areas: global factors and
processes affecting health equity; social and political factors that
affect people's chances of being healthy; factors that increase or
decrease the likelihood of achieving and maintaining good health;
healthcare system factors; and identifying policy interventions that can
reduce inequities.

 [snip]

INDEXES
Subject and author index for 2005
Subject Index [pdf 88kb]
<http://webitpreview.who.int/entity/bulletin/volumes/83/12/958.pdf>  |
Author Index [pdf 52kb]
<http://webitpreview.who.int/entity/bulletin/volumes/83/12/966.pdf>





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