Wayne Myers, director of the Office of Rural Health Policy, discusses Appalachian rural health and access to health care. The health manpower shortage in Central Appalachia still exists but is less severe than 10 years ago. The needs of underserved areas could be address by training local people in the community and through telemedicine and…

Suicide rates are higher in rural than in urban areas in the United States. One explanation that is frequently offered is scarcity of health and mental health treatment providers in rural areas. The current study tested whether number of providers per capita would explain differences in urban and rural suicide rates within the counties of…

In 1999 Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) implemented the Overseas Service Veterans (OSV) At Home Pilot Project in response to the problem that a growing number of clients were on waiting lists for beds in long-term care facilities. The At Home pilot offered certain clients on waiting lists, who met nursing-level care and military-service…

To understand the impact of ongoing reform of mental health and dementia care in Ontario, an examination of prevalence and health services utilization rates is needed. However, there exists a gap in current prevalence and health services research specific to dementia care in Ontario. The objective of this study was to address these concerns using…

The Broad Acres clinic is one of 1,500 school-based health centers nationwide that bring a wide range of medical, nutritional, and mental-health care to millions of students and their families. The centers provide an important safety net for children and adolescents--particularly the more than 10 million today who lack health insurance, according…

Given the difficult social and economic situation in Russia, the lives and health of young people are getting increasingly worse, as can be seen from the data of state statistics. In this article, the author investigates the self-preservation aspect of the health of college students. The health of any social-demographic group has two…

The 2007/2008 Parents of Children with Severe Special Needs Survey is conducted to obtain opinions from parents of children with severe special needs to assess their satisfaction with key areas of the education system. A random sample of 816 parents of children with severe special needs completed the survey. Severe special needs descriptions…

A few years ago the public schools made no provision for the education of the blind, crippled, or mentally deficient, but now in New York City alone there are more than 100 classes for mentally peculiar children, while arrangements are rapidly making for the care of crippled and other classes of physically handicapped children. It was only as…

Evaluated the impact of two elementary level school based health centers (SBHCs), located in schools within high-poverty, inner city neighborhoods, on emergency department visits by children enrolled in the SBHC. Overall, SBHCs resulted in significant decreases in non-urgent emergency department visits, but not in urgent visits. Medicaid-insured…

Private, unregulated residential care facilities have become an increasingly important component of the continuum of housing and care for frail older adults in Canada. To date, this growing segment of the older population has received very little research attention. This study involved an in-depth examination of the functional/health profile,…

Although asthma deaths in children are rare, most asthma deaths should be preventable. No information has been identified in the professional literature addressing the occurrence of asthma deaths in schools. This investigation identified asthma deaths that occurred in US schools between 1990 and 2003 and the circumstances surrounding those deaths.…

The use of racial variables in genetic studies has become a matter of intense public debate, with implications for research design and translation into practice. Using research on smoking as a springboard, the authors examine the history of racial categories, current research practices, and arguments for and against using race variables in genetic…

A mental health clinic was developed for toddlers with developmental disabilities and significant behavior problems from families living in poverty. The clinic was a collaborative effort between a community-based Birth-to-Three agency and a university. The purpose of this clinic was threefold: to provide direct mental health services for these…

People with ID represent approximately 2% of the population and, as a group, experience poorer health than the general population. This article presents recent conceptualizations that begin to disentangle health from disability, summarizes the literature from 1999 to 2005 in terms of the cascade of disparities, reviews intervention issues and…

In a study of 630 elderly Hispanic women it was found that four cultural factors associated with assimilation were not strong predictors of preventive health behavior. These findings agree with those of other studies. Stronger predictors for Hispanics are sociodemographic factors and access and availability of health services. (VM)