Maternal violence, victimization, and child physical punishment in Peru.

Objectives: This study examined whether mothers' experience of violence was a risk factor for physical punishment.

Methods: Data were derived from the nationally representative 2000 Peru Demographic and Family Health Survey. Participants were 12,601 currently married women who were living with biological children aged 0-17 years and were responsible for disciplining the children.

Health systems barriers to effective use of infectious disease surveillance data in the context of decentralization in Georgia: a qualitative study.

Objectives: In Georgia, a country where there has been extensive decentralization of public health responsibilities, an intervention was recently piloted to strengthen district-level vaccine-preventable disease (VPD) surveillance and response activities. The purpose of this qualitative research study is to provide an in-depth assessment of the perceived value and need for the analysis and use of VPD surveillance data at various levels of the infectious disease surveillance and response (IDSR) system in Georgia.

Methods: Focus groups were conducted with individuals working at different levels of the IDSR system in intervention districts in order to obtain qualitative data to better understand the process of surveillance and barriers to data availability, analysis, and response.

Health system barriers to strengthening vaccine-preventable disease surveillance and response in the context of decentralization: evidence from Georgia.

Background: A critical challenge in the health sector in developing countries is to ensure the quality and effectiveness of surveillance and public health response in an environment of decentralization. In Georgia, a country where there has been extensive decentralization of public health responsibilities over the last decade, an intervention was recently piloted to strengthen district-level local vaccine-preventable disease surveillance and response activities through improved capacity to analyze and use routinely collected data. The purpose of the study is 1) to assess the effectiveness of the intervention on motivation and perceived capacity to analyze and use information at the district-level, and 2) to assess the role that individual- and system-level factors play in influencing the effectiveness of the intervention.