Why a landscape view is important: nearby urban and agricultural land affects bird abundances in protected areas.

Protected areas are one of the primary conservation tools used worldwide. However, they are often embedded in a landscape that is intensely used by people, such as for agriculture or urban development. The proximity of these land-use types to protected areas can potentially affect the ecological effectiveness (or conservation effectiveness) of protected areas.

Effectiveness of protected areas for bird conservation depends on guild.

Aim: Protected areas are key conservation tools intended to increase biodiversity and reduce extinction risks of species and populations. However, the degree to which protected areas achieve their conservation goals is generally unknown for many protected areas worldwide. We assess the effect of protected areas on the abundance of 196 common, resident bird species.

National observational study to evaluate the "cleanyourhands" campaign (NOSEC): a questionnaire based study of national implementation.

Introduction: The number of national hand-hygiene campaigns has increased recently, following the World Health Organisation's (WHO) "Save Lives: clean your hands" initiative (2009), which offers hospitals a multi-component hand-hygiene intervention. The number of campaigns to be evaluated remains small. Most evaluations focus on consumption of alcohol hand rub (AHR).

The Feedback Intervention Trial (FIT)--improving hand-hygiene compliance in UK healthcare workers: a stepped wedge cluster randomised controlled trial.

Introduction: Achieving a sustained improvement in hand-hygiene compliance is the WHO's first global patient safety challenge. There is no RCT evidence showing how to do this. Systematic reviews suggest feedback is most effective and call for long term well designed RCTs, applying behavioural theory to intervention design to optimise effectiveness.

Evaluation of the national Cleanyourhands campaign to reduce Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia and Clostridium difficile infection in hospitals in England and Wales by improved hand hygiene: four year, prospective, ecological, interrupted time series study.

Objective: To evaluate the impact of the Cleanyourhands campaign on rates of hospital procurement of alcohol hand rub and soap, report trends in selected healthcare associated infections, and investigate the association between infections and procurement.

Design: Prospective, ecological, interrupted time series study from 1 July 2004 to 30 June 2008.

Setting: 187 acute trusts in England and Wales.