Implementing Public Health Modules as an Approach to Improve Knowledge and Attitudes of Medical Students: A Student-Led, Multiyear Study.

Purpose: Public health is a necessary focus of modern medical education. However, while numerous studies demonstrate benefits of public health education during medical school among self-selected students (i.e.

The HIV Workforce in New York State: Does Patient Volume Correlate with Quality?

Background: Knowledge of care practices among clinicians who annually treat <20 human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive patients with antiretroviral therapy (ART) is insufficient, despite their number, which is likely to increase given shifting healthcare policies. We analyze the practices, distribution and quality of care provided by low-volume prescribers (LVPs) based on available data sources in New York State.

Methods: We communicated with 1278 (66%) of the LVPs identified through a statewide claims database to determine the circumstances under which they prescribed ART in federal fiscal year 2009.

Strengthening Nepal's Female Community Health Volunteer network: a qualitative study of experiences at two years.

Background: Nepal's Female Community Health Volunteer (FCHV) program has been described as an exemplary public-sector community health worker program. However, despite its merits, the program still struggles to provide high-quality, accessible services nation-wide. Both in Nepal and globally, best practices for community health worker program implementation are not yet known: there is a dearth of empiric research, and the research that has been done has shown inconsistent results.

Crossing the quality chasm in resource-limited settings.

Over the last decade, extensive scientific and policy innovations have begun to reduce the "quality chasm"--the gulf between best practices and actual implementation that exists in resource-rich medical settings. While limited data exist, this chasm is likely to be equally acute and deadly in resource-limited areas. While health systems have begun to be scaled up in impoverished areas, scale-up is just the foundation necessary to deliver effective healthcare to the poor.

Implementing surgical services in a rural, resource-limited setting: a study protocol.

Introduction: There are well-established protocols and procedures for the majority of common surgical diseases, yet surgical services remain largely inaccessible for much of the world's rural poor. Data on the process and outcome of surgical care expansion, however, are very limited, and the roll-out process of rural surgical implementation in particular has never been studied. Here, we propose the first implementation research study to assess the surgical scale-up process in the rural district of Achham, Nepal.

Implementing a systems-oriented morbidity and mortality conference in remote rural Nepal for quality improvement.

Problem: In hospitals in rural, resource-limited settings, there is an acute need for simple, practical strategies to improve healthcare quality.

Setting: A district hospital in remote western Nepal.

Key Measures For Improvement: To provide a mechanism for systems-level reflection so that staff can identify targets for quality improvement in healthcare delivery.

Social marketing self-esteem: a socio-medical approach to high-risk and skin tone alteration activities.

This paper proposes social marketing as a tool to build individual self-esteem and thus prevent the uptake of activities that pose risk to health. Evidence supporting this approach can be drawn from pioneer social marketing campaigns of the last 30 years that successfully addressed the prevention, treatment and stigmatization of skin cancer and leprosy with a fraction of the communication and media tools available today. Focusing primarily on the practices of skin tanning and lightening, this paper builds on studies that validate the ties between self-esteem and behavior, and addresses popular conceptions of skin color as drivers for individual behavior.