Improving public health by tackling climate change.

Across the world, climate change is now responsible for substantial mortality and morbidity, through direct effects on health and also by threatening the determinants of health. This commentary argues that adaptation policies to enhance resilience to adverse climate events are important, but must be coupled with determined action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The prize is synergy: many such policies, for example concerning food, travel and community engagement, can simultaneously improve physical and mental health.

Anger Management groups for adolescents: a mixed-methods study of efficacy and treatment preferences.

We compared the efficacy of, and adolescents' preferences for, a Cognitive Behavioural (CBT) and Personal Development (PD) Anger Management (AM) group. The CBT group aimed to help adolescents develop skills to manage predominantly reactive aggression. The PD group aimed to enhance motivation to develop less aggressive identities with less use of proactive aggression.

The integration of health promotion and social marketing.

The urgency and scale of contemporary health challenges are enormous. The review It's Our Health! published in 2006 found that social marketing had considerable potential to increase the effectiveness of health improvement work, with the intention that it should build on core health promotion principles and not replace them. Health promotion has, however, lost its focus and identity in recent years in some parts of the country, partly due to repeated organizational change, and it has suffered from a lack of proactive workforce development.

Perspectives on health promotion competencies and accreditation in Europe.

There is a growing and diverse health promotion workforce in Europe; however, no overall body has responsibility for quality assuring standards of training and professional practice at the European level. This paper provides an overview of recent developments in Europe, including initiatives led by the International Union for Health Promotion and Education, in the context of developing a pan-European accreditation system. Specific developments on establishing national-level accreditation processes in the UK, Estonia and The Netherlands are examined.

The RSPH Health Promotion and Community Well-Being Organization and Partnership Awards.

The Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) has launched the Health Promotion and Community Well-Being Organization and Partnership Awards, in collaboration with the Faculty of Public Health, the UK Public Health Register and the Institute of Health Promotion and Education. The Awards demonstrate the new Society's mission of "vision, voice and practice", and will raise the profile of health promotion in the UK and recognize good practice through public and professional acknowledgement. They are linked to a wider programme of advocacy and workforce development led by the RSPH through the Shaping the Future collaboration (see http://www.

Origin and development of the UK Voluntary Register for Public Health Specialists.

This paper describes the milestones, challenges and achievements in establishing the UK Voluntary Register for Public Health Specialists (UKVRPHS), which was launched in 2003. Developments in the UKVRPHS since 2003 are described in the context of the continuing development of the UK multidisciplinary public health workforce as a whole.

Environmental sustainability in the national health service in England.

Health care providers should seek to minimise the environmental damage caused by their activities and to use scarce natural resources wisely. In particular, they should aim to make no contribution to climate change. Well-designed buildings which incorporate nature will contribution to the health of patients, Staff and visitors.

Withdrawal from progesterone increases expression of alpha4, beta1, and delta GABA(A) receptor subunits in neurons in the periaqueductal gray matter in female Wistar rats.

Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) shows comorbidity with other psychiatric conditions such as panic disorder (PD). The symptoms of both conditions are exacerbated during the late luteal phase of the menstrual cycle, when progesterone levels fall sharply. The present study investigated the effect of withdrawal from progesterone (PWD) on expression of alpha4, beta1, and delta GABA(A) receptor subunits in neurons within the panic circuitry of the midbrain periaqueductal gray matter (PAG) in adult female Wistar rats.

Assault of the earth.

The NHS needs more incentives to take sustainable development to heart. Achievements by trusts are largely due to personal commitment, and are not systematic. A centrally backed programme of sustainable development could save money and would benefit staff, patients and visitors.

Centile charts II: alternative nonparametric approach for establishing time-specific reference centiles and assessment of the sample size required.

Background: Reference intervals, and more generally centile estimates, are used to characterize a reference population for the purposes of interpreting an individual patient's clinical measurement. We describe methods of calculating reference intervals where these centiles vary with a covariate, usually age or time.

Methods: The US Food and Drug Administration and the IFCC have made recommendations on two approaches: the parametric approach, which models the structural characteristics of the data set with a theoretical distribution, and the nonparametric approach, which makes no particular assumption about this structure.

Modeling the hepatitis C virus epidemic in France using the temporal pattern of hepatocellular carcinoma deaths.

Deuffic et al. developed a compartmentalized model that characterized the evolution and spread of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) within France. There were various parameters defining the age- and sex-dependent transition probabilities between chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis in need of determination to completely specify their model.