The gaits of marsupials and the evolution of diagonal-sequence walking in primates.

Objectives: Documenting the variety of quadrupedal walking gaits in a variety of marsupials (arboreal vs. terrestrial, with and without grasping hind feet), to aid in developing and refining a general theory of gait evolution in primates.

Materials And Methods: Video records of koalas, ringtail possums, tree kangaroos, sugar gliders, squirrel gliders, wombats, numbats, quolls, a thylacine, and an opossum walking on a variety of substrates were made and analyzed to derive duty factors and diagonalities for symmetrical walking gaits.

Association of epilepsy and burns - a case control study.

Background: General practitioners play a vital role in reducing risk for people with epilepsy through pharmacological prevention of seizures. Burns are the most common injury sustained during epileptic seizure. This article examines the risk of burns among patients with epilepsy in Victoria.

A six-year descriptive analysis of hospitalisations for ambulatory care sensitive conditions among people born in refugee-source countries.

Background: Hospitalisation for ambulatory care sensitive conditions (ACSHs) has become a recognised tool to measure access to primary care. Timely and effective outpatient care is highly relevant to refugee populations given the past exposure to torture and trauma, and poor access to adequate health care in their countries of origin and during flight. Little is known about ACSHs among resettled refugee populations.

Hospital utilisation among people born in refugee-source countries: an analysis of hospital admissions, Victoria, 1998-2004.

Objective: To investigate whether hospital utilisation and health outcomes in Victoria differ between people born in refugee-source countries and those born in Australia.

Design And Setting: Analysis of a statewide hospital discharge dataset for the 6 financial years from 1 July 1998 to 30 June 2004. Hospital admissions of people born in eight countries for which the majority of entrants to Australia arrived as refugees were included in the analysis.

Avoidable mortality in Victoria between 1979 and 2001.

Objective: To describe trends in avoidable mortality (AM) in Victoria by sex, degree of socio-economic disadvantage and remoteness.

Methods: The analysis is based on mortality and population data for 1979-2001 supplied by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) for Victoria. Total and disease-specific AM rates were age standardised using the direct method.

Effects of increased private health insurance on hospital utilisation in Victoria.

The proportion of Victorians and Australians generally with private health insurance (PHI) increased from 31% in 1998 to 45% in 2001. We analysed a dataset containing all hospital separations throughout Victoria to determine whether changes in the level of private health insurance have had any impact on patterns of public and private hospital utilisation in Victoria. Total utilisation of private hospitals grew by 31% from 1998-99 to 2002-03, whereas utilisation of public hospitals increased by 18%.