Building safety in humanitarian programmes that support post-disaster shelter self-recovery: an evidence review.

The humanitarian sector is increasingly aware of the role that good quality evidence plays in the underpinning of effective and accountable practice. This review addresses the need for reliable evidence by evaluating current knowledge about the intersection of two key outcome targets of post-disaster shelter response: supporting shelter self-recovery and building back safer. Evidence about post-disaster shelter programmes that aim to improve hazard resistance while supporting shelter self-recovery has been systematically analysed and evaluated.

Deliberate self-harm in rural and urban regions: a comparative study of prevalence and patient characteristics.

In countries like the U.K., people living in urban regions are more likely to suffer poor physical and mental health than rural populations, and to have increased rates of psychiatric disorder.

How adolescents who cut themselves differ from those who take overdoses.

The aims of this study were to identify in what ways adolescents who cut themselves differ from those who take overdoses, and to investigate the role of contagion in these behaviours. Data from an anonymous self-report questionnaire survey of 6,020 adolescents in 41 schools were analysed. Comparison of 220 adolescents who reported self-cutting in the previous year with 86 who had taken overdoses in the previous year as the sole method of deliberate self-harm (DSH) showed that far more of those who cut themselves had friends who had also engaged in DSH in the same period (OR 2.

Self-harm in UK armed forces personnel: descriptive and case-control study of general hospital presentations.

Background: Little is known about self-harm in the armed forces.

Aims: To investigate the characteristics of armed forces personnel presenting to a general hospital following self-harm and compare these with matched controls who had self-harmed.

Method: Investigation of armed forces personnel presenting to hospital between 1989 and 2003 following self-harm and case-control comparison with people in the general population who had self-harmed.

The changing gender ratio in occurrence of deliberate self-harm across the lifecycle.

Background: Overall gender ratios are often quoted in studies of deliberate self-harm (DSH) patients, almost always with higher rates in females than males. Reporting a ratio across all ages may conceal important variations in the gender ratio across the life cycle.

Method: Analysis was done of the gender ratio by age groups in rates of DSH in a consecutive sample of DSH patients presenting to a general hospital over a 10-year period.

Deliberate self-harm by under-15-year-olds: characteristics, trends and outcome.

Background: Relatively little information is available about the characteristics and long-term outcome of children and adolescents aged under 15 years who present to general hospitals because of deliberate self-harm (DSH).

Method: Information was collected on 710 consecutive under-15-year-olds presenting to a general hospital in central England with DSH over a 26-year period (1978-2003). Outcome in terms of death was investigated from national statistics in 464 cases presenting during the first 20 years of the study.

Deliberate self-harm in people aged 60 years and over: characteristics and outcome of a 20-year cohort.

Background: Little information is available about older deliberate self-harm (DSH) patients and their outcome.

Methods: This study is a prospective investigation and follow-up of 730 consecutive patients (459 females and 271 males) aged 60 years and over who presented to a general hospital following DSH over a 20-year period, 1978-1997. Outcome has been examined in terms of repetition of DSH, and deaths by the end of 2000 identified through official death registers.

Pain and deliberate self-harm: an important association.

Objective: The aim of this study was to establish how often pain was a factor contributing to an episode of deliberate self-harm.

Method: Retrospective case note examination of all deliberate self-harm patients with concurrent medical problems admitted to a general hospital over 2 years.

Results: Pain was considered to be a contributory factor in the episode of deliberate self-harm in 75 (4%) of the total number of episodes of deliberate self-harm (1665) over the 2-year period.

Genetic and linguistic affinities between human populations in Eurasia and West Africa.

This study examines the relationship between genetic distance and linguistic affiliation for five regional sets of populations from Eurasia and West Africa. Human genetic and linguistic diversity have been proposed to be generally correlated, either through a direct link, whereby linguistic and genetic affiliations reflect the same past population processes, or an indirect one, where the evolution of the two types of diversity is independent but conditioned by the same geographical factors. By controlling for proximity, indirect correlations due to common geography are eliminated, and any residual relationships found are likely to reflect common linguistic-genetic processes.