The impact of social health insurance on rural populations.

Improving health outcomes of rural populations in low- and middle-income countries represents a significant challenge. A key part of this is ensuring access to health services and protecting households from financial risk caused by unaffordable medical care. In 2003, China introduced a heavily subsidised voluntary social health insurance programme that aimed to provide 800 million rural residents with access to health services and curb medical impoverishment.

Clinicians' views on management of obsessive-compulsive disorders in children and adolescents.

Research on obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in children and adolescents has led to important developments with clinical implications as regards assessment and treatment. These developments have resulted in new guidelines and recommendations as to what is regarded to be an adequate treatment of the disorder. The objective of the present study was to examine if these developments have led to changes in the views on clinical management of childhood OCD among child psychiatry personnel in Norway.

Altered control of gastric acid secretion in gastrin-cholecystokinin double mutant mice.

Background & Aims: Three pathways control gastric acid secretion: the gastrin-enterochromaffin-like (ECL) cell axis, the vagus-parietal cell axis, and the cholecystokinin (CCK)-D cell axis. Mice lacking gastrin or both gastrin and CCK were examined to determine the role of the hormones.

Methods: Acid was measured after pylorus ligation, and biopsies from gastrin knockout (KO), gastrin-CCK double-KO, and wild-type (WT) mice were collected for biochemical, immunocytochemical, and electron-microscopic examination.

Gambling and problematic gambling with money among Norwegian youth (12-18 years).

An epidemiological study was performed on a representative sample of the Norwegian youth population (12-18 years; n=3237; response rate 45.2%). The proportion that never gambled was 17.

The effect of Helicobacter pylori retreatment with ranitidine bismuth citrate, clarithromycin, and metronidazole depends on the first-line therapy.

Background: Helicobacter pylori eradication rates seem to decrease. This study evaluates the effect of retreatment with ranitidine bismuth citrate (RBC) 400 mg B.I.

Bacterial meningitis in a rural Kenyan hospital.

In a prospective study to investigate mortality and antibiotic resistance in meningitis patients, thirty two meningitis cases were seen over a three month period. Mean age was 11.3 years (range one month-60 years).