This is an RSS newsfeed from BioMed Central It is intended to be used with an RSS reader. For more information about RSS newsfeeds from BioMed Central, visit http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/about/rss/ http://www.ete-online.com The latest articles from Emerging Themes in Epidemiology (ISSN 1742-7622) published by BioMed Central Background: Systematic reviews based on the critical appraisal of observational and analytic studies on HIV prevalence and risk factors for HIV transmission among men having sex with men are very useful for health care decisions and planning. Such appraisal is particularly difficult, however, as the quality assessment tools available for use with observational and analytic studies are poorly established. Methods: We reviewed the existing quality assessment tools for systematic reviews of observational studies and developed a concise quality assessment checklist to help standardise decisions regarding the quality of studies, with careful consideration of issues such as external and internal validity. Results: A pilot version of the checklist was developed based on epidemiological principles, reviews of study designs, and existing checklists for the assessment of observational studies. The Quality Assessment Tool for Systematic Reviews of Observational Studies (QATSO) Score consists of five items: External validity (1 item), reporting (2 items), bias (1 item) and confounding factors (1 item). Expert opinions were sought and it was tested on manuscripts that fulfil the inclusion criteria of a systematic review. Like all assessment scales, QATSO may over-simplify and generalise information yet it is inclusive, simple and practical to use, and allows comparability between papers. Conclusion: A specific tool that allows researchers to appraise and guide study quality of observational studies is developed and can be modified for similar studies in the future. http://www.ete-online.com/content/5/1/23 William CW Wong, Catherine SK Cheung and Graham J Hart Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 2008, 5:23 2008-11-17 doi:10.1186/1742-7622-5-23 Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 1742-7622 5 23 2008-11-17 In 2002, Norway experienced a large outbreak of Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections in hospitals with 231 confirmed cases. This fuelled intense public and professional debates on what were the causes and who were responsible. In epidemiology, other sciences, in philosophy and in law there is a long tradition of discussing the concept of causality. We use this outbreak as a case; apply various theories of causality from different disciplines to discuss the roles and responsibilities of some of the parties involved. Mackie's concept of INUS conditions, Hill's nine viewpoints to study association for claiming causation, deterministic and probabilistic ways of reasoning, all shed light on the issues of causality in this outbreak. Moreover, applying legal theories of causation (counterfactual reasoning and the "but-for" test and the NESS test) proved especially useful, but the case also illustrated the weaknesses of the various theories of causation.We conclude that many factors contributed to causing the outbreak, but that contamination of a medical device in the production facility was the major necessary condition. The reuse of the medical device in hospitals contributed primarily to the size of the outbreak. The unintended error by its producer – and to a minor extent by the hospital practice – was mainly due to non-application of relevant knowledge and skills, and appears to constitute professional negligence. Due to criminal procedure laws and other factors outside the discourse of causality, no one was criminally charged for the outbreak which caused much suffering and shortening the life of at least 34 people. http://www.ete-online.com/content/5/1/22 Bjørn G Iversen, Bjørn Hofmann and Preben Aavitsland Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 2008, 5:22 2008-10-23 doi:10.1186/1742-7622-5-22 Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 1742-7622 5 22 2008-10-23 The thematic series 'Beyond English: Accessing the global epidemiological literature' in Emerging Themes in Epidemiology highlights the wealth of epidemiological and public health literature in the major languages of the world, and the bibliographic databases through which they can be searched and accessed. This editorial suggests that all systematic reviews in epidemiology and public health should include literature published in the major languages of the world and that the use of regional and non-English bibliographic databases should become routine. http://www.ete-online.com/content/5/1/21 Isaac CH Fung Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 2008, 5:21 2008-09-30 doi:10.1186/1742-7622-5-21 Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 1742-7622 5 21 2008-09-30 Chinese journals in epidemiology, preventive medicine and public health contain much that is of potential international interest. However, few non-Chinese speakers are acquainted with this literature. This article therefore provides an overview of the contemporary scene in Chinese biomedical journal publication, Chinese bibliographic databases and Chinese journals in epidemiology, preventive medicine and public health. The challenge of switching to English as the medium of publication, the development of publishing bibliometric data from Chinese databases, the prospect of an Open Access publication model in China, the issue of language bias in literature reviews and the quality of Chinese journals are discussed. Epidemiologists are encouraged to search the Chinese bibliographic databases for Chinese journal articles. http://www.ete-online.com/content/5/1/20 Isaac C-H Fung Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 2008, 5:20 2008-09-30 doi:10.1186/1742-7622-5-20 Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 1742-7622 5 20 2008-09-30 The economy of China continues to boom and so have its biomedical research and related publishing activities. Several so-called neglected tropical diseases that are most common in the developing world are still rampant or even emerging in some parts of China. The purpose of this article is to document the significant research potential from the Chinese biomedical bibliographic databases. The research contributions from China in the epidemiology and control of schistosomiasis provide an excellent illustration. We searched two widely used databases, namely China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and VIP Information (VIP). Employing the keyword "Schistosoma" () and covering the period 1990–2006, we obtained 10,244 hits in the CNKI database and 5,975 in VIP. We examined 10 Chinese biomedical journals that published the highest number of original research articles on schistosomiasis for issues including languages and open access. Although most of the journals are published in Chinese, English abstracts are usually available. Open access to full articles was available in China Tropical Medicine in 2005/2006 and is granted by the Chinese Journal of Parasitology and Parasitic Diseases since 2003; none of the other journals examined offered open access. We reviewed (i) the discovery and development of antischistosomal drugs, (ii) the progress made with molluscicides and (iii) environmental management for schistosomiasis control in China over the past 20 years. In conclusion, significant research is published in the Chinese literature, which is relevant for local control measures and global scientific knowledge. Open access should be encouraged and language barriers removed so the wealth of Chinese research can be more fully appreciated by the scientific community. http://www.ete-online.com/content/5/1/19 Qin Liu, Li-Guang Tian, Shu-Hua Xiao, Zhen Qi, Peter Steinmann, Tippi K Mak, Jürg Utzinger and Xiao-Nong Zhou Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 2008, 5:19 2008-09-30 doi:10.1186/1742-7622-5-19 Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 1742-7622 5 19 2008-09-30 It is well known that papers written in languages other than English have a great risk of being ignored simply because these languages are not accessible to the international scientific community. The objective of this paper is to facilitate the access to the public health and epidemiology literature available in Portuguese speaking countries. It was found that it is particularly concentrated in Brazil, with some few examples in Portugal and none in other Portuguese speaking countries. This literature is predominantly written in Portuguese, but also in other languages such as English or Spanish. The paper describes the several journals, as well as the bibliographic databases that index these journals and how to access them. Most journals provide open-access with direct links in the indexing databases. The importance of this scientific production for the development of epidemiology as a scientific discipline and as a basic discipline for public health practice is discussed. To marginalize these publications has implications for a more balanced knowledge and understanding of the health problems and their determinants at a world-wide level. http://www.ete-online.com/content/5/1/18 Mauricio L Barreto and Rita Barradas Barata Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 2008, 5:18 2008-09-30 doi:10.1186/1742-7622-5-18 Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 1742-7622 5 18 2008-09-30 There is a multiplicity of journals originating in Spain and the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America and the Caribbean (SSLAC) in the health sciences of relevance to the fields of epidemiology and public health. While the subject matter of epidemiology in Spain shares many features with its neighbours in Western Europe, many aspects of epidemiology in Latin America are particular to that region. There are also distinctive theoretical and philosophical approaches to the study of epidemiology and public health arising from traditions such as the Latin American social medicine movement, of which there may be limited awareness. A number of online bibliographic databases are available which focus primarily on health sciences literature arising in Spain and Latin America, the most prominent being Literatura Latinoamericana en Ciencias de la Salud (LILACS) and LATINDEX. Some such as LILACS also extensively index grey literature. As well as in Spanish, interfaces are provided in English and Portuguese. Abstracts of articles may also be provided in English with an increasing number of journals beginning to publish entire articles written in English. Free full text articles are becoming accessible, one of the most comprehensive sources being the Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO). There is thus an extensive range of literature originating in Spain and SSLAC freely identifiable and often accessible online, and with the potential to provide useful inputs to the study of epidemiology and public health provided that any reluctance to explore these resources can be overcome. In this article we provide an introduction to such resources. http://www.ete-online.com/content/5/1/17 John R Williams, Annick Bórquez and María-Gloria Basáñez Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 2008, 5:17 2008-09-30 doi:10.1186/1742-7622-5-17 Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 1742-7622 5 17 2008-09-30 Epidemiology and public health are usually context-specific. Journals published in different languages and countries play a role both as sources of data and as channels through which evidence is incorporated into local public health practice. Databases in these languages facilitate access to relevant journals, and professional education in these languages facilitates the growth of native expertise in epidemiology and public health. However, as English has become the lingua franca of scientific communication in the era of globalisation, many journals published in non-English languages face the difficult dilemma of either switching to English and competing internationally, or sticking to the native tongue and having a restricted circulation among a local readership. This paper discusses the historical development of epidemiology and the current scene of epidemiological and public health journals, databases and professional education in three Western European languages: French, German and Italian, and examines the dynamics and struggles they have today. http://www.ete-online.com/content/5/1/16 Iacopo Baussano, Patrick Brzoska, Ugo Fedeli, Claudia Larouche, Oliver Razum and Isaac C-H Fung Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 2008, 5:16 2008-09-30 doi:10.1186/1742-7622-5-16 Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 1742-7622 5 16 2008-09-30 In the 20th century, Russian biomedical science experienced a decline from the blossom of the early years to a drastic state. Through the first decades of the USSR, it was transformed to suit the ideological requirements of a totalitarian state and biased directives of communist leaders. Later, depressing economic conditions and isolation from the international research community further impeded its development. Contemporary Russia has inherited a system of medical education quite different from the west as well as counterproductive regulations for the allocation of research funding. The methodology of medical and epidemiological research in Russia is largely outdated. Epidemiology continues to focus on infectious disease and results of the best studies tend to be published in international periodicals. MEDLINE continues to be the best database to search for Russian biomedical publications, despite only a small proportion being indexed. The database of the Moscow Central Medical Library is the largest national database of medical periodicals, but does not provide abstracts and full subject heading codes, and it does not cover even the entire collection of the Library. New databases and catalogs (e.g. Panteleimon) that have appeared recently are incomplete and do not enable effective searching. http://www.ete-online.com/content/5/1/15 Vasiliy V Vlassov and Kirill D Danishevskiy Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 2008, 5:15 2008-09-30 doi:10.1186/1742-7622-5-15 Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 1742-7622 5 15 2008-09-30 The study provides the rationale, history and current status of the Index Medicus for the World Health Organization Eastern Mediterranean Region. The Index is unique in combining the geographic coverage of peer-reviewed health and biomedical journals (408 titles) from the 22 countries of the Region. Compiling and publishing the Index coupled with a document delivery service is an integral part of the WHO Regional Office's knowledge management and sharing programme. In this paper, bibliometric indicators are presented to demonstrate the distribution of journals, articles, languages, subjects and authors as well as availability in printed and electronic formats. Two countries in the Region (Egypt and Pakistan) contribute over 50% of the articles in the Index. About 90% of the articles are published in English. Epidemiology articles represent 8% of the entire Index. 15% of the journals in the Index are also indexed in MEDLINE, while 7% are indexed in EMBASE. Future developments of the Index will include covering more journals and adding other types of health and biomedical literature, including reports, theses, books and current research. The challenges and lessons learnt are discussed. http://www.ete-online.com/content/5/1/14 Najeeb Al-Shorbaji Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 2008, 5:14 2008-09-30 doi:10.1186/1742-7622-5-14 Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 1742-7622 5 14 2008-09-30 Background: Randomized trials are essential in assessing the effects of healthcare interventions and are a key component in systematic reviews of effectiveness. Searching for reports of randomized trials in databases is problematic due to the absence of appropriate indexing terms until the 1990s and inconsistent application of these indexing terms thereafter. Objectives The objectives of this study are to devise a search strategy for identifying reports of randomized trials in EMBASE which are not already indexed as trials in MEDLINE and to make these reports easily accessible by including them in the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) in The Cochrane Library, with the permission of Elsevier, the publishers of EMBASE. Methods: A highly sensitive search strategy was designed for EMBASE based on free-text and thesaurus terms which occurred frequently in the titles, abstracts, EMTREE terms (or some combination of these) of reports of trials indexed in EMBASE. This search strategy was run against EMBASE from 1980 to 2005 (1974 to 2005 for four of the terms) and records retrieved by the search, which were not already indexed as randomized trials in MEDLINE, were downloaded from EMBASE, printed and read. An analysis of the language of publication was conducted for the reports of trials published in 2005 (the most recent year completed at the time of this study). Results: Twenty-two search terms were used (including nine which were later rejected due to poor cumulative precision). More than a third of a million records were downloaded and scanned and approximately 80,000 reports of trials were identified which were not already indexed as randomized trials in MEDLINE. These are now easily identifiable in CENTRAL, in The Cochrane Library. Cumulative sensitivity ranged from 0.1% to 60% and cumulative precision ranged from 8% to 61%. The truncated term 'random$' identified 60% of the total number of reports of trials but only 35% of the more than 130,000 records retrieved by this term were reports of trials. The language analysis for the sample year 2005 indicated that of the 18,427 reports indexed as randomized trials in MEDLINE, 959 (5%) were in languages other than English. The EMBASE search identified an additional 658 reports in languages other than English, of which the highest number were in Chinese (320). Conclusions: The results of the search to date have greatly increased access to reports of trials in EMBASE, especially in some languages other than English. The search strategy used was subjectively derived from a small 'gold standard' set of test records and was not validated in an independent test set. We intend to design an objectively-derived validated search strategy using logistic regression based on the frequency of occurrence of terms in the approximately 80,000 reports of randomized trials identified compared with the frequency of these terms across the entire EMBASE database. http://www.ete-online.com/content/5/1/13 Carol Lefebvre, Anne Eisinga, Steve McDonald and Nina Paul Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 2008, 5:13 2008-09-30 doi:10.1186/1742-7622-5-13 Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 1742-7622 5 13 2008-09-30 Articles published in English language journals with citations of non-English peer reviewed materials are not very common today. However, as epidemiologists are becoming more aware of data and information being readily available and accessible in the non-English literature, the question of whether non-English materials can be cited in English language journals and if so, how should they be cited, has become an increasingly important issue. Bringing together personal insights from the author's familiarity with both the English and Chinese language epidemiological literature and results from a survey on the use of citations of non-English peer reviewed materials across a sample of epidemiology and public health journals, this commentary discusses the different ways authors cite non-English articles in different English language journals and the different methods used by journals to handle non-Latin scripts (e.g. transliteration). This commentary will be useful to both epidemiologists and editors alike. http://www.ete-online.com/content/5/1/12 Isaac CH Fung Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 2008, 5:12 2008-09-30 doi:10.1186/1742-7622-5-12 Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 1742-7622 5 12 2008-09-30 Background: Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is severely affected by HIV/AIDS and conflict. Sexual violence as a weapon of war has been associated with concerns about heightened HIV incidence among women. Widespread rape by combatants has been documented in Burundi, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Sudan and Uganda. To examine the assertion that widespread rape may not directly increase HIV prevalence at the population level, we built a model to determine the potential impact of varying scenarios of widespread rape on HIV prevalence in the above seven African countries.DiscussionOur findings show that even in the most extreme situations, where 15% of the female population was raped, where HIV prevalence among assailants was 8 times the country population prevalence, and where the HIV transmission rate was highest at 4 times the average high rate, widespread rape increased the absolute HIV prevalence of these countries by only 0.023%. These projections support the finding that widespread rape in conflict-affected countries in SSA has not incurred a major direct population-level change in HIV prevalence. However, this must not be interpreted to say that widespread rape does not pose serious problems to women's acquisition of HIV on an individual basis or in specific settings. Furthermore, direct and indirect consequences of sexual violence, such as physical and psychosocial trauma, unwanted pregnancies, and stigma and discrimination cannot be understated.SummaryThe conclusions of this article do not significantly change current practices in the field from an operational perspective. Proper care and treatment must be provided to every survivor of rape regardless of the epidemiological effects of HIV transmission at the population level. Sexual violence must be treated as a protection issue and not solely a reproductive health and psychosocial issue. It is worth publishing data and conclusions that could be misconstrued and may not make much of a programmatic difference in the field. Data, if collected, analysed and interpreted carefully, help to improve our understanding of complicated and nuanced situations. Ultimately, our understanding of what the outcomes of such interventions can achieve will be more realistic. It also helps decision-makers prioritise their funding and interventions. http://www.ete-online.com/content/5/1/11 Aranka Anema, Michel R Joffres, Edward Mills and Paul B Spiegel Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 2008, 5:11 2008-07-29 doi:10.1186/1742-7622-5-11 Emerging Themes in Epidemiology 1742-7622 5 11 2008-07-29