PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

J Briscoe

Publications and source records attributed to J Briscoe.

30 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1988

A case-control study of the effect of environmental sanitation on diarrhoea morbidity in Malawi.

A case-control design has been applied in the evaluation of improved environmental sanitation on diarrhoeal diseases in rural Malawi. The study demonstrates the feasibility of using such an approach to evaluate two levels of water supply and sanitation service quickly and at moderate cost. Sample sizes would need to be increased substantially to evaluate multiple levels of service or to investigate interactions between water supply and sanitation. The results indicate that children living in families who use good quality water supplies and latrines experience 20% less diarrhoea as reported to the health clinics during the warm, rainy season.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMed1984

Intervention studies and the definition of dominant transmission routes.

A common approach to assessing the relative importance of different transmission routes is to eliminate transmission through one route and assume that the ratio "number of cases eliminated:number of residual cases" measures the relative importance of the eliminated route vis-à-vis the residual transmission route. A quantitative model is used to generate synthetic data similar to those analyzed by epidemiologists. These data are analyzed using this conventional procedure and the inferences drawn from the synthetic data compared with the causal relationships structured into the model. The implications for the analysis of real-world data are analyzed by examining data on the importance of water and other transmission routes for cholera in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh↗
PubMed1984

Water supply and health in developing countries: selective primary health care revisited.

The inclusion of water supply and sanitation programs as a component of primary health care (PHC) has been questioned on the basis of calculations of the costs of these programs per infant death averted. In this paper the procedures used in these cost-effectiveness calculations are examined and found to be wanting. The calculations are misleading since gross rather than net costs have been used, and the health impact of these programs underestimated. It is also shown that the methodology used is biased against water supply and sanitation and other programs with multiple outputs. The time constraints facing mothers in implementing PHC programs, as well as the contribution of improved water supplies in alleviating these constraints are outlined. Data are presented to show that, if poor women in developing countries were to choose the mix of activities to be included in PHC programs, improved water supplies would frequently constitute part of that mix.

Cost-Benefit Analysis↗
PubMed1980

On the use of simple analytic mathematical models of communicable diseases.

Complex simulation models of diseases are becoming widely used by researchers and planners. This paper shows how simple analytic models can explain some otherwise inexplicable aspects of the behaviour of both these complex models and of the diseases in the real world. A system for grouping communicable diseases on the basis of the mathematical representation of the disease aetiology is developed.

Communicable Diseases↗
PubMed1980

Are voluntary agencies helping to improve health in Bangladesh?

Since independence in 1971, a large number of health programs run by local and foreign voluntary organizations have been started in Bangladesh. This paper is the result of a survey undertaken on behalf on the Oxford Famine Relief Committee of ten of the most interesting of these projects. On the basis of an analysis of the underlying causes of ill health in Bangladesh, a criterion for the assessment of these health programs is developed. Following an overview of the performance of these "innovative" projects, the pertinent issues which have been and have to be dealt with by appropriate projects are addressed by means of a case study of one of the best of these projects. A basic premise of this analysis is that ill health in particular communities is not simply a result of local conditions; rather, the structural determinants of ill health are frequently national and even international in scope. The effect of these structural determinants of the presence and funding policies of the many voluntary agencies in Bangladesh is assessed by analyzing the performance of the Oxford Famine Relief Committee, one of the more enlightened of these agencies.

Bangladesh↗
PubMed1979

The quantitative effect of infection on the use of food by young children in poor countries.

A framework based on consistent and explicit set of assumptions is developed for evaluating the effect of infection on the intake and efficiency of use of food by children under 5 years old in poor countries. A variety of data is used to obtain quantitative estimates of catabolic losses, clinical and subclinical absorbtive losses, changes in food intake patterns, and losses due to high infant and childhood mortality. Although additional data are required before these estimates can be considered reliable, it appears that about 9% of the food available to a cohort of children under 5 years old in Bangladesh is not used for maintenance, growth, or activity of those children who survive to their 5th birthday. The amount of food that is not used effectively may be reduced to about 3% in a (hypothetical) situation where all sources of infection are eliminated but other conditions remain unchanged. The estimates suggest that the most important factors contributing to this inefficiency are reduced intake through food withdrawal and anorexia, and high mortality in young childhood. The potential nutritional effects of various public health programs are tentatively assessed.

Anorexia↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Metabolic studies on the rabbit corpus cavernosum.

Erectile function (erection and detumescence) involves the complex interaction of direct neuronal stimulation of corporal smooth muscle, neurohumoral release of specific endothelial contractile and relaxant factors, and secondary modulation by a variety of putative neuropeptides and vasoactive modulators. The net result is a rapid and sustained relaxation of the smooth muscle elements during erection and contraction of the smooth muscle during detumescence. Proper function of the corporal tissue is dependent upon cellular metabolism of glucose and the generation of cellular energy in the form of high energy phosphates. The current study characterizes the following metabolic parameters of the rabbit corpus cavernosum: Tissue concentrations of creatine phosphate (CP), ATP, ADP, and AMP; maximal rate of glucose metabolism to lactic acid and CO2; and activities of the enzymes creatine kinase (CK), citrate synthase, and malate dehydrogenase. For comparative purposes only, bladder smooth muscle preparations were analyzed simultaneously with and under the same conditions as the corpus cavernosum. The results are as follows: The concentrations of ATP and CP in the corpora were significantly lower than the concentrations in bladder. In the corpora, the tissue concentration of CP was lower than the tissue concentration of ATP, whereas the concentration of CP in the bladder was higher than the concentration of ATP. The rate of glucose metabolism to lactic acid and to carbon dioxide was similar for both bladder smooth muscle and corpus cavernosum. The maximal enzymatic activity of the mitochondrial enzyme citrate synthase was similar for both tissues; similarly, there was no significant difference in the activity of malate dehydrogenase between the two tissues.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Adenine Nucleotides↗