Otitis media (OM) refers to middle ear infection, and is a highly prevalent condition in the Australian Aboriginal population. While OM occurs with different degrees of severity, it invariably presents a serious healthcare problem, with significant medical, psychological and social impacts
As women age, we have many changes to look forward to as the uncertainties of love and employment blossom into the stability of family and career, and the anxieties of youth are transformed into the wisdom of maturity. Upon my 40th birthday, I had much to be grateful for: two beautiful and kind-hearted daughters whom I adored with all my heart, a loving husband and partner in life, and my labours of twenty years in health and development economics had solidified my career as an expert on health systems in Latin America
Seeing a urologist often involves discussing things that men may have been bothered by for some time, but have managed to ignore. Conditions such as weakening of erections and slowing of the urinary stream are often thought to be part of the ageing process. They can, however, cause significant disruption to a man’s life
The term diabetes mellitus is derived from Greek and Latin words meaning excessive discharge of urine (diabetes), which is honey sweet (mellitus). The disease diabetes mellitus was first described as early as 1500 BC by physicians from Egypt and India, who noticed the sweet or honey water in the urine of people with diabetes attracting ants
Scientific understanding of the world has enabled us to improve material wellbeing on a scale that previous generations would find difficult to believe. For all but the last few decades, most humans have struggled to obtain the basic necessities for a civilised life: clean water, sanitation, adequate nutrition, shelter and health care
City planning is now recognised as an important part of a compre-hensive solution to noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). By 2050, some 75% of the world’s population will live in cities. Almost 80% of Australians already reside in Australia’s major cities, as a result of population movements from rural areas to urban centres since the turn of the 20th century
The human brain is the most complex object in the known universe. Such is its complexity, that even the number of brain cells (neurons) within it remains in dispute, with common estimates ranging from between 86 billion to over 100 billion. Each of these cells forms multiple connections, called synapses, with its neighbouring neurons, with perhaps 125 trillion of these connections existing in the cortex, or surface layer of the brain, alone
Most of you will know someone with mental illness. How long did it take for them to receive help? How does it affect their lives and those around them? How do you personally feel about mental health? This chapter endeavours to paint a picture of mental health around the globe: the burden, the challenges and the opportunities
The year 2010 was climatically distinctive. Globally, it was one of the two hottest years in the 150-year (surface thermometer) record. It was also a tumultuous year of extreme weather events — in North America, much of Europe, and in the greater Eurasian region where the combination and scale of flooding (Pakistan and China), landslides (China), extreme heat-waves (Russia, China, Vietnam), and wild fires (Russia) during August was, literally, extraordinary
Traditionally, genetic tests have been firmly placed within a clinical context — clinicians order tests to gather information to help or confirm diagnosis of a condition in a person who is showing symptoms, to predict whether a person with a family history will develop a late-onset condition when the test results can be accurately interpreted (e.g. Huntington disease), or to identify carriers of recessive conditions in a family (e.g. cystic fibrosis)