eLetters

283 e-Letters

published between 2015 and 2018

  • Ethnicity and Prescribing
    Peter A West

    Dear Editor

    My understanding, confirmed by brief review of data on the ONS website, is that the South Asian population in the UK has a younger age distribution than the white population. In this case, would an indicator based on those aged over 35 need further adjustment for the age distribution beyond 35 in order to examine prescribing? Is it possible that we are seeing an age effect in the negative correlation...

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  • Is the Inverse Care Law no longer operating?
    Jean Adams

    Dear Editor

    The Inverse Care Law, proposed by Julian Tudor Hart in 1971, states that “the availability of good medical care tends to vary inversely with the need for it in the population served.”[1]

    A number of authors have now claimed to have found instances of the Inverse Care Law operating in practice.[2,3] Given the prominence that this ‘law’ has gained in the health care literature over last thirty...

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  • The Limitations of Ecological Studies
    Joseph A C Delaney

    Dear Editor

    Dr Leyland published an interesting and thought provoking article about the variations in the risks of death by region in the United Kingdom.[1] Dr Leyland does not that migration might explain some of the differences found in the study. Immigrants to a country tend to be healthier than the base population.[2] In addition, workers tend to be healthier than non-workers [3] which could influence the...

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  • Re: Fibrinogen, social position and "Mendelian randomization"
    John Macleod

    Dear Editor

    Jousilahti and Salomaa appear unhappy with our response to their paper on the social patterning of serum inflammatory markers.

    First they feel that we have misinterpreted their findings and conclusions. We fail to see how. They found (as others have) that social disadvantage was associated with increased inflammation – as indexed by markers such as higher fibrinogen - and that this association...

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  • Mathematical modeling of SARS: errata and updates
    Ying-Hen Hsieh

    Dear Editor

    We write to follow on from our eLetter published in 2003.[1]

    As more information becomes available regarding the diagnosis and laboratory testing of SARS, the official number of laboratory confirmed SARS cases in Taiwan during the 2003 outbreak has been officially determined to be 346.[2]

    The duration of the outbreak by onset date is February 25 to June 15. In order to take advantage of th...

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  • Domestic violence screening, evidence is lacking
    Adrian A Boyle

    Dear Editor

    The editorial by Gracia highlights the hidden nature of domestic violence and he is right to outline the role of society in uncovering this problem.[1] Definitional issues for epidemiologists are extremely complex in this field, and are further complicated by differing definitions used in criminal justice and voluntary organisations. There is little clear consensus as to the definition of 'domestic' or '...

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  • Evidence based public health ....'semantic ' licence?
    Zbys Fedorowicz

    Dear Editor

    The authors indicate their intention to clear up the definition of EBPH defining it "as a public health endeavor in which there is an informed, explicit, and judicious use of evidence that has been derived from any of a variety of science and social science research and evaluation methods."[1] It was very reassuring to see the authors clearly include ‘lay-knowledge’ as a ‘type of evidence in public h...

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  • Failure to identify association between deprivation and incidence of lung cancer surprising
    Jean Adams

    Dear Editor – Battersby et al present a method of performing equity audit where data on incidence, deprivation and surgical resection rates of non-small cell lung cancer are compared.[1] Deprivation was measured using the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) 2000[2] and all analyses were performed at the primary care trust (PCT) level. Battersby et al report no statistically significant associations between the...

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  • Author's reply
    Enrique Gracia

    Dear Editor

    The letter by Boyle points out that there is not sufficient evidence to recommend screening for domestic violence, which is not to say that there is sufficient evidence to recommend against screening.[1] Recommendations for screening or routine inquiry for domestic violence have been made on other grounds.

    For example, the US Preventive Services Task Force concluded that “there is insuffici...

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  • Re: Author's reply
    Adrian A Boyle
    Dear Editor

    Gracia is right about the "softer" benefits of routine inquiry for domestic violence and the role of societal attitudes is crucial in overcoming this problem.[1] Certainly the role of public awareness campaigns, though difficult to evaluate, has probably reduced social tolerance towards violence against women. Evidence and the lack of evidence is a tricky issue for domestic violence screening. This seems t...

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