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Background: Evidence suggests that social innovation and 'whole system' approaches to facilitate greater levels of independence for older people are key to future sustainability of health and social care systems. However, little is known about how to make social interventions in the ageing field scalable and replicable. The aim of this program, introduced in Ireland in 2006 as a longitudinal collaborative experiment between the Health Service, Local Government and an academic partner, the Netwell Centre, was to develop, test and report on a range of service interventions for ageing.

The Manitoba Centre for Health Policy's Concept Dictionary and Glossary, and the Data Repository they document, broaden the analytic possibilities associated with administrative data. The aim of the Repository is to describe and explain patterns of health care and illness, while the Concept Dictionary and Glossary create consistency in documenting research methodologies. The Concept Dictionary alone contains detailed operational definitions and programming code for measures used in MCHP research that are reusable in future projects. Making these tools available on the internet allows reaching a heterogeneous audience of academic and government health service partners, epidemiologists, planners, programmers, clinicians, and students extending around the globe. They aid in the retention of corporate knowledge, facilitate researcher/analyst communication, and enhance the Centre's knowledge translation activities. Such documentation has saved countless hours for programmers, analysts and researchers who frequently need to tread paths previously taken by others.

To assess whether the spread of infection with HIV can be reduced by changes in behaviour among groups most at risk because of their sexual practices sexual behaviour was monitored among 1050 homosexual men tested for HIV infection at a genitourinary medicine clinic in west London from November 1984 to September 1987. Four cohorts, defined by date of presentation, were studied by questionnaire at their presentation, and blood samples were analysed. Between the first and last cohorts there was a considerable fall in the proportion reporting casual relationships (291/329 (88%) v 107/213 (50%] and high risk activities, such as anoreceptive intercourse with casual partners (262/291 (90%) v 74/106 (70%], with the greatest changes occurring before the government information campaign began in 1986. Nevertheless, half of the men in the last cohort studied reported having casual partners. Multiple logistic regression showed that behavioural risk factors for HIV infection most closely resembled those for hepatitis B and that previous sexually transmitted diseases (syphilis, hepatitis B, and anogenital herpes) were themselves independent risk factors. A history of syphilis ranked above anoreceptive intercourse as the strongest predictor of HIV infection. Actively bisexual men showed a much lower prevalence of HIV infection (3/57, 5%) than exclusively homosexual men (113/375, 30%). Sexual behaviour among homosexual men changed during the period studied, and the incidence of HIV infection fell, although more education programmes directed at homosexual men are needed to re-emphasise the dangers of infection.