Suchergebnisse

To establish effective programs, public health administrators need to know the extend of the problem with which they deal. This includes not only the numbers of people that are ill, the nature of their illness, and the development and financing of services for treatment and preventive purposes, but also the orienting of people towards using the available services. Surveys can be helpful in increasing knowledge about this problem. Of value would be studies conducted among associates of people who had developed mental illness in order to ascertain at what point the illness was recognized, by whom, what was done, and what behavior is most offensive to families and friends. In finding out just what the public does know concerning mental illness, attitude researchers may be able to discover what they can build on and what folklore must be combatted. Simple screening procedures have yet to be developed which will accurately indicate the prevalence of mental disease. Needed is information about the families of mental patients, who are of great importance for rehabilitation. The panel study approach is suggested for following families as they adjust more or less successfully to the vicissitudes of daily living. R. Halpern.

To access publisher's full text version of this article click on the hyperlink at the bottom of the page ; Complaints of 'food allergy' are increasing. Standardized surveys of IgE sensitization to foods are still uncommon and multicountry surveys are rare. We have assessed IgE sensitization to food-associated allergens in different regions of Europe using a common protocol. ; Participants from general populations aged 20-54 years in eight European centres (Zurich, Madrid, Utrecht, Lodz, Sophia, Athens, Reykjavik and Vilnius) were asked whether they had allergic symptoms associated with specific foods. Weighted samples of those with and without allergic symptoms then completed a longer questionnaire and donated serum for IgE analysis by ImmunoCAP for 24 foods, 6 aeroallergens and, by allergen microarray, for 48 individual food proteins. ; The prevalence of IgE sensitization to foods ranged from 23.6% to 6.6%. The least common IgE sensitizations were to fish (0.2%), milk (0.8%) and egg (0.9%), and the most common were to hazelnut (9.3%), peach (7.9%) and apple (6.5%). The order of prevalence of IgE sensitization against different foods was similar in each centre and correlated with the prevalence of the pollen-associated allergens Bet v 1 and Bet v 2 (r = 0.86). IgE sensitization to plant allergen components unrelated to pollen allergens was more evenly distributed and independent of pollen IgE sensitization (r = -0.10). The most common foods containing allergens not cross-reacting with pollens were sesame, shrimp and hazelnut. ; IgE sensitization to foods is common, but varies widely and is predominantly related to IgE sensitization to pollen allergens. IgE sensitization to food allergens not cross-reacting with pollens is rare and more evenly distributed. ; European Union through EuroPrevall (FP6-FOOD-CT-2005-514000 United Kingdom Department of Health Policy Research Programme, Competitive Strategic Grant to Institute for Food Research from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (UK)