School health promotion, based on a wide range of research and practice, has evolved over the course of the last 50 years, alongside health promotion in other settings. During the 1990s, WHO, working jointly with the European Commission and the Council of Europe, developed the health promoting schools in...
Osteoporosis – an excessive decrease in bone mass – is more common in women than in men. It is a particularly common condition among elderly women in affluent countries. Osteoporosis is a risk factor for fractures, which occur most commonly at the wrist, spine and hip. Other important risk factors fo...
Overweight and obesity are increasingly prevalent in Europe. In the European Region, the growing prevalence of overweight – a body mass index (BMI) over 25 kg/m2 – ranges from about 25% to 75% of the adult population. Up to a third of the adult population, about 130 million people, are obese – with...
During recent years, the use of mobile phones has increased substantially and has been paralleled by a growing concern about the effects on health attributed to exposure to the electromagnetic fields produced by them and their base stations. Demonstrating that radiation causes adverse effects on health w...
In Europe, the number of people infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is increasing. More infections of heterosexuals are appearing, and young people and women are becoming more vulnerable. For these people, the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) now allows them to li...
The term “quality tools” is used in many different ways to refer to a method used by an individual, a team, an organization or a health system. It is most often used in a narrow sense in American texts to refer to a set of simple “continuous quality improvement” methods (CQI tools). More broadly,...
“Grey zone” treatments are those that rely upon the patient’s judgement of associated benefits versus harms. When clinicians judge patients are eligible for “grey zone” treatments, their acceptance should be consistent with informed patients’ values. The question is how can one obtain informe...
In most countries the pressure for health care reform is aimed at improving the efficiency, equity and effectiveness of the health sector. Emerging evidence shows that health care reforms can affect men and women differently, as a consequence of their different positions as users and producers of health ...
This is a Health Evidence Network (HEN) evidence report on antenatal care (ANC). This report is a
supplement to the 2003 HEN report on the same subject (http://www.euro.who.int/Document/e82996.pdf).
It is a review of the best available evidence in the scientific literature regarding ANC interventions. It...
Hepatitis C infection has been declared a global health problem. Prevalence is most common among injecting drug user populations, where up to 98% can be infected despite a low HIV prevalence. Up to 20% of those infected with hepatitis C can clear the virus, though chronic infection can lead to significan...
