'Consequences of ongoing civil conflict in Somalia' and 'the PLoS Medicine debate'

In an essay published this week in PLoS Medicine, Debarati Guha-Sapir and Ruwan Ratnayake (World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, Brussels, Belgium) use field data to demonstrate the severe vulnerability faced by much of the Somalian population due to ongoing conflict, and call for concerted public health interventions and access to food aid especially in southern Somalia.

Funding: CE-DAT is funded by the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration of the US Department of State and the UK Department for International Development (DfID). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Citation: Guha-Sapir D, Ratnayake R (2009) Consequences of Ongoing Civil Conflict in Somalia: Evidence for Public Health Responses. PLoS Med 6(8): e1000108. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000108

IN YOUR COVERAGE PLEASE USE THIS URL TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE FREELY AVAILABLE PAPER: http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=1000108

PRESS-ONLY PREVIEW OF THE ARTICLE: http://www.plos.org/press/plme-06-08-guha-sapir.pdf

CONTACTS:
Debharati Guha-Sapir
World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters in Brussels
Brussels
Belgium
Canadian Field Epidemiology Program,
Public Health Agency of Canada
Ottawa, Ontario,
Canada
debby.sapir@uclouvain.be

In three viewpoints in a debate published this week in PLoS Medicine, Sasha Shepperd (of the University of Oxford) and colleagues, Geoff Wong (of University College London), and Aziz Sheikh (of the University of Edinburgh) explore various approaches to help systematic reviewers who wish to review complex health interventions.

Funding: S Shepperd was supported by an NIHR Evidence Synthesis Award. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of her viewpoint. The views expressed in the Viewpoint of S Sheppard and colleagues are not necessarily those of The Cochrane Collaboration. GW's NIHR Clinical Lectureship is funded by the United Kingdom's National Institute of Health Research (via University College London). The views expressed by GW in his Viewpoint are his personal views and not necessarily those of his funders or employers.

Competing Interests: SS is an editor for the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care Review Group. SL is an editor for the Cochrane Consumers and Communication Review Group. MPE is an editor for the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care Review Group. AS is PI on a number of evaluations of complex health care interventions funded by the Chief Scientist's Office of the Scottish Government, Health Technology Assessment, National Preventative Research Institute/Medical Research Council and NHS Connecting for Health Evaluation Programme. AS is, in addition, a grant-holder on complex intervention trials funded by Asthma UK, Intel, and the Patient Safety Research Portfolio. AS is also a grant-holder on programme grants for the development and evaluation of complex interventions in supportive and palliative care funded by the National Cancer Research Institute and the MRC Translational Medicine Methodology Trial Hub. GW has no competing interests.

Citation: Shepperd S, Lewin S, Straus S, Clarke M, Eccles MP, et al. (2009) Can We Systematically Review Studies That Evaluate Complex Interventions? PLoS Med 6(8): e1000086. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000086

IN YOUR COVERAGE PLEASE USE THIS URL TO PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE FREELY AVAILABLE PAPER: http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=1000086

PRESS-ONLY PREVIEW OF THE ARTICLE: http://www.plos.org/press/plme-06-08-shepperd.pdf

CONTACTS:
Sasha Shepperd
University of Oxford
Department of Public Health
Oxford
United Kingdom
Sasha.Shepperd@dphpc.ox.ac.uk

Geoff Wong
University College London
Research Department of Primary Care and Population Health,
London
United Kingdom
g.wong@pcps.ucl.ac.uk

Aziz Sheikh
University of Edinburgh
Centre for Population Health Sciences
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
aziz.sheikh@ed.ac.uk

PLoS Medicine is an open access, freely available international medical journal. It publishes original research that enhances our understanding of human health and disease, together with commentary and analysis of important global health issues. For more information, visit http://www.plosmedicine.org

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