Screening programs for sickle cell disease, when effective, can reduce morbidity and mortality as a direct consequence of patient education and optimized clinical management. However, informed patient or parental consent is necessary prior to the screening process as a person's sickle status is...

Objective: To investigate the effect of an asthma care support program for patients under the age of 18 years. Study design: A 1 Patient groups: 318 asthma care support program participants and 318 matched non-participants. Main outcome measures: The rates of medical service utilization...

Background: Evidence about how people value health gains for different age groups is controversial and incomplete, despite the significance of this issue for priority setting in health policy. Objective: The aim of this study was to collect and analyse nationally representative data in the US...

Background: The Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act (FDAMA) of 1997, Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act (BPCA) of 2002 and Pediatric Research Equity Act of 2007 provide an extended period of 6 months of marketing exclusivity (i.e. patent extension) to prescription drug...

Background: Previous research to develop a new generic paediatric health-related quality of life (HR-QOL) measure generated 11 dimensions of HR-QOL, covering physical, emotional and social functioning. These dimensions and their response scales were developed from interviews with children. Some...

Background: Assessments of vaccination programmes should account for several important factors, including efficacy, safety and costs of preventing and treating the disease. Because patients with invasive meningococcal disease (IMD) are managed primarily in an inpatient setting, hospital costs...

Introduction: Streptococcus pneumoniae (Sp.) is a leading cause of paediatric bacterial meningitis, pneumonia and acute otitis media, as is non-typable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi) for acute otitis media. In 2008, a 7-valent conjugated pneumococcal vaccine (PCV7) was included in the New Zealand...

Asthma is a growing health problem that affects 4.8 million children in the US alone. This paper considers empirical studies from the past 20 years examining the relationship between psychosocial factors and asthma management and morbidity. Research indicates that psychosocial factors, including...

Objective: To assess and compare the costs and effectiveness of different vaccination strategies against hepatitis B in Switzerland. Design: A birth cohort of 85 000 individuals was followed over their lifetime, using a decision-tree analysis. Published data were used to simulate the risk of...

Narcolepsy is a chronic sleep disorder characterised by excessive daytime sleepiness, with or without cataplexy, sleep paralysis and hypnagogic hallucinations, with an estimated prevalence of 0.02 to 0.05% worldwide. The goal of managing narcolepsy is to keep patients as alert as possible during...