Accompanying the call for increased evidence-based policy the developed world is implementing more longitudinal panel studies which periodically gather information about the same people over a number of years. Panel studies distinguish between transitory and persistent states (e.g. poverty,...

The role of engineers within the major bilateral development agencies is currently subject to change as agencies' foci converge on poverty reduction, expressed in their support for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) agreed aim of reducing by half the proportion...

The delivery of new housing is an important part of UK urban regeneration policy and practice. The 'housing trajectory' seeks to help policy makers make better decisions about housing delivery. This study evaluates the housing trajectory within the framework of evidence-based policy. Methods...

Social capital is a relatively new concept which has attracted significant attention in recent years. No consensus has yet been reached on how to measure social capital, resulting in a large number of different tools available. While psychometric validation methods such as factor analysis have...

There have been calls recently for a major international effort to collect epidemiological information in developing countries. One approach to a World Health Survey is considered, namely single-round retrospective interview surveys. Surveys can contribute to the improvement of national health...

Women and the poor are disproportionately affected by common mental disorders (CMD), and women in low income countries are particularly at risk. Social capital may explain some of the geographical variation in CMD, but the association between social capital and CMD in low income countries has...

The urban development, or housing, sector has a longer experience of addressing the problems of the urban poor in developing countries than the health sector. In recent years the policy of 'slum improvement', which involves both sectors, has attracted the support of international donors. This...

While much descriptive research has documented positive associations between social capital and a range of economic, social and health outcomes, there have been few intervention studies to assess whether social capital can be intentionally generated. We conducted an intervention in rural South...

The last major review of urban health in developing countries was published in 1992. At that time, knowledge was largely limited to crude rural-urban comparisons and some ad hoc studies of low-income urban communities. Most research was done on communicable (infectious) diseases and little was...

Social capital has been identified as an important factor influencing successful uptake of technological innovations among small-scale, rural farmers in developing countries. This study draws on descriptive statistics and regression analysis of data obtained from 325 farmers in southwest Nigeria...