A Continuum of Care to Catch Those Who Fall Through the Cracks
More than 500,000 women worldwide die from complications related to pregnancy. About 4 million newborns (babies within their first month of life) die annually, as do more than 10 million children under age 5. Yet most of these deaths—which tend to occur in low- and middle-income countries—are preventable, and a new approach that focuses on offering a "continuum of care" to reach those mothers, newborns, and children in need is gaining momentum. (June 2006)

Controlling Infectious Diseases (PDF:438KB)

 Malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and other infectious diseases kill nearly 60 million people and cause more than 600 million lost years of healthy life annually. This Bulletin identifies high-risk groups, geographic disparities, and the impact of infectious diseases on global health. Special sections on diarrheal diseases, malaria, and tuberculosis examine the scope of the problem, populations most at risk, proven preventions, and recommended treatments. (BUL61.2, June 2006)

Growing Up Global: An Advocacy Kit on Youth Issues
Information about the well-being of youth around the world—their schooling; their health; and their transition to work, citizenship, marriage, and parenthood—has often been fragmented across topical and geographic lines and written in impenetrable technical language. Now, a new advocacy kit produced by Population Reference Bureau (PRB) and Advocates for Youth and funded by the Summit Foundation gives advocates the information and tools they need to speak compellingly to policymakers about many of the challenges young people face worldwide. (June 2006)

Depression a Leading Contributor to Global Burden of Disease
Depression is now the fourth-leading cause of the global disease burden and the leading cause of disability worldwide. Unfortunately, it is particularly problematic in developing countries, where data on the prevalence and scope of the disease as well as the resources to address it are sorely lacking. (June 2006)

Obstacles to Vaccines for AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Cervical Cancer
Although vaccines have proven highly cost-effective and extremely successful in controlling other diseases from measles to polio to smallpox, challenges from investment to testing continue to hamper progress towards vaccines for these diseases. (May 2006)

Report Finds Serious Disparities Among Children in North America
A new report from the Children in North America project finds that, while the continent's children have grown healthier and better educated over the last several decades, Mexico lags both Canada and the United States in providing education and health care to its children. (May 2006)

Gender and Equity in Access to Health Care Services in the Middle East and North Africa
A pervasive culture of silence influences the way women in the region perceive their bodies and their health. And this culture also circumscribes their "health-seeking behaviors"—whether and where they look for health services. (April 2006)

Making the Link in the Philippines: A New PRB Datasheet
With one of the highest population growth rates in Southeast Asia, the Philippines is experiencing increasing human pressure on its natural resources, including forests, coasts, and safe water supplies. This datasheet provides national, regional, and provincial data that highlight the connections among population trends, natural resource use, and the health and well-being of Filipinos. (April 2006)

Health Care Challenges for Developing Countries with Aging Populations
Because the elderly are at high risk for chronic disease and disability, population aging will place urgent demands on developing-country health care systems, most of which are oriented toward infectious disease and ill-prepared for such demands. (April 2006)

Intersecting Epidemics: Tuberculosis and HIV
As if the global AIDS pandemic alone were not enough, developing countries are beset with converging epidemics of HIV and tuberculosis. The new solution is to utilize the infrastructure developed for each disease to also combat the other disease, but challenges to this approach are pervasive. (April 2006)