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Table of Contents

April 2010

Cover

Comparative effectiveness research: Challenges for medical journals.
Issue Image

This month's Editorial, a collaborative statement by editors from Medical Decision Making, Trials, The Cochrane Library, Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, and PLoS Medicine, calls for standards in the conduct and reporting of comparative effectiveness research (CER). To optimize health outcomes within the constraints of inevitably limited resources, low- and high-income countries alike require unbiased means of assessing health care interventions for their relative effectiveness. Providing specific principles and standards for CER, the journal editors emphasize that researchers must adopt stringent methods, and medical journals must maintain high criteria for ethics, scientific rigor, and reporting, in order to fulfill the potential of research to improve decision making in health care. This statement has also been endorsed by the editors of Journal of General Internal Medicine, The American Journal of Managed Care, Clinical and Translational Science, and Croatian Medical Journal, and will be co-published in Medical Decision Making, Croatian Medical Journal, The Cochrane Library, Trials, The American Journal of Managed Care, and Journal of Clinical Epidemiology.

Image Credit: Collage created by Katie Hickling, PLoS. Original images by southerntabitha, taberandrew, FeatheredTar, Seattle Municipal Archives, VinceHuang, jen_rab, isafmedia, and dbdbrobot, all on flickr.com.

Editorial

Comparative Effectiveness Research: Challenges for Medical Journals

Harold C. Sox, Mark Helfand, Jeremy Grimshaw, Kay Dickersin, the PLoS Medicine Editors, David Tovey, J. André Knottnerus, Peter Tugwell

PLOS Medicine: published April 27, 2010 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000269

Perspectives

Does Seasonal Influenza Vaccination Increase the Risk of Illness with the 2009 A/H1N1 Pandemic Virus?

Cécile Viboud, Lone Simonsen

PLOS Medicine: published April 6, 2010 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000259

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  1. Association between the 2008–09 Seasonal Influenza Vaccine and Pandemic H1N1 Illness during Spring–Summer 2009: Four Observational Studies from Canada

Mortality Measurement Matters: Improving Data Collection and Estimation Methods for Child and Adult Mortality

Colin Mathers, Ties Boerma

PLOS Medicine: published April 13, 2010 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000265

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  2. Measuring Adult Mortality Using Sibling Survival: A New Analytical Method and New Results for 44 Countries, 1974–2006
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Health in Action

Laboratory Capacity Building in Asia for Infectious Disease Research: Experiences from the South East Asia Infectious Disease Clinical Research Network (SEAICRN)

Heiman F. L. Wertheim, Pilaipan Puthavathana, Ngoc My Nghiem, H. Rogier van Doorn, Trung Vu Nguyen, Hung Viet Pham, Decy Subekti, Syahrial Harun, Suhud Malik, Janet Robinson, Motiur Rahman, Walter Taylor, Niklas Lindegardh, Steve Wignall, Jeremy J. Farrar, Menno D. de Jong

PLOS Medicine: published April 6, 2010 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000231

Policy Forums

Improving Newborn Survival in Low-Income Countries: Community-Based Approaches and Lessons from South Asia

Nirmala Nair, Prasanta Tripathy, Audrey Prost, Anthony Costello, David Osrin

PLOS Medicine: published April 6, 2010 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000246

Health Diplomacy and the Enduring Relevance of Foreign Policy Interests

Harley Feldbaum, Joshua Michaud

PLOS Medicine: published April 20, 2010 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000226

China's Engagement with Global Health Diplomacy: Was SARS a Watershed?

Lai-Ha Chan, Lucy Chen, Jin Xu

PLOS Medicine: published April 27, 2010 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000266

Brazil and the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control: Global Health Diplomacy as Soft Power

Kelley Lee, Luiz Carlos Chagas, Thomas E. Novotny

PLOS Medicine: published April 20, 2010 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000232

Research Articles

Association between the 2008–09 Seasonal Influenza Vaccine and Pandemic H1N1 Illness during Spring–Summer 2009: Four Observational Studies from Canada

Danuta M. Skowronski, Gaston De Serres, Natasha S. Crowcroft, Naveed Z. Janjua, Nicole Boulianne, Travis S. Hottes, Laura C. Rosella, James A. Dickinson, Rodica Gilca, Pam Sethi, Najwa Ouhoummane, Donald J. Willison, Isabelle Rouleau, Martin Petric, Kevin Fonseca, Steven J. Drews, Anuradha Rebbapragada, Hugues Charest, Marie-Ève Hamelin, Guy Boivin, Jennifer L. Gardy, Yan Li, Trijntje L. Kwindt, David M. Patrick, Robert C. Brunham, for the Canadian SAVOIR Team

PLOS Medicine: published April 6, 2010 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000258

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  1. Does Seasonal Influenza Vaccination Increase the Risk of Illness with the 2009 A/H1N1 Pandemic Virus?

Economic Appraisal of Ontario's Universal Influenza Immunization Program: A Cost-Utility Analysis

Beate Sander, Jeffrey C. Kwong, Chris T. Bauch, Andreas Maetzel, Allison McGeer, Janet M. Raboud, Murray Krahn

PLOS Medicine: published April 6, 2010 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000256

Early Emergence of Ethnic Differences in Type 2 Diabetes Precursors in the UK: The Child Heart and Health Study in England (CHASE Study)

Peter H. Whincup, Claire M. Nightingale, Christopher G. Owen, Alicja R. Rudnicka, Ian Gibb, Catherine M. McKay, Angela S. Donin, Naveed Sattar, K. George M. M. Alberti, Derek G. Cook

PLOS Medicine: published April 20, 2010 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000263

The Effect of Rural-to-Urban Migration on Obesity and Diabetes in India: A Cross-Sectional Study

Shah Ebrahim, Sanjay Kinra, Liza Bowen, Elizabeth Andersen, Yoav Ben-Shlomo, Tanica Lyngdoh, Lakshmy Ramakrishnan, R. C. Ahuja, Prashant Joshi, S. Mohan Das, Murali Mohan, George Davey Smith, Dorairaj Prabhakaran, K. Srinath Reddy, for the Indian Migration Study group ¶

PLOS Medicine: published April 27, 2010 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000268

Related Articles

  1. Correction: The Effect of Rural-to-Urban Migration on Obesity and Diabetes in India: A Cross-Sectional Study

Alternative Strategies to Reduce Maternal Mortality in India: A Cost-Effectiveness Analysis

Sue J. Goldie, Steve Sweet, Natalie Carvalho, Uma Chandra Mouli Natchu, Delphine Hu

PLOS Medicine: published April 20, 2010 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000264

Preoperative/Neoadjuvant Therapy in Pancreatic Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Response and Resection Percentages

Sonja Gillen, Tibor Schuster, Christian Meyer zum Büschenfelde, Helmut Friess, Jörg Kleeff

PLOS Medicine: published April 20, 2010 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000267

What Can We Conclude from Death Registration? Improved Methods for Evaluating Completeness

Christopher J. L. Murray, Julie Knoll Rajaratnam, Jacob Marcus, Thomas Laakso, Alan D. Lopez

PLOS Medicine: published April 13, 2010 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000262

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  2. Mortality Measurement Matters: Improving Data Collection and Estimation Methods for Child and Adult Mortality
  3. Measuring Adult Mortality Using Sibling Survival: A New Analytical Method and New Results for 44 Countries, 1974–2006

Measuring Adult Mortality Using Sibling Survival: A New Analytical Method and New Results for 44 Countries, 1974–2006

Ziad Obermeyer, Julie Knoll Rajaratnam, Chang H. Park, Emmanuela Gakidou, Margaret C. Hogan, Alan D. Lopez, Christopher J. L. Murray

PLOS Medicine: published April 13, 2010 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000260

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Measuring Under-Five Mortality: Validation of New Low-Cost Methods

Julie Knoll Rajaratnam, Linda N. Tran, Alan D. Lopez, Christopher J. L. Murray

PLOS Medicine: published April 13, 2010 | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000253

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