Mental ill health forms an increasingly significant part of the burden of disease in developing countries. The growing interest in social risk factors for mental health coincides with the development of social capital research which may further inform the social model of mental health. The...

Urban growth has been accompanied by the development of bimodal labour markets and increasing inequalities in both North and South. In Southern cities, many of the poor have turned to the informal sector, in particular to street trade. This has resulted in a multiplicity of urban conflicts and...

The poverty and dramatic alteration in geographical composition of African cities have been associated with rapid urbanisation, the growth of the informal economy and migration. The latter has separated individuals from long-established social and kinship networks, and from familiar livelihood...

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 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...

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...

Private health services have expanded in many developing countries over the last 10 yr. Qualified private practitioners provide basic health care for poorer groups in urban areas, although health care planners frequently criticize them for providing poor quality of care, charging high fees...

In 2005, in recognition of the role of social factors in increasing health inequities, the World Health Organisation established the Commission on the Social Determinants of Health. South Africa is among the most unequal societies in the world. It faces serious public health challenges,...

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...