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...

Research on policy processes has emerged over the last 30-40 years in Northern contexts. Such research has expanded into Southern contexts. An interest in the use of 'evidence' (such as research) in policy processes is a relatively recent phenomenon. There are, to date, relatively few empirical...

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...

Many developing countries are trying to improve the routine collection of health information by strengthening surveys, censuses, and registration systems. At the international level, too, efforts are underway to provide information on health and health interventions, including statistical...

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...