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Abstract: In the European context, medium sized cities play a key role in organizing the territory at the regional level. Studies on commuting and travel behaviour often refer to large metropolitan areas, but results are not directly transferable because of differences in resources and processes. In addition, data availability is typically reduced to national datasets, thus most studies cannot be replicated. This paper analyses spatial commuting trends in two English medium sized cities with different spatial patterns. Locally disaggregated nationwide available census data and registry of planning applications were analysed with multiple linkage analysis and complementary indices. Results indicate that commuting trips to the city centre dominate in both monocentric and dispersed urban areas regardless of the presence of motorways. However, differences were found in the distance and number of trips as well as in the relationship between mode of transport and type of accommodation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article offers an overview of two research projects that are concerned with investigating the histories, social organisation and impacts of women's movements. It introduces FEMCIT (Gendered Citizenship in Multicultural Europe: the impact of contemporary women's movements), a transdisciplinary, cross-national European research project, and Sisterhood and After, a UK-based oral history project, outlining their specific research questions, loci and research designs. The article raises a number of key issues that arise in researching women's movements that are then taken up in the eight paired papers that follow: method and research design; difference and diversity; place, space and nation; and understanding impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has contributed to confirming the link between education and health in developed countries. The analysis is based on 11 European Union countries. We estimate country-specific health functions, where the dependent variable is self-reported health status and the education attainment is one of the main inputs. All eight waves (1994–2001) of the European Community Household Panel are deployed. A random effects ordered probit is estimated in order to control, to a given extent, for unobserved heterogeneity. Explanatory variables are both time invariant (education attainment and gender) and time varying (gross wages, hours of work, age and living alone). Results confirm the positive impact of secondary education on health in most cases and tertiary education in all cases, even after controlling for other inputs in the health function and taking unobserved heterogeneity into account. Secondary education has an impact on health in all countries in the sample except for The Netherlands and UK. The effect does not differ between secondary and tertiary education in France, Ireland and Greece. The correlation between education and health is interpreted in different but complementary ways by diverse approaches and we may not disentangle the precise mechanism that connects health with education from our results. Anyway, it seems clear that better coordination is needed between education and health policies to effectively improve health literacy. Other relevant results from our study are that women register poorer health than men, age contributes to worsening health status and wages contribute positively to health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the right to health care. Various expressions of this right may be distinguished. These include both individual rights and social rights which could be based upon international treaties and constitutional rights. They may be found in national health legislation and, in some cases, in jurisprudence. To analyze the consequences of limiting the right to health care, a framework for judicial review has been developed which encompasses these expressions of the right to health care. The framework was used to examine legal and health policy developments in three Western and two Eastern European countries. In Italy and the Netherlands the right to health care is protected constitutionally (but on differing legal bases) while the United Kingdom does not have a written constitution. In contrast, Hungary and Poland have for many years seen the state take responsible for the provision, administration and allocation of health care services and the right to health care was guaranteed theoretically but not in practice because of the lack of (financial) means. However, the Polish Constitution explicitly anticipates possible limitations of the right to health care. What all these countries have in common is a cost containment perspective where the future will bring even tighter limits on what resources patients may consume. Despite differences in legal structure between these countries, where they seem to converge is on the consequences of putting limitations on the right to health care. The courts in Italy, the Netherlands and the UK have formulated conditions drawn from the acceptance that this right has to be judged within the context of limited resources. It may be concluded that finding a compromise between the right to health care and cost containment policies could also be an issue, Eastern European countries will have to face in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]