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Objectives: This study sought to provide data on the relationship of work exposures to long-term back problems in a population survey., Methods: The Ontario Health Survey in 1990 used a representative population sample of the province. It included data on long-term back problems, occupational activity, and physical work exposures. The current study examined relationships between these variables., Results: The prevalence of long-term back problems was 7.8% in working-age adults. It generally increased with age. Long-term back problems were more prevalent in blue-collar occupations and among those not working, as well as among people with less formal education, smokers, and those overweight. Physical work exposures--awkward working position, working with vibrating vehicles or equipment, and bending and lifting--were all associated with a greater risk of back problems. The number of simultaneous physical exposures was monotonically related to increased risk., Conclusions: Within the limitations of the data and assuming the relationship to be causal, about one quarter of the excess back pain morbidity in the working population could be explained by physical work exposures.

Public health clients in an Ontario community 65 years of age or older were randomly allocated to receive an intervention by a public health nurse during a home visit promoting either influenza immunization or safety measures. There was no statistically significant differences in influenza immunization rates between these two groups (56.1% vs 56.6%). Men were significantly more likely to receive immunization.

A multidisciplinary group has developed a health index questionnaire designed to measure the social, emotional, and physical function of free-living populations. The strategy has been found to be generally applicable, capable of application by lay interviewers, acceptable to interviewees, and amenable to index construction. Furthermore, initial evaluations of the resulting health indices suggest that they are biologically and clinically valid. These health indices have been successfully applied in a randomized trial of innovative primary care services. The comceptualization of individual sections of the health index questionnaire for each of these three functional areas, the generation of the instrument, and the evaluation of questionnaire responses for their biologic and clinical validity are summarized here.

We conducted a randomized controlled trial of a public health and education screening program aimed at all 4,797 four to five year old children registering for kindergarten in three school districts of southern Ontario, Canada. Children received either the Denver Developmental Screening Test (DDST) with a community health intervention program for positive screeness; the DDST with no intervention for positive screenees; or no screening test. The intervention program consisted of referral to the child's physician for assessment; a review conference between the child's teacher and the school health nurse; parent counseling; and monitoring of the child in school by the school health nurse. At the end of the third school year, no differences were found between positive screenees in the community health intervention group and the "no intervention" groups using individual academic achievement, cognitive, and developmental tests. Parents' reports revealed no differences between groups in children's mental, social, and behavioral well-being. However, parents of intervention program children had more worry about their child's school progress suggesting a potentially harmful labeling effect. In comparison to a random sample of children with normal DDST results, or a random sample of children who had randomly not been screened, the children with positive preschool DDSTs had substantially more school problems three years after screening.