[Abortion in Hauts-de-France: When to expect the first appointment?] / Interruption volontaire de grossesse dans les Hauts-de-France : quel délai pour un premier rendez-vous ?

BACKGROUND: According to the French National Authority for Health ("Haute Autorité de santé"), the first appointment for an abortion should take place within five days of the request. Whether this deadline is met or not in the Hauts-de-France region is not known. AIM: The aim of this study was to measure the time needed to get a first appointment for an abortion in Hauts-de-France. METHOD: We conducted a telephone survey of health facilities, family planning and registered practitioners practicing abortions in the Hauts-de-France region, to determine the next appointment available for a woman requesting an abortion. The calls took place between April 10 and 14, 2017. The time needed to get a first appointment (means±standard deviations) was calculated for the region, the departments, the districts and the health facilities and practitioners. RESULTS: We contacted 93 health facilities and practitioners and 70 were included in the study. The time needed to get a first appointment for an abortion in Hauts-de-France was measured at 5.25±5.20 days: 6.32±4.72 days for health facilities, 3.84±5.11 days for gynecologists, 5.22±5.88 days for general practitioners and 0.67±0.58 days for private-practice midwives. Fifty-six percent of health facilities and practitioners gave the appointment within five days. Between the districts, the average time varied from 1 to 15.5 days. CONCLUSION: The average time needed to get a first appointment for an abortion in Hauts-de-France was near the 5-day deadline recommended by the French National Authority for Health. The training of private practice midwives and general practitioners may be the first step in shortening it in some districts where access to health care is limited.

[What are the conditions for the success of public health interventions?]. / Quelles sont les conditions de réussite des interventions en santé publique?

This article aims to identify the optimal conditions necessary for the implementation of public health interventions. In order to approach this question, the authors relied upon a review of the health promotion literature and on three evaluation reports on the processes undertaken within the framework of French regional health programmes and their British equivalent counter-parts. Based on the synthesis of this work, the article puts forth recommendations for carrying out public health interventions at the national, regional and local level. It concludes by offering some structural proposals for improving health programme implementation.

Molecular epidemiology of tuberculosis in the Nord Department of France during 1995.

In order to determine the current situation and to evaluate the human to human transmission of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Northern France, the genetic polymorphism of strains was studied by using IS6110 fingerprint. One hundred and fifty-eight cases of bacteriologically confirmed tuberculosis were analyzed. One hundred and twenty-six patients (82%) were infected with genetically different isolates and 28 isolates (18%) were grouped into 14 clusters. No risk factors for recent Mycobacterium tuberculosis infections such as age, HIV status, immigrants, living in big cities were identified. This study shows that there was no major epidemic situation of tuberculosis in Northern France in 1995. Tuberculosis was characterized by a low proportion of HIV positive patients and a high proportion of elderly patients.