differences in blood lipids, insulin, and leptin persist with increasing age these could be of public health importance. As the provision of school dinners has changed little in the past five years, 1 the differences could be of continuing relevance. However, the extent to which the differences reflect dissimilarities in the composition of school dinners and home provided school meals or other aspects of the dietary patterns and health behaviours of the two groups remains uncertain.Despite these uncertainties, we can draw two general conclusions. Firstly, the lower mean folate concentration seen among pupils eating school dinners suggests that new initiatives likely to increase the folate content of school dinners would be appropriate.5 Secondly, the other differences seen suggest that the average health status of pupils eating school dinners is no worse-and may actually be better-than that of pupils eating meals provided from home. This suggests that efforts to improve the diet and nutrition of British children and adolescents will need to extend beyond school dinners to tackle overall dietary patterns and their societal determinants if they are to be successful.We are grateful to the research team members and to the participating schools and pupils. We thank P M Ueland and H Refsum (department of pharmacology, University of Bergen) for the measurement of serum folate.

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractIncreasing numbers of young people use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for education, work and leisure activities. Research on ICT and Upper Limb Disorders (ULDs) in adults has shown that functional impairment, pain and discomfort in the upper limbs, neck and shoulder increases with frequency and duration of exposure to computer use. This paper reports secondary analyses of the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children: WHO Collaborative Cross-National Study (HBSC). Data from 11-, 13-and 15-year-olds living in Scotland have been used to illustrate that extended periods of time spent computing are associated with neck/shoulder pain and headache. This is a topic which warrants a place on the Health Education agenda.

This study demonstrated that severity of DPN symptoms was associated with increased healthcare resource use, thus costs.

The nature of head injury in the elderly differs from that in younger adults. Fifty-four consecutive patients, aged 65 years or older admitted to a neurotrauma unit with head injury over a six-month period, were identified to determine the causes and medical and social consequences. Falls accounted for the great majority of cases, and alcohol consumption was an important contributory factor in males, while pedestrian road accidents were responsible for most deaths. A routine investigative screening procedure was evaluated. When visited after discharge, 72% of survivors had experienced a change in functional status with increased family involvement and use of community support services. This group was significantly older (p less than 0.01) than those whose status had not changed. A third of the survivors had changed their living circumstances at review. It is suggested that such patients could benefit from increased involvement of the geriatric services.

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