The “Spanish Flu” killed over 40 million people worldwide in 1918. Archival records helped us identify seven men who died of influenza in 1918 and were interred in Longyearbyen. Svalbard, Norway, 1300 km from the North Pole. Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) was used successfully, in a high-resolution field survey mode, to locate a large excavation with seven coffins, near the existing seven grave markers. The GPR indicated that the ground was disturbed to 2 m depth and was frozen below 1 m. Subsequent excavation showed that: a) the GPR located the position of the graves accurately, b) the coffins were buried less than 1 m deep, and c) that the frozen ground was 1.2 m deep where the coffins were located. The GPR assisted in planning the exhumation, safely and economically, under the high degree of containment required. Virologic and bacteriologic investigations on recovered tissues may give us an opportunity to isolate and identify the micro-organisms involved in the 1918 influenza and expand our knowledge on the pathogenesis of influenza.

Climate change will disturb the Earth's physical systems (e.g. weather patterns) and ecosystems (e.g. disease vector habitats); these disturbances, in turn, will pose direct and indirect risks to human health. Direct risks involve climatic factors that impinge directly on human biology. Indirect risks do not entail direct causal connections between climatic factors and human biology.The Third Assessment Report (TAR) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change elucidates the potential human health impacts of global climate change at both a population and regional level.The impacts on child health, adult health, and the health of the elderly, however, remain largely unexplored. A paucity of research regarding women's health is also extant, despite increasing interest in the issue.According to the TAR, climate change is projected to affect such key issues as air quality, food yields and nutrition, water-related infectious diseases, and water supply. Exposure to cooking fuels, access to food, distribution of food within the family, and choice of water sources is often determined by gender. Thus, women's contributions may, in some cases, make them more vulnerable than their male counterparts to climate change. Moreover, it is anticipated that health care will significantly help people adapt to climate change. Unfortunately, not everyone has adequate health care. In some countries, fewer than 25 % of women visit health-care professionals.Climate change is likely to have a strong, positive (worsening) effect on smog and acidic deposition; climate change is likely to have some effect on suspended particulates.In light of the foregoing, this paper addresses the interrelated and neglected areas of global climate change, air pollution, and women's health.

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ObjectivesThe assessment of health care professionals’ attitudes and beliefs towards musculoskeletal pain is essential because they are key determinants of their clinical practice behaviour. The Pain Attitudes and Beliefs Scale (PABS) biomedical scale evaluates the degree of health professionals’ biomedical orientation towards musculoskeletal pain and was never assessed using item response theory (IRT). This study aimed at assessing the psychometric performance of the 10-item biomedical scale of the PABS scale using IRT.MethodsTwo cross-sectional samples (BeBack, n = 1016; DABS; n = 958) of health care professionals working in the UK were analysed. Mokken scale analysis (nonparametric IRT) and common factor analysis were used to assess dimensionality of the instrument. Parametric IRT was used to assess model fit, item parameters, and local reliability (measurement precision).ResultsResults were largely similar in the two samples and the scale was found to be unidimensional. The graded response model showed adequate fit, covering a broad range of the measured construct in terms of item difficulty. Item 3 showed some misfit but only in the DABS sample. Some items (i.e. 7, 8 and 9) displayed remarkably higher discrimination parameters than others (4, 5 and 10). The scale showed satisfactory measurement precision (reliability > 0.70) between theta values -2 and +3.DiscussionThe 10-item biomedical scale of the PABS displayed adequate psychometric performance in two large samples of health care professionals, and it is suggested to assess group-level professionals degree of biomedical orientation towards musculoskeletal pain.

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