Demographic data and data related to risks for blood-borne virus transmission, such as sexual activity, body piercing, tattooing, and injecting drug use, were collected.

The findings support the view that prisoner populations are vulnerable to blood-borne virus infection, particularly hepatitis B and C. Prisoner populations should be included in routine surveillance programs so as to provide a more representative picture of blood-borne virus epidemiology in Australia.

Skilled birth attendance (SBA) and essential obstetric care (EOC) are key strategies for reducing maternal and newborn mortality and morbidity globally. Lack of adequately trained competent staff is a key barrier to achieving this. We assessed the effectiveness of a new package of 'Life Saving Skills - Essential Obstetric and Newborn Care Training' (LSS-EOC and NC) designed specifically around the UN signal functions in seven countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Among 600 healthcare providers (nurse-midwives, doctors, clinical officers and specialists), knowledge about the diagnosis and management of complications of pregnancy and childbirth as well as newborn care significantly increased (p < 0.001). There was measurable improvement in skills (p < 0.001), and participants expressed a high level of satisfaction with the training. The training package was found to meet the needs of healthcare providers, increased awareness of the need for evidence-based care and encouraged teamwork.

Objective: To compare the health of Queensland women prisoners with that of community women using the target areas of public health promotion identified by Health Determinants Queensland as a framework. Methods: Data from the Queensland Women Prisoners' Health Survey was compared with published community data in each of the target areas. Results: Queensland women prisoners had poorer nutrition, did less exercise, had higher rates of smoking and had a greater prevalence of asthma and diabetes than women in the community. They seemed to have a greater prevalence of mental health disorders. Conclusions: Within the framework, women prisoners had significantly poorer measured outcomes than community women in all areas except cervical screening, breast cancer screening and overweight and obesity. Implications: The Health Determinants Queensland target areas for Queensland women are of even greater priority in the subgroup of women prisoners. Benefits for the health of prisoners, and therefore the community, could be gained by expanding existing community health promotion activities to prisons through collaboration and partnerships.

The Short Form 36 1 is a widely used measure of health status based on well-being and functioning in physical and mental health contexts. It has been validated across numerous settings and has been used to compare the health of populations, 2 to investigate the associations between conditions and health within a population, 3 and to compare the health of the same population before and after an intervention. 4 In a broad health survey, mean scores for Queensland women prisoners ranged from 0.5 to 17.5 below female community Australian norms across the eight dimensions of the SF-36. 5 In all but one of the dimensions (physical functioning), the difference was statistically significant.The 1995 National Health Survey reported associations between lower SF-36 scores and overweight and obesity, unemployment, and overall socio-economic disadvantage.6 These are prevalent in Queensland women prisoners. 5 The National Health Survey also reported associations with smoking, diabetes and asthma. Eightythree per cent of Queensland women prisoners were current smokers at the time of the survey, and the prevalence of asthma (36.3%) and diabetes (8.5%) was higher than that of community women. 5 We explored the usefulness of the SF-36 as a comparative healthmonitoring tool in Queensland women prisoners by using oneway analysis of variance to examine the relationships between mean scores and categories of body mass index, employment, smoking, diabetes and asthma.Body mass index was associated with the physical functioning, role limitations due to physical problems and the general health perceptions dimensions in Queensland women prisoners. Those who were obese had the lowest mean scores.The dimensions of physical functioning and general health perceptions were associated with previous employment status. Those not in the workforce had the lowest mean score for general health perceptions, with the unemployed also scoring lower than those who were employed prior to imprisonment. Those not in the workforce also had the lowest mean score for the physical functioning dimension; however, the unemployed had the highest mean score for this dimension.SF-36 scores were not significantly associated with smoking status in this group of women prisoners.Diabetes was associated with a lower score for general health perceptions, and asthma was associated with a lower score for role limitations due to physical problems in Queensland women prisoners.Thus, in this group of women prisoners there were few significant associations with SF-36 score. Obesity was associated with most of the physical dimensions, but none of the mental dimensions. Employment demonstrated an unexpected relationship with the physical functioning dimension. This may have been due to a possible discrepancy between the time of employment status (before imprisonment) and the time relating to the SF-36 questions (the four weeks prior to survey).With regards to smoking, as 83% of the study population were current smokers, the non-smoking group consisted of 36 members. This high pr...