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This study was carried out among teachers of 10 secondary schools in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in order to contribute to the development and implementation of a tobacco control programme in the school setting. The study had the following objectives: 1) to determine the extent of teachers' smoking addiction in the secondary schools in the city of Ouagadougou, 2) to describe the perceptions, attitudes and behaviour of teachers in the secondary school setting when confronted with smoking in the city's schools, 3) to determine the teachers' level of knowledge with respect to the harmful effects of smoking. The study was carried out from May 25 to June 30, 2001, and it included 300 teachers, 218 of which were men and 82 women. The study demonstrated that it is important to inform and sensitise teachers based upon their attitudes and perceptions with respect to tobacco.

A medical prescription may sometimes include errors which might have a negative impact on the patient's health. The objective of this study was to analyse the key elements of medical prescriptions given to patients covered by the Ouagadougou social security health insurance system. The population of practitioners included in the study comprises all of the medical doctors practicing in Ouagadougou. The study consisted of a review of all prescriptions registered by the family benefits and professional hazards service branches dating from January 1st to December 31st 1997. The identification of the doctors and patients was satisfactory in more than 97% of the prescriptions. However, certain errors were frequent such as the omission of the treatment's duration, the medication's dosage, and the form. The oversights observed were comparable to those described in the literature. Repeating similar periodic evaluations with a systematic feedback relayed to the practitioners will bring about an improvement of medical prescriptions.

This paper addresses the issue of reporting results back in Health and demographic surveillance systems (HDSS). In these particular research platforms, populations are constantly solicited through the longitudinal demographic follow-up and additional surveys. Therefore, reporting results back directly to participants should be considered as a strong ethical requirement. However, like in most health oriented research, results are mostly disseminated among decision makers and local authorities. Therefore, HDSS residents increasingly question the objectives of these studies. Using a participatory approach, 3 days were organized in 2015 to report back findings based on 50 years of research on population, health and environment in the Niakhar HDSS in Senegal. Drawing from the evaluation conducted among a sample of participants to the event, we show that beyond the ethical dimension, such activities may also contribute to change populations' attitudes to research practices and further influence individuals' health behaviors at the local level.