With limited time to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, progress towards improving women's and children's health needs to be accelerated. With Africa accounting for over half of the world's maternal and child deaths, the African Union (AU) has a critical role in prioritizing related policies and catalysing required investments and action. In this paper, the authors assess the evolution of African Union policies related to women's and children's health, and analyze how these policies are prioritized and framed.The main method used in this policy analysis was a document review of all African Union policies developed from 1963 to 2010, focusing specifically on policies that explicitly mention health. The findings from this document review were discussed with key actors to identify policy implications.With over 220 policies in total, peace and security is the most common AU policy topic. Social affairs and other development issues became more prominent in the 1990s. The number of policies that mentioned health rose steadily over the years .This change was catalysed by factors such as: a favourable shift in AU priorities and systems towards development issues, spurred by the transition from the Organization of African Unity to the African Union; the mandate of the African Commission on Human and People's Rights; health-related advocacy initiatives, such as the Campaign for the Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa (CARMMA); action and accountability requirements arising from international human rights treaties, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and new health-funding mechanisms, such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.Prioritization of women's and children's health issues in AU policies has been framed primarily by human rights, advocacy and accountability considerations, more by economic and health frames looking at investments and impact. AU policies related to reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health also use fewer policy frames than do AU policies related to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.We suggest that more effective prioritization of women's and children's health in African Union policies would be supported by widening the range of policy frames used  and strengthening the evidence base of all policy frames used. In addition, we suggest it would be beneficial if the partner groups advocating for women's and children's health were multi-stakeholder, and included, for instance, health care professionals, regional institutions, parliamentarians, the media, academia, NGOs, development partners and the public and private sectors. With limited time remaining to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), there needs to be accelerated progress to achieve MDGs 4 and 5 and improve women's and children's health . This isAfrican countries have a leadership role in developing and implementing the required policies and programmes to achieve progress in women's and children's health. However, many countries are faced with multiple development priorities and limited resources. Improving the health of women and children will require national commitment to the health agenda at the highest level.Regional bodies such as the African Union (AU) set regional policy priorities. They also increasingly influence national and global policies as the need for linking global and national initiatives and for partner coordination increases .The African Union has already shaped national health priorities. For instance, in 1999, the African Union became the first and only regional body to pass a charter on the rights of the child. In 2006, the Protocol to the African Charter of Human and People's Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa became the first convention to mandate state provision of comprehensive reproductive and sexual health services . This reAfrican Union policies have also been instrumental in persuading some African policy-makers to recognize HIV/AIDS , leadingAs with HIV/AIDs and other issues, the African Union can be an important stakeholder in promoting commitments to improve the health of women and children and ensuring accountability for their implementation. The Campaign for the Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa, led by the African Union, has been launched in 34 countries . In 2010This paper analyses how the African Union has prioritized policy-making on women's and children's health, and outlines the implications of the trends and how policy-making can be strengthened.The main method used in this policy analysis was a document review of all African Union policies developed from 1963 to 2010, focusing specifically on policies that explicitly mentioned health. The findings from this document review were discussed with key experts to identify policy implications.To conduct the document review, all African Union Head of State Assembly Outcome Documents were obtained from the African Union online archive . "Outcomper se: one for African Union governance and one for cross-cutting policies. The combined list of the eight African Union portfolios and the two additional categories are :The 884 policies found in the 55 outcome documents were categorized according to the 8 portfolios of the African Union Commission Table . Policie1. African Union Governance: Core Business Management, Development of Strategies, Implementation Facilitation, Costs, Appointments, New Structures.2. Cross-cutting: Development, Poverty Reduction, Regional Cooperation, and any declarations that cover issues in more than one category.3. Economic affairs: Economic Integration, Monetary Affairs, Private Sector Development, Investment and Resource Mobilisation.4. Human resources, science and technology: Education, Information and Communication Technology, Youth, Science and Technology, Human Resources.5. Infrastructure and energy: Energy, Transport, Communications, Infrastructure and Tourism.6. Peace and security: Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution, and Terrorism Issues.7. Political affairs: Democracy, Human Rights, Good Governance, Electoral Institutions, Humanitarian Affairs, Civil society Organisations, Refugee Matters.8. Rural economy and agriculture: Rural Economy, Agriculture and Food Security, Livestock, Environment, Water, Natural Resources and Desertification9. Social affairs: Health, Children, Drug Control, Gender, Labour and Employment, Sports and Culture, Migration10. Trade and industry: Trade, Industry, Customs and Immigration MattersThe numbers of policies developed in each of these categories were compared across time to determine historical trends in AU policy-making.per se, resulting in a total of 55 health policies that were included in this analysis.In order to identify health-related policies, a full text keyword search of the 55 outcome documents using the term "health" was conducted. This search yielded 56 policies from across all portfolios. One of these policies was excluded as the reference was to 'healthy management' practices and not to health Some specific health policies-for example on Polio or HIV/AIDS-were not captured in the keyword search using "health". Traditionally all health-related policies are located within the Social Affairs portfolio. To ensure that all policies related to health were captured, the authors further reviewed and categorized the 102 policies within the Social Affairs portfolio based on their reference to specific health topics e.g. AIDS/TB/Malaria, reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health (RMNCH), and to women's and children's rights to health and development .In order to identify how and why women's and children's health is prioritized in African Union policies, the authors analysed all health-related policies, according to the main arguments or "frames" used. Based on a review of previous policy analyses -22 a preAccountability: legal, policy, and monitoring requirements, including human rights, and African Union and Millennium Development Goals reporting.1. Advocacy: prioritization statements from influential stakeholders, media coverage, events, and advocacy campaigns.2. Economic: social and economic development, including trade, productivity, cost-effectiveness analysis, efficiency and trade-offs.3. Health: scientific evidence and technical information on health outcomes, effective interventions and health systems.4. Other: anything falling outside of frames 1-4, such as cultural norms and references.5. In additional to these frames, and in line with Walt's framework of policy analysis, which promotes a review of content and context of policies, as well as a review of actors and processes that influence policy-making , the codUsing these coding parameters, two analysts first coded a random sample of 5 of the 81 health-related policies. The coding was done in Excel. The inter-rater reliability was assessed, and through an iterative process, the analysts identified discrepancies in coding, refined the analytical frames in discussion with the research team and retested inter-rater reliability. The final intercoder agreement was 0.80, which is considered acceptable .The authors also compared the policy frames used in AU policies related to MDGs 4 and 5 on reproductive, maternal and child health, with AU policies on MDG 6 related to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.To validate the findings and discuss policy implications, results of the document review were discussed with a purposive sample of 10 key actors involved in the African Union and in health policy and processes on the continent.The actors included high-level representatives of the African Union, ministries of health and non-governmental organizations working on African Union issues.Interviews were conducted in a semi-structured format with written notes (Annex 2-list of questions). Discussions included a report by the interviewer of the preliminary findings of the document review and information from key actors on the reasons underlying review findings, policy implications of these findings and recommendations for how, based on results, women's and children's health could be further prioritized.Participating experts were informed of the intent and purpose of this research and were informed that their views would help shape the content of this policy analysis. They were made aware that the interviews would guide the direction of the document and would be referenced anonymously in the paper. Oral consent was sought during the interview and the research paper was circulated to interviewees to ensure that content reflected the discussions.This analysis has certain limitations. Because policies were identified using a health keyword search, a number of analysed policies may not have referred to health issues, i.e. policies nominating regional candidates for the position of Secretary General of the World Health Organization. As such the analysis of the 'other' policies that refer to health, mix policies on health issues, i.e. avian flu as well as policies on social determinants, as well as policies on political issues.Additionally, the low number of discussions with experts to inform policy implications and recommendations and the fact that interviewed experts are all current office bearers represents a limitation, as their expertise did not expand over the full period of existence of the Organization of African Unity and African Union.Since 1963, 55 African Union summits resulted in a total of 884 policies. 25% of these policies focus on peace and security, 17% on political affairs, and 14% on African Union governance. Economic and social affairs policies account for 11% and 12% of all AU policies respectively   than do AIDS/TB/malaria-related policies (2.5 frames per policy). Within women's and children's health-related policies, human rights policies use the most frames to justify investments in women's and children's health and development. Overall, AIDS/TB/malaria policies use the health and economic frames slightly more often than women's and children's health policies Table .The frames used to prioritize women's and children's health based on our review of the 81 documents that mention health are now discussed in the following sections in alphabetical order.Women's and children's health is often framed using human rights, and the health of women and children is often addressed by rights policies. Between 2001 and 2010, there were 13 policies on women's and children's rights, empowerment and health, but there were only five policies specifically focused on Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5.Rights policies address health issues related to women and children and define government obligations to provide health services. For example, the 2005 Protocol to the African Charter of Human and People's Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa addresses an array of gender-related health issues and other determinants of health. These include: access to education and food; child labour and forced labour; physical and sexual violence; harmful traditional practices; early marriage; reproductive health rights; maternal mortality; cancers; menopause; and mental disorders.Legal, policy, and monitoring requirements-including human rights and African Union reporting-account for 42% of frames used by women's and children's health policies, 31% for AIDS/TB/malaria policies and 25% for other health policies.Advocacy statements, policies and related activities constitute 33% of the frames used in AIDS/TB/malaria policies, and 31% of those used in women's and children's health policies. Advocacy statements have considerably increased in policies that refer to women's and children's health.Referencing global goals and policies such as the Millennium Development Goals and regional events such as the World Summit on the Child has been significant. In the 2010 African Union Declaration on Maternal, Infant and Child Health and Development in Africa, member states:"Individually and collectively reaffirm our previous commitments aimed at accelerating the health of our people and the social development of Africa. In this regard, we re-dedicate ourselves and commit our countries to accelerate efforts to improve the state of health of Africa's women and children and thereby attain all Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) particularly MDGs 4, 5 and 6 by 2015."Health frames include research, evidence and information on health outcomes and the burden of diseases. 17% of the frames used in AIDS/TB/malaria policies are health, 15% are in women's and children's health policies.Generally in these policies, claims of the severity of the women's and children's health situation are not substantiated by scientific data.Economic frames in policy include the use of arguments based on socioeconomic development, cost effectiveness and investment. Economic arguments constitute 13% of frames used in women's and children's health policies, 19% of those used in AIDS/TB/malaria policies and 37% of those used in other policies that mention health."Recognises with concern that poor maternal, infant and child health remains a major challenge confronting the continent and undermining its development efforts".The use of the economic frame in women's and children's health policies is infrequent and unspecific. An example is seen in the 2008 Declaration on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, which: "African Women produce over 70% of the food crops in many parts of the Continent".The bulk of policies that cite the contribution of women and children to development do not define or quantify it, or estimate the consequences of ill health. The closest numerical definition of the contribution of women to development is seen in the 1990 Resolution on the World Summit states that: The cost-effectiveness of women's and children's health interventions is also rarely used as an argument.The document review yielded some findings that can be used to shape knowledge and advocacy efforts to prioritize and strengthen references to women's and children's health in African Union Policies.The African Union predominantly views the health of women and children as a human right. This is seen in the inclusion of health entitlements in rights policies as well as in the referencing of rights policies in women's and children's health policies. Those organizations and individuals wishing to promote a post-2015 agenda for health can make use of the continued framing of women's and children's health in the rights discourse . The rig"as the African Union becomes stronger, these policies will become more important because most of them incorporate monitoring and reporting clauses."Accountability and monitoring requirements are heavily referenced in African Union policies, and receive substantial attention within the assemblies. These requirements provide an entry point for the issue to remain on the policy agenda. This use of the accountability may become more pertinent, especially as the recognition of the African Union increases globally, regionally and nationally. One public health expert notes that Advocacy plays an important role in prioritizing issues. In part, this is due to the increased participation of advocates in African Union dialogue since the inception of the African Union in 2002. Advocacy for policy prioritization takes many shapes. For instance, prior to and during the July 2010 Summit, many articles appeared in Kampala and regional journals pointing to efforts undertaken by some countries to improve women's and children's health, highlighting the lack of progress in others and comparing regional health spending by all countries -28.While the use of the advocacy frame has been successful it has been challenging for the women's and children's health community. As noted by a public health specialist:Where the AIDS paradigm has a central message, and malaria has insecticide-treated nets, [advocacy for] reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health is complex. The messages range from coverage of different interventions along the continuum of care, to health systems issues and social determinants. When disaggregated, we note that a lot of them fall outside of the health sector. Grappling with the complex recommendations behind reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health has been challenging, and advocacy messages need to be simplified.""The women's and children's health community should pursue its efforts in aligning and simplifying communication on key interventions to maximize campaign impact.While scientific evidence on trends in Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 and related interventions, policies, financing and practices  exists, Health advocates may choose to look at more effective ways to package, promote and disseminate these data to policy-makers in countries to ensure that policies are evidence-based. In addition to demonstrating that the implementation of affordable packages of interventions can save lives, they may also consider that this information will point to the severity of the women's and children's health crisis. As noted by one public health specialist:"The AIDS and malaria movements, using health outcomes and impact of these diseases on the societies, have managed to position these diseases as crises. While stakeholders acknowledge that maternal, newborn and child health is a problem, they are rarely aware of the magnitude of this problem, and this is because [the health] community has not positioned the issue using scientific communication. We have tabled our messages on emotional argumentation."In addition to providing scientific evidence on the health burden, its causes and remedies, increased effort to demonstrate the economic impact of women's and children's health on national and regional economies would help to prioritize this issue among Heads of States. This is reflected in the intervention of certain Heads of States during the 2010 Summit who noted that while the health of women and children is a cause for concern, the attention provided to the issue must be shared with other sectors that have a direct bearing on countries' growth and productivity .Evidence of the productivity gains related to improved women's and children's health exists, though it is sparse and tends to reflect global figures. USAID estimates annual global losses in productivity due to maternal and newborn deaths at US$15 billion . RegionaThe proven cost-effectiveness of women's and children's health interventions is also rarely used as an argument, although clear evidence to support investment does exist. For example, research has indicated that for every dollar spent on family planning, four dollars are saved on treatment for complications of unwanted pregnancies .However, economic evidence varies greatly in quantity, quality and availability, which perhaps explains the restricted use of the economic frame. Traditional reluctance to justify health investment in economic terms may also be a factor. One health expert notes:"There has traditionally been some resistance by the health community to using economic arguments to justify health investments because of a reluctance to associate health spending to returns to the state. This trend is slowly subsiding and research on the impact of health investment is increasing."Formal processes for prioritizing issues within African Union Assemblies include African Union Commission requests and recommendations; member state requests; and outcomes of regional ministerial conferences."One day when optimal processes have been put in place we will have reached global goals through continental mechanisms. CARMMA is one of these ideal processes."The African Union Commission aims to prioritize health issues based on member state interests and concerns . This gives programmes legitimacy and encourages their implementation by countries. One expert notes the importance of this consultative process in the success of health campaigns resulting from initiatives such as the International Conference for Population and Development (ICPD). Another expert states the need to take account of local factors when pursuing globally agreed goals: In addition to supporting the reflection of country priorities in the African Union agenda, the Commission plays a crucial role in defining it. The current Commissioner for Social Affairs has successfully positioned women's and children's health as a crucial issue for the continent, and has been the principal voice behind the regional campaign targeting its improvement. The Campaign for the Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa (CARMMA) is an example of a successful campaign being pushed by the Commission. Having been launched at the highest political level in 34 countries in Africa (as of March 2011), CARMMA reflects successful national ownership and prioritization of women's and children's health .The Commission also monitors the implementation of policies. However, the proliferation of policies and the limited personnel and resources of the African Union Commission make the implementation of these policies and efforts to hold stakeholders accountable, daunting tasks. The monitoring of implementation in countries is a particular challenge. One expert notes:"African Union Declarations provide ministries of health with the leverage we need in our national, regional and international advocacy. However more needs to be done to ensure strong, compelling monitoring of the implementation of these policies in countries. Partners need to support the African Union so that it can systematically provide sound progress reports on the implementation."Other regional institutions also contribute to prioritization of health on the continent. The Pan African Parliament, created in 2001, to ensure a representation of the voices of African populations in regional decision- making, intervened in favour of maternal, newborn and child health during the July 2010 Summit. While the body currently does not have legislative powers, it aspires "to evolve into an institution with full legislative powers, whose members are elected by universal adult suffrage" . An asseCurrently relegated to an advisory role, the body still contributes to regional prioritization. For instance, in October 2010, the Pan African Parliament Assembly adopted a motion adopting the Africa Parliamentary Policy and Budget Action Plan for Implementation of July 2010 AU Summit Decisions on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health and Development in Africa, and Partnership for Eradication of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV and AIDS . In 2011Similarly, the African Court on Human and People's Rights has a strong health element to its work . To dateThe Africa Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) assesses progress on health through its socioeconomic development remit . For exaStrong actor networks can generate, through advocacy efforts, increased attention for women's and children's health at both country and regional levels . The resFor example, during the Summit, health campaigners, development partners and Ministers of Health and Finance were invited to debate health financing during a high-level side event on health financing. Advocates were also invited to speak alongside Heads of States in the plenary session and requests from advocates such as Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, were included in the Summit outcome document.With advocacy playing such an important role, it is crucial to harness the efforts of women's and children's health advocates by developing multi-stakeholder actor networks that reflect the needs of member states, while also spanning the continuum of care for women's and children's health . Until 2This division in policy topics across the continuum of care has also been seen in the actor networks. The first streamlined global advocacy efforts for women's and children's health began as recently as 2005, when three global partnerships merged: the Partnership for Safe Motherhood and Newborn Health; the Healthy Newborn Partnership; and the Child Survival Partnership.Although major networks of this type do not yet exist at regional level, effective actor networks are emerging and contributing to priority setting and policy implementation. Civil society groups have long been recognized as key actors in advocacy, and the development of the Africa Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Coalition, a regional NGO network on women's and children's health, was an important outcome of the July 2010 Summit . One exp"Coordinated partner action at the regional and country level is crucial to ensure the wide dissemination of Head of State commitments and accountability for results. NGO groups can be particularly helpful in this sense."Health-care professional associations in Africa can also influence priority setting and the accountability of states to produce results, either directly or by raising awareness of key issues ,49. ThesNon-traditional actors are beginning to play a role in advocacy for women's and children's health, including parliamentarians  and the The [women's and children's health] community must involve non-traditional stakeholders in the reshaping of advocacy messages and widen their scope of engagement.""To optimise their effectiveness nationally and regionally, actor networks should coordinate their work and involve the widest range of possible stakeholders. The Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health provides some direction on expanding the types of stakeholders involved in women's and children's health efforts and notes the roles to be played by each of these different partner constituencies . The proThe Commission on Information and Accountability for Women's and Children's Health has also anchored its recommendations on principles of national sovereignty and has placed the country at the center of accountability processes. Its recommendations are based on principles of national leadership and ownership of results, strengthening countries' monitoring and evaluation capacity and reducing reporting burdens of countries .Funding and resources are also key factors, because women's and children's health initiatives can be hampered by the lack of a funding mechanism. One expert notes:"Financing does impact policy prioritization ... in order to be most efficient and effective [funding] must come through a defined platform" [latform" .The benefits of sustained, coordinated funding are reflected in the prioritization of AIDS/TB/malaria in African Union policies. The Global Fund plays a major role here, contributing a high percentage of official development assistance and development assistance for health funding .Global actors have recognized the need for similar sustained commitments, and a substantial increase in health investment to close the "funding gap" for women's and children's health ,59. ReceIn 2007 and 2008, US$4.7 billion and US$5.4 billion were committed to women's and children's health activities in developing countries, respectively. These amounts reflect a 105% increase between 2003 and 2008 and improved prioritization of countries based on the burden of maternal and child deaths. However more remains to be done .Despite these new high-level commitments and subscription to the principles outlined in the Paris Declaration and the Accra Agenda for Action ,64, fundThis analysis demonstrates that in African Union policies, women's and children's health is prioritized using fewer frames than AIDS/TB/malaria. It also demonstrates that women's and children's health is most often framed using advocacy and accountability as opposed to health and economic arguments.Prioritizing women's and children's health in African Union policies could be strengthened by 1) widening the range of frames used to discuss these issues, and 2) developing a stronger evidence base to support both currently-used and new frames.The analysis also notes that regional institutions have and continue to play an important role in prioritizing women's and children's health. It identifies advocacy as an important mechanism to prioritize women's and children's health while ensuring links between global, regional and national priorities, and an alignment of partner efforts in reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health.In order to improve the prioritization of women's and children's health within African Union policy-making, women's and children's health stakeholders could: 1) support the African Union Commission and other regional bodies such as the Pan African Parliament in the prioritization of women's and children's health in policies, 2) strengthen existing regional and national women's and children's health networks in part by widening the range of partners to include the private sector, media and parliamentarians, and 3) align global efforts and campaigns with nationally-and regionally-defined priorities.In an environment where different priorities compete for funding, women's and children's health policies could claim more attention by using a wider range of frames. As noted by Heads of States in their Summit debate on women's and children's health, resource constraint is a key barrier to health investment. Therefore, the use of all available evidence would help advocates to make a more effective case for prioritizing women's and children's health in African Union policies.It seems likely that increased use of economic arguments would define women's and children's health as an investment, highlight the cost-effectiveness of health interventions and assist decision-makers in allocating scarce resources, by defining the synergies between investments in social determinants and health outcomes.To inform policy decisions more effectively, national and regional institutions have the option of gathering region-specific evidence on the cost savings that result from effective interventions, and on the impact of better health on growth and productivity. In the interim, existing global estimates, and regional calculations based on disability adjusted life years and gender disaggregated information, are available to inform policy discourse. Regional institutions could also gather evidence on the impact of investment on social determinants of health. This would inform debate by decision-makers about how to invest in other sectors that have an impact on women's and children's health, such as water and sanitation, education and transport ,68.The Lancet and in processes such as Countdown to 2015.Increased use of health frames would also aid the case for greater prioritization of women's and children's health, by providing compelling, specific evidence for the effectiveness of proven interventions. Much of the evidence on health outcomes already exists, and is reported by international journals such as The African Union Commission and related bodies such as the Pan African Parliament are key fora for advocacy in favour of women's and children's health. However, their resources  are stretched, and they would benefit from increased capacity to engage fully in advocacy and follow-up at regional, sub-regional and national levels. Increasing the capacity of regional institutions can be done through the financing of health-related programs, specific projects and staff. Additionally, partners with wide country presence have the option of entering into joint planning with regional entities and acting as the implementing arms of regional agreements. For instance, partners could track a certain number of indicators to monitor progress on women's and children's health in countries which regional institutions can feed into their assemblies. These processes already exist but could benefit from being used more systematically and by a wider range of partners.While women's and children's health actors exist and are quite active, they have tended to operate in silos and focus on specific issues. We suggest that stronger and better coordinated actor networks, focusing across the continuum of care, would generate more effective advocacy, and encourage policy-making and implementation. National and regional committees on women's and children's health could be expanded to include-in addition to representatives from the Ministries of Health, donors and international organizations, health care professionals, academics and NGOs-the private sector, parliamentarians and the media. Collaboration among these partners would align efforts for more efficiency, improve the effectiveness of outlined strategies and widen the scope of actions to improve health.Women's and children's health actors also have the potential to facilitate better integration of national priorities in regional and global policies. For instance, the development of the Global Strategy sought to integrate perspectives from countries through consultations with country representatives. In the future, similar processes might use established regional networks such as the Africa Maternal, Newborn and Child Health NGO Network and processes such as African Union Ministerial meetings to ensure that global initiatives are based on national and regional priorities and recommendations.Campaigners for improved women's and children's health in Africa still face significant challenges. These include the limited capacity of the African Union bodies, the imperfect integration of national, regional and global priorities, and the lack of a central mechanism for the funding of women's and children's health. However, as our paper suggests, there is great scope for the African Union, other regional institutions and actor networks to work together more closely to develop and prioritize policies that improve the health of women and children in Africa.1. 1963 Health, Sanitation and Nutrition2. 1979 Declaration on the Rights and Welfare of the African Child3. 1985 Resolution on the Drawing up of a Programme of Assistance to Africa by UNESCO in the Fields of Scientific Research and Development4. 1987 Declaration of Health as a Foundation for Development5. 1987 Resolution on Universal Immunization in Africa6. 1987 Resolution on the Reconstruction of Chad7. 1987 Resolution on the Candidature of Professor Gottlieb Lobe Monessoko for the Post of Director General of WHO8. 1990 Declaration of the Assembly of Heads of States and Government of the Organization of African Unity on the Political and Socio-Economic Situation in Africa and the Fundamental Changes Taking Place in the World9. 1990 Resolution 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Declaration on Actions on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health and Development in Africa By 201555. 2010 Decision on the partnership for the eradication of mother to child transmission of HIV/AIDS56. 2010 Decision on the Report of Head of State and Government Orientation Committee on NEPAD1. 1992 Resolution on the Summit on the Economic Promotion of rural women presented by Senegal2. 1997 Decision: Harare Declaration on Malaria Prevention and Control3. 1998 Establishment of an African Fund for AIDS Control4. 1999 Decision on the ILO Convention on the Banning of the Worst Forms of Child Labour and Immediate Action for their Elimination5. 2000 Decision on the Report of African Summit on Roll-Back Malaria6. 2000 Decision on the Holding of an African Summit on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and other related infectious diseases7. 2001 Decision on the African Summit on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and other related infectious diseases8. 2001 Decision on the Pan-African Forum on the future of Children9. 2002 Decision on the report of the African Committee on the rights and welfare of the Child10. 2003 Decision on the Appointment of Members of the African Commission on human and people's rights11. 2003 Decision on the Draft Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People's Rights Relating to the Rights of Women12. 2004 Decision on AIDS Watch Africa (AWA) and the Implementation of the Abuja and Maputo Declarations on Malaria, HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Other Related Infectious Diseases in Africa13. 2004 Decision on the International Centre for the Education of Girls and Women in Africa (CIEFFA)-Doc. Assembly/AU/11 (V) Add.114. 2004 Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa15. 2005 Decision of the appointment of members of the African experts on the rights and welfare of the child16. 2006 Decision on the Progress Report on AIDS Watch Africa (AWA)17. 2006 Decision on the election of one member of the African committee on the rights and welfare of the child18. 2006 Decision on Abuja Call for Accelerated Action Towards Universal Access to HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (ATM) Services in Africa19. 2006 Decision on the continental framework for harmonization of approaches among member states and integration of policies on human rights and people affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa20. 2007 Decision of the reports on the implementation of the African Union solemn declaration on gender equality in Africa21. 2008 Decision of the reports on the implementation of the African Union solemn declaration on gender equality in Africa22. 2008 Decision of the appointment of members of the African experts on the rights and welfare of the child23. 2009 Decision on the African women's decade24. 2010 Decision on the Establishment of the Fund for African Women25. 2010 Decision on the Appointment of Members of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the ChildThe interviewees were asked to comment on:• The prioritization of women's and children's health in the African Union; whether this could be improved;• Which mechanisms and actors have contributed to the prioritization or de-prioritization of women's and children's health; and how these same mechanisms and actors could improve prioritization.• Their perception of the value placed on African Union policies by states and development partners, and how this value could be increased.APRM: Africa Peer Review Mechanism; AU: African Union; AWA: AIDS Watch Africa; CARMMA: Campaign for the Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa; EU: European Union; GAVI: Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization; ICPD: International Conference for Population and Development; MDGs: Millennium Development Goals; OAU: Organization of African Unity; PMNCH: Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health; WAHO: West African Health Organisation.The authors declare that they have no competing interests.KT: Conducted research and coding and wrote different iterations of the research article. RS: Advised on content of the research and assisted in conducting key expert interviews. SK: Contributed to the analysis and writing process and content. ES: Coded policies using the coding framework and helped refine coding framework. FB: Contributed to the design, analysis and writing of the paper. BO: Guided development of the overall paper. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.


There were errors in both the Funding and Competing interests.The correct versions of both are:Funding: This study was supported by the BIDMC Department of Medicine Foundation and Global Research Laboratory Award . The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Competing interests: The authors have read the journal's policy and have the following conflicts: CJL has a management position at Boston Biomedical, Inc, a company that develops cancer stemness inhibitors. This does not alter our adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.


The Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine's third with our new international publisher, Maney Publishing. I am pleased to report that the feedback on JSCM's new look has been overwhelmingly positive. Of greater importance is that with Maney's expanded online article access, the journal is more widely available to professionals and libraries around the world.This issue marks JSCM as a benefit for their members—the Academy of Spinal Cord Injury Professionals (the Academy) and the American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA).For the journal and the dynamic field of spinal cord injury, there's never been a more exciting time. The broad range of research and clinical activities of interest to our readers is evident in the 2011 meeting agendas for the two organizations that feature ISCoS-ASIA 2011 International Conference on Spinal Cord Medicine and Rehabilitation. More than 750 scientists and clinicians will be in attendance for the joint conference program, as well as the Spine Symposium on June 4 and the pre-course, The State of the Science in Spinal Cord Injury Rehabilitation, beginning June 5.From June 4 to 8, ASIA joins with the International Spinal Cord Society (ISCoS) for their shared meeting in Washington, DC—SCI Medicine - An Intensive Review Preconference Workshop. This comprehensive review of assessment and treatment and rehabilitation strategies is highly recommended, especially for those preparing for the Subspecialty SCI Certification and Maintenance of Certification Examination offered by the American Board of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation.Las Vegas, Nevada is once again the site for the Academy's annual conference, this time hosted at Rio All Suites Resorts and Casino from September 5-7. Look for the return appearance of Dr. Vernon Lin in JSCM looks forward to bringing you interdisciplinary content reflecting the diverse topics addressed in Washington, DC, and Las Vegas.Make time in your schedule for these terrific opportunities for education, inspiration, networking and relaxation. Comments and suggestions from our readers are always welcome.


There is an error in the funding statement. The correct funding is, “This work was conducted with support from Harvard Catalyst / The Harvard Clinical and Translational Science Center . The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of Harvard Catalyst, Harvard University and its affiliated academic health care centers, the National Center for Research Resources, or the National Institutes of Health. In addition, the funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.”


There was an error in the Funding statement. The correct Funding statement is available below:This work was supported by Guangdong Province Talent Introduction Project Grant and National Natural Science Foundation of China grant (81141115) to MH. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.


The following information is missing from the funding statement. "This work was supported by the Calleva Research Centre for Evolution and Human Sciences (DB)."The full funding statement is, "AM and MNA are funded by UT and IPM. BB was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the British Academy and European Research Council (Grant number: 309865). This work was supported by a StG grant from European Research Council to BB. This work was supported by the Calleva Research Centre for Evolution and Human Sciences (DB). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."


The funding project numbers were omitted from the published Funding statement. The correctFunding is:This work was supported by the grants from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China. The funders had norole in study design, data collection and analysis, desicion to publish, or preparation ofthe manuscript.


There was an error in the financial disclosure. The correct financial disclosure statement is: "This work was supported by grant 2/0104/09 from Scientific Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education of the Slovak Republic and the Slovak Academy of Sciences. MDH is supported by a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Studentship. JCC was supported by Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council grant BB/G019347/1 to M.J.Butner (John Innes Centre) and N.Le Brun (University of East Anglia). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."


There is an error in the Funding section. The correct funding information is as follows: The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (No. 81101782), NSF project CQ CSTC (No. CSTC2011BB5020), and NSF Third Military Medical University (No. 2010XQN36).Also, it should be noted that the date found in the footer of the downloadable PDF version of this article is incorrect. The correct date of publication for this article is April 2012, as stated in the Abstract and citation.


The correct version of the Funding statement should read "The Special Research Fund (BOF) partly funded this research. The University Foundation of Belgium also provided funding for this research. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."


Sir, We thank Dr Vishnu for his interest in our paper. We reported atrophy of the caudate and thalamus in presymptomatic familial Alzheimer’s disease mutation carriers at a stage when hippocampal atrophy was not yet evident . It was undertaken at UCLH/UCL, who received a proportion of funding from the Department of Health's National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centres funding scheme, and was supported by the NIHR Queen Square Dementia Biomedical Research Unit. NCF is a NIHR senior investigator. The Dementia Research Centre is an Alzheimer's Research UK Co-ordinating Centre and has received equipment funded by Alzheimer's Research UK and Brain Research Trust.This work was supported by the


There was an error in the published Funding statement. The correct Funding is: This study was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (Grant nº 32003B_127619) and by funds from the Department of Intensive Care Medicine, University Hospital and University of Bern. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.


Following publication of our article , we becaThis project was funded under Contract No. HHSA290200710062I from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The authors of this report are responsible for its content. Statements in the report should not be construed as endorsement by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.


There were errors in the Funding statement and in Table 3.The correct Funding statement is: This study was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.31270496). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.A correct version of Table 3 is available here:


Multiple funding organizations and grants were incorrectly omitted from the Funding Statement. The Funding Statement should read: "This work was supported by the Beijing Natural Science Foundation , the Beijing Excellent Talent Project (project number PHR20100510), Tianjin Health Bureau Technology Fund and the Beijing Key Laboratory of Major Brain Disorders (project number 2011NZDB01). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."


There is an error in the funding statement. The correct funding statement is, "Project supported by United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) Grants DA013261 DA019676 and MH083840. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."


There was an error in the Funding statement. The correct funding statement is: This work was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant (No. 2010-0014269), Republic of Korea. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.


Host and microbial molecular dissection of pathogenesis and immunity in tuberculosis; Grant agreement no.: 200732) to LG; by Italian Association for Research against Cancer (AIRC) grants to LG and FB. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript." A funding organization for the 12th and 14th authors was incorrectly omitted from the Funding Statement. The Funding Statement should read: "This work was funded by the European Community Seventh Framework Programme (Project acronym: HOMITB, Title:


A funding organization was incorrectly given in the Funding Statement. The Funding Statement should read: "Results for Development's Center for Health Market Innovations provided funds to complete this systematic review. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."


The correct Funding statement is, "This work was partly supported by the special fund for public scientific research from the Ministry of Water Resources of China (NO.201001003)


Life expectancy has been increasing during the last century within the European Union (EU). To measure progress in population health it is no longer sufficient to focus on the duration of life but quality of life should be considered. Healthy Life Years (HLY) allow estimating the quality of the remaining years that a person is expected to live, in terms of being free of long-standing activity limitation. The Joint Action on Healthy Life Years (JA: EHLEIS) is a joint action of European Member States (MS) and the European Union aiming at analysing trends, patterns and differences in HLY, as well as in other Summary Measures of Population Health (SMPH) indicators, across the European member states.The JA: EHLEIS consolidates existing information on life and health expectancy by maximising the European comparability; by analysing trends in HLY within the EU; by analysing the evolution of the differences in HLY between Member States; and by identifying both macro-level as micro-level determinants of the inequalities in HLY. The JA: EHLEIS works in collaboration with the USA, Japan and OECD on the development of new SMPHs to be used globally. To strengthen the utility of the HLY for policy-making, annual meetings with policy-makers are planned.The information system allows the estimation of a set of health indicators  for Europe, Member States and shortly their regional levels. An annual country report on HLY in the national languages is available. The JA: EHLEIS is developing statistical attribution and decomposition tools which will be helpful to determine the impact of specific diseases, life styles or other determinants on differences in HLY. Through a set of international workshops the JA: EHLEIS aims to develop a blueprint for an international harmonized Summary Measure of Population Health.The JA: EHLEIS objectives are to monitor progress towards the headline target of the Europe 2020 strategy of increasing HLY by 2 years by 2020 and to support policy development by identifying the main determinants of active and healthy ageing in Europe. Life expectancy at birth has steadily increased during the last decade in the EU27, by more than 3 years for men and 2 years for women, leading to accelerated population ageing. However gaps among Member States of the European Union (EU) have remained large, 13 years in both 1997 and 2010 for men, although for women gaps have slightly reduced from more than 9 years in 1997 to 8 years in 2010. Additionally the gender gap in life expectancy at birth remains high at 6 years in 2010 although it also has reduced over time. When the quality of the years lived is taken into account through health expectancies such as life expectancy in good perceived health, life expectancy without chronic morbidity, or life expectancy without disability, even larger gaps are seen among European countries. For instance, life expectancy without long-standing activity limitations or Healthy Life Years (HLY) show gaps in both men and women reaching close to 20 years in 2010 among Member States[The HLY is technically a Summary Measure of Population Health and part of the family of disability-free life expectancy indicators which measure the number of remaining years that a person of a certain age is expected to live without disability. A Summary Measure of Population Health brings together data on both the length and the quality of life and are As measures of population health, HLY and health expectancies in general have several strengths. Health expectancy indicators are more intuitive and understandable for policy makers and the public at large compared to mortality rates or morbidity incidence or prevalence rates. Health expectancies are typically estimated based on cross-sectional survey data and guidThe next step in this process was to structure and harmonize the calculation, analysis and interpretation of data collected through those surveys. This goal was achieved by the European Health Expectancy Monitoring Unit (EHEMU) and the European Health and Life Expectancy Information System (EHLEIS) project. EHEMU established an information system which facilitates the calculation of life and health expectancies in the EU and its Member States. This information system provides a central facility for the co-ordinated analysis and synthesis of life and health expectancies and provides evidence of inequalities between Member States, highlighting potential targets for public health strategies both nationally and at a pan-European level. EHLEIS extended the EHEMU activities by more in-depth analysis of trends and gender gaps in health expectancies,14 and oMaintain and continue developing a European Health and Life Expectancy Information System, in order to improve and harmonise calculations for the development of the Healthy Life Years – HLY – structural indicator”. Accordingly the JA: EHLEISWithin the programme of the Community action in the field of health, JA: EHL(i) consolidates the existing information system (EHLEIS) through promoting further European comparability, annual HLY calculations and dissemination  and upd(ii) further extends EHLEIS through analyses of micro-level health determinants using the new European Health Interview Survey (EHIS) and analyses of HLY gaps between socio-economic groups,(iii) develops an alternative Summary Measure of Population Health that can also serve as a common international measure beyond the EU,(iv) Integrates the Task Force on Health Expectancies into an In particular, in the trend and gap analyses the JA: EHLEIS utilises a range of health expectancies, including self-rated health, morbidity and disability. The JA also develops a study design for computing maximally comparable health expectancies by socio-economic status for the Member States that already have mortality data by socio-economic position. Finally, in collaboration with the main OECD countries, especially the United States of America (USA) and Japan, the JA: EHLEIS will provide a blue print for an improved new internationally comparable Summary Measure of Population Health, thus upgrading the current European HLY by a global indicator. A Summary Measure of Population Health that is comparable to the USA and Japan indicators is a necessary condition to achieve a grade “A” for European Structural Indicators. The international discussion will not focus on the health expectancy indicator as such but rather on the essential of how to measure the health or quality of life related information necessary to calculate the health expectancy.The Lancet in 2008 is a good example of HLY use in non-health policies[The JA: EHLEIS targets Member States, health and non-health policy makers at the regional, national and European level, health professionals and researchers, media, general public and Non Governmental Organizations (NGO). Increasing involvement of Member States in health monitoring is one of the main priorities of JA: EHLEIS as well as promoting their wider engagement in using HLY in policy-making. The annual public JA: EHLEIS meeting plays a central role in addressing these priorities. In addition, the work published by the EHLEIS group in policies. Scientipolicies,5 and onpolicies,16,20,21policies and Wikipolicies. The JA:A first major aim of the Joint Action is to maintain and continue developing the European Health and Life Expectancy Information System (EHLEIS), by providing online calculations of various health indicators  with confidence intervals, that are comparable among EU countries, and with improved dissemination, understanding, ease of access and public health relevance. The methods and means to meet this aim include: computational and web methodologies for the EHLEIS database; statistical and demographic analyses for the substantive results; linguistic methods for the translation/provision of the easy-to-use web facilities in multiple European languages and translation of the Country reports into national languages; and methodologies to address the conceptual basis of the HLY indicator and its greater comparability with Summary Measures of Population Health in the USA and Japan. The JA: EHLEIS further develops the EHLEIS system to allow rapid access to up-to-date data on health expectancies  from a variety of European databases , EHIS). The computational and web expertise to undertake this key foundation of the Joint Action come from Montpellier RIO Imaging. AnalysiThe main outcomes of the Joint Action will comprise:(i) An Information System allowing online calculation of health indicators ), combining population and mortality data with health information coming from European  and/or national surveys. All HLY-related websites will be organized in a new website;(ii) Country reports on HE: Part of a series, each annual report presents life expectancy and HLY for the country of interest and for the overall EU27 using the SILC question on long term activity limitation (GALI) included in the SILC survey since 2004 or 2005. The reports will be translated in the national languages and will be disseminated to national institutions;(iii) Proceedings of the JA: EHLEIS annual meetings: The annual meetings will consist of one half-day open to the public and media (back to back with the Enlarged Steering Committee). The main aim of the meeting is to encourage Member States to use health expectancies, including HLY, in their health, social and employment policies;(iv) Presentation of the new HLY values and latest trends in Europe and press communiqués;(v) Statistical tools - New version of attribution and decomposition tools, distributed with updated manuals through the website and deve(vi) Technical reports and scientific analyses exploring geographical variations in HLY within Europe, trends in HEs in Europe, social differentials in HLY across Member States and calibration of the Global Activity Limitation Indicator (GALI) with EHIS data;(vii) A blueprint for a new international Summary Measure of Population Health.In addition the Joint Action plans to present its work at major European Conferences such as the European Health Forum in Gastein and the The JA: EHLEIS contributes directly to two of the three objectives of the Second Programme of Community Action in the Field of Health 2008–2013: to promote health and to generate and disseminate health information and knowledge. The JA:The authors declare that they have no competing interests.JMR and CJ drafted the manuscript. All authors commented the draft versions. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.http://www.eurohex.eu/index.php?option=aboutehemu#team.The JA: EHLEIS team:


In the Funding statement, the number of a grant from the National Institutes of Heatlh to the first author (JK) is incorrect. The Funding statement should read: "This research was supported by National Institutes of Health . The Pennington Biomedical Genomics Core Facility is supported in part by COBRE (NIH P20 GM103528) and NORC (NIH 2P30DK072476) center grants from the National Institutes of Health. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."


There were multiple errors and omissions in the Funding Statement. The Funding Statement should read: "This work was supported in part by research grants of the Research Foundation Flanders , the Belgian Foundation against Cancer , the Methusalem program of the Flemish Government attributed to Prof Herman Goossens , the Interuniversity Attraction Pole program (IAP #P6/41) of the Belgian Government and the Belgian Hercules Foundation (www.herculesstichting.be). SA is a former PhD fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders and currently holds an Emmanuel van der Schueren Fellowship of the Flemish League against Cancer . SA was awarded a 2012 Endeavour Research Fellowship by the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education of the Australian Government (www.innovation.gov.au). SA also received financial support from the Belgian Foundation against Cancer and the Belgian public utility foundation VOCATIO (www.vocatio.be). EL was supported by a PhD grant of the Institute for the Promotion of Innovation through Science and Technology  and by an Emmanuel van der Schueren Fellowship of the Flemish League against Cancer. JT was supported by a grant from The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research . ELS is a post-doctoral fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript."


The corresponding author of the article was not correctly indicated. The correct corresponding author is not the last author, but instead the second author, Lei Ren. The corresponding author's email address is: lei.ren@manchester.ac.uk.In addition, two grant numbers from the Key Project of the National Science Foundation of China were incorrectly listed in the Funding Statement. The Funding Statement should read: "This work was supported by the International Cooperation Project of National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 50920105504), a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Grant (No.BB/H002782/1), the Project of National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51105167), the Fundamental Research Founds of China (No. Z201105), the Key project of National Science Foundation of China , the postdoctoral project  and the scientific and technological development planning project of Jilin Province . The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."


There is an error in the Funding statement that was omitted from the first correction. The complete, correct Funding statement is: The present study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China , Scientific Research Foundation of Hangzhou Normal University in China (2011QPL15 to F. L.), and National Institutes of Health Grants . The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.


There were errors in the Funding section. The correct funding information is as follows: This research was supported in part by facilitating funds from the George Washington University School of Medicine (SAM), National Science Foundation grant MCB-1121711 (SAM), and the Intramural Research Program of the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute project number ZIA BC01000617 (IOD). Imaging was supported by NIH NICHD 2P30 HD040677 and NIH NCRR 1S10RR025565-01. Dr Klein’s efforts were supported by the National Science Foundation while working at the Foundation. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.


The authors are grateful for a grant provided to CHC from Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (Scholarship No. 95802). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. There was an error in the funding statement. The correct funding statement is: The research was supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant no. 0347960 to LRG). MGS was funded in part by the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013;


There was an error in the Funding statement.The correct version of the Funding is: This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China  and Nature Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province (No. 2007K09-05(7)). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.


A funding organization and grant were incorrectly omitted from the Funding Statement. The Funding Statement should read: "The authors wish to thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41373073) and Zhejiang Science and Technology Program (2011F20025) for providing the financial support for this project. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. "


Of all the goals listed in last year's President's address, most of them were realized. The National Health Personnel Licensing Examination Board (NHPLEB) of the Republic of Korea earned the ISO 9001 certificate in August 2011. The Journal of Educational Evaluation for Health Professions (JEEHP) was accepted as an official journal of the Association for Medical Education in the Western Pacific Region. This means that a new international window was opened for communicating ideas on educational evaluation within the Western Pacific Region. Another remarkable project was two trial runs of an examination of ubiquitous-based testing (UBT) for medical technologist students in November and December 2011. Smart pads were kindly provided by Korea Telecom. Some bandwidth problems and procedural mistakes in the first examination were corrected in the second one. The response from examinees and the faculty was favorable to UBT suggesting the possibility of introducing UBT to the variety of national health personnel licensing examinations. At last November's meeting of the Board of the Korean Medical Licensing Examination, the NHPLEB was also asked to prepare for the introduction of computer-based testing (CBT) within 7 years. 2012 is the 20th anniversary of NHPLEB. To continue the success of the last 20 years of hard work and perspiration, a conference will be held this May. Here, the new short-term and long-term goals of NHPLEB and new educational evaluation projects will be discussed in depth, preparing plans for the next 20 years worthy of our pride and admiration. Among those planned projects, UBT and CBT will be implemented to two health personnel fields, medical technologists and dentists as trial run of examination.I have been pleased to observe the increase in the papers published through this journal. In 2012, I hope an even greater number of invaluable articles will appear in the journal to promote higher quality educational evaluation for health personnel.


The following information is missing from the Funding section: The funding source for this project is internal to Mayo Clinic and was provided by the Center for Individualized Medicine at Mayo Clinic. No additional external funding was received for this study. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.


A funding organization and grant were incorrectly included in the Funding Statement. The Funding Statement should read: "This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China  and Jiangsu Province's Outstanding Leader Program of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."


There was an error in the Funding statement.The correct version of the statement is: This study was supported by a Plastic Surgery Education Foundation Research Fellowship: “Mechanisms regulating fibrosis in chronic lymphedema” . Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Heart, Lung, And Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R01HL111130. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.


The affiliation for the second author is incorrect. Carla Bosia is not affiliated with Department of Physics and INFN, University of Torino, Torino, Italy but with Human Genetics Foundation (HuGeF), Torino, Italy. The correct affiliation is listed as #2 on the PDF but is not present on the HTML version of the paper.


The Funding statement in the article was incorrect. The correct version of the Funding statement is available below.The authors acknowledge the following sources of funding: The University of Liverpool, UK provided research costs; The University of Guadalajara, Mexico provided research costs and the Peter Lienhardt Memorial Fund and Philip Bagby Bequest from the University of Oxford, UK provided a travel grant. The funders played no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.


The number of one of the grant from the first funding body, National Natural Science Foundation of China, is incorrect. The correct grant numbers from this funding body are: 30830072, 31271703.


There were errors in the Funding section. The correction funding information is as follows: S.S. gratefully acknowledges the support of the Josef Sagol Fellowship for brain research at Tel Aviv University. This research was supported by the I-CORE Program of the Planning and Budgeting Committee and The Israel Science Foundation (grant No 41/11). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.


There were errors in the Funding section. The correct funding information is: This research was supported by the Key Project for Breeding Genetic Modified Organisms (2011ZX08012-004). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.


The recipient of the grant from the NIH was incorrectly omitted from the Funding Statement. The Funding Statement should read: "This research was supported by an NIH grant to Dr. Zili Zhang (R01 EY022937). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."


In addition, the seventh author, Han Lin, should be indicated as a corresponding author. Han Lin's email address for the purposes of correspondence regarding the article is: In the Funding statement, the name of a funding organization is incorrect. The Funding statement should read: "The work was supported in part by National Science Foundation of China (81271469) and Research Foundation of Doctor Program (20113321110003) to QL, Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province (Z2101211) to QL. The funder is the corresponding author of this study, and he gave final approval of the version to be published."


There is a sentence missing from the Funding Statement. The following is the correct Funding Statement:This work was supported with funding from the National Science Foundation (DEB 0083944) and the U.S. Geological Survey Wildlife and Invasive Species Programs. The Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Wisconsin provided funds for publication. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.


A funding organization for the 13th author, Richard Hamill, was incorrectly omitted from the Funding Statement. The following sentence should be included with the Funding Statement: "RJH was supported in part by resources provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs."In addition, an affiliation for the 13th author was incorrectly omitted from the byline. Richard Hamill is also affiliated with The Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center, Houston, Texas, United States of America.


There was an error in the Funding statement. The correct Funding is:This work was funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and also supported by National Institutes of Health grant CA095389 to IG. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.


The Funding statement is incorrect. The publisher apologizes for the error. Please view the correct funding information below:"This work was supported by CONICYT "Proyecto Anillo en Complejidad Social" SOC1101 and by the Millenium Center for the Neuroscience of Memory, Chile (NC10-001-F), which is developed with funds from the Innovation for Competitivity from the Ministry for Economics, Fomentation and Tourism, Chile. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."


Two funding organizations are incorrectly omitted from the Funding Statement. The Funding Statement should read: "Funding was provided by the Australian Institute of Marine Science, the Australian Government’s National Environmental Research Program and an Australian Research Council Grant. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.”


There was an error in the Funding statement. The correct version of the statement is available below.This work was funded by NIH R01 CA102184 (M.M). This work was also funded in part by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences-National Institutes of Health (projects: Z01ES100475 and Z01ES065079). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.


There was an error in the Funding statement. The correct statement should be:This work was supported in part by research grants from the Natural Science Foundation of China (#30772548 to Dr. Zhou), and Foundation from Excellent Master Dissertation of College of Laboratory Medicine at Chongqing Medical University (#201202). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.


PROSPERO is an international database of prospectively registered systematic reviews in health and social care. Between July 2012 and June 2013, 1,106 registrations were added, bringing the total since launch in February 2011 to 1,704. The value of the growing number of records is reflected in a 117% increase in page views in the first half of 2013 compared with the first half of 2012. Developments over the year included expansion of scope, improvement of the registration form and easier access to information on how to register. PROSPERO was launched in February 2011 as the first open access international prospective register for systematic review protocols. The aim of the register is to help prevent unintended duplication of systematic reviews by allowing those commissioning or planning reviews to identify whether there are any relevant reviews already underway. PROSPERO also aims to provide transparency in the review process and help identify potential biases by enabling comparison of reported review findings with what was planned in the protocol. Registration, which is free, requires entry of a minimum dataset that includes key information about the systematic review design and brief administrative details and was developed and agreed through international consultation. This letter briefly outlines activity and progress of PROSPERO from 1 July 2012 to 30 June 2013.Since its inception, there is evidence that PROSPERO is gaining increasing acceptance and visibility. Numbers of protocol registrations and register users have increased rapidly; 1,106 records were added to PROSPERO between July 2012 and June 2013, bringing the total number of registrations to 1,704  over the past year. As IP addresses can represent either a single user or a whole organisation , we know that this is a conservative estimate of usage. Nevertheless, register usage greatly increased in 2013 with 117% more page views in the first half of 2013 compared with the same period in 2012. This reflected the growing number of searchable records in the register.In January 2013, we published data on the utility of PROSPERO in its first year [Presentations about PROSPERO were well received at the EQUATOR Scientific Symposium in Freiburg  and the Plans for further PROSPERO developments include implementation of a new administration system with such functions as automated email reminders to help registrants keep their records up to date. The system will also facilitate the efficient addition of new Cochrane protocols to the register. A new search interface for the website is currently under development and is being informed by feedback from a recent survey of PROSPERO registrants and users.The PROSPERO team would like to thank the advisory group for their continued advice and support, and all registrants and register users. We always welcome feedback and would like to hear more from users, particularly if and how the register has been useful.CRD: Centre for reviews and dissemination; IP: Internet provider; NIHR: National Institute for Health Research.The development and ongoing management of PROSPERO is supported by the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination’s (CRD) core work programme, which is funded by the National Institute for Health Research, England; the Department of Health, Public Health Agency, Northern Ireland and the National Institute for Social Care and Health Research, Wales.AB is a research fellow at NIHR CRD, University of York, UK, and is responsible for the development and maintenance of PROSPERO.


Some information was missing from the funding section. The correct funding statement should read: This study was supported in part by grant AI28900 from the National Institutes of Health, grant 3401-11 from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and grant 1024929 from the National Health and Medical Research Council. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Both Daniel Gough and David Levy are corresponding authors. Dr. Gough can be reached here : daniel.gough@monash.edu


There was an omission in the funding information. The correct funding information is as follows: "The study was sponsored by the National Research Foundation of Singapore , the Pharmacogenomics of Anticancer Agents Research (PAAR) Group, NIH/NIGMS U01GM61393 and the National Medical Research Council of Singapore (NMRC/CSA/021/2010). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."


There was an error in the published Funding statement. The correct Funding is:http://www.gacr.cz/); the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry ; the Czech University of Life Sciences and the Ministry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic ; Japan Society for Promotion of Science ; Grants-in-Aid for Young Scientists, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Financial support for this study was received from the Czech Science Foundation (project P506/10/1570;


There was an error in the Funding statement. The correct version of the Funding statement is available below.The work was supported by NASA grant NNX10AJ31G and the LLUMC Department of Radiation Medicine. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.


There were errors in the Funding section. The correct funding information is as follows: This work was supported by Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B) 23700476 from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, a grant from Naito Foundation and the Suzuken Memorial Foundation to SK, and grants from Dystonia Medical Research Foundation, Edward Mallinckrodt, Jr. Foundation, National Science Foundation and Whitehall Foundation to NCH. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. No additional external funding was received for this study.


The GEO study accession number was not noted in the published article. The GEO study accession number is GSE34197.There was an error in the funding statement. The correct funding statement is: This work was funded by National Institutes of Health grants GM083337 to DMG and NS048859 to ME, and a grant from the FSHD Global Research Foundation to ME. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.


The following information was missing from the Funding section: This work was supported by the NIH, National Institute of General Medical Sciences, Protein Structure Initiative [U54 GM094586 and GM074898]. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.


In the published article the part of the funding statement describing how Philip Bejon was supported should read: "PB is supported by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre in Oxford." The corrected funding statement for this article reads in full: “The study was supported by the Wellcome Trust and by the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI). PB is supported by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre in Oxford. KM, TNW, and FO are supported by the Wellcome Trust. SIH is funded by a Senior Research Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust (#079091). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.”


There was an error in the published funding statement. The correct funding is:This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China , and the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.


Professor Hajo Grundmann was not included in the author byline. Prof. Grundmann should be listed as the sixth author and affiliated with Department of Medical Microbiology, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands. The contributions of this author are as follows: Conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, and wrote the manuscript.In addition, there was an error in the Acknowledgments Statement. The Acknowledgments Statement should read: "The authors wish to thank the Thika Hospital staff and patients for their involvement in surveillance and the SSI Surveillance team for their diligent work on data collection and entry. We also wish to thank Andy Hall and Neal Alexander for their assistance with designing and conducting SSI surveillance and Peter Davey and Andrea Patton for advice on conducting an Interrupted Time Series analysis. "


The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.There was an error in the Funding statement. The correct Funding statement is: The study was funded by Martek Biosciences Inc. (There was an error in Table 6. The correct version of Table 6 is available here:


In the Netherlands, there seems to be a relatively large interest in traumatic stress and its consequences. A literature search for publications in the field of psychotrauma and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in Web of Science shows that authors from the Netherlands are among the top seven in the world see . Most reIn this thematic cluster we highlight psychotrauma research in the Netherlands. We start with a review of Dutch psychotraumatology (Vermetten & Olff, The aforementioned articles include an article by Diehle et al. , who preMiranda OlffDepartment of PsychiatryAcademic Medical CenterUniversity of Amsterdam & Arq Psychotrauma Expert GroupDiemen, The NetherlandsEric VermettenResearch Center—Military Mental HealthMinistry of DefenseUtrecht, The NetherlandsDepartment of PsychiatryUniversity Medical Center UtrechtUtrecht, The Netherlands


There were errors in the Funding section. The correct funding information is as follows: "This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health  grant 5DP1DA026197 and Dr. Dean Y. Li was funded by NHLBI. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."


There was an error in the funding statement. The correct funding statement is: This work was supported by a grant from CIHR China-Canada Joint Health Research Initiative Grant (CCI 102929) to BBY who is the recipient of a Career Investigator Award (CI5958) from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario. Support for this study was also provided, in part, from the Holland Musculoskeletal Program, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.


There was an error in the funding statement. The correct funding statement is: “This analysis was funded by the Florida Agricultural Experiment Station. Publication of this article was funded by the University of Florida Open-Access Publishing Fund. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.”


Information regarding funding for the fourth author is incorrectly omitted from the Funding statement. The Funding statement should read:This work was supported by the Program for Innovative Research Team of Beijing University of Chinese Medicine (2011-CXTD-09) and the 111 Project (No. B08006). Jian-Ping Liu was partially funded by the grant number 2011ZX09302-006-01-03(5) by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China. Eric Manheimer was partially funded by grant no. R24 AT001293 from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) of the US National Institutes of Health. The contents of this article are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the NCCAM or the National Institutes of Health. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.


An author was omitted from the article.Joel A. Spencer was omitted from the author byline; he should be the sixth author and affiliated with the Center for Systems Biology and Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.The contributions of this author are: contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools.


There was an error in the Funding statement.The correct version of the statement is: Pre-doctoral training support to BKS was provided by National Institutes of Health T32 HD043730 and The Foundation for Physical Therapy. Some supplies were provided by an Howard Hughes Medical Institute HHMI-funded mini-grant to BDD. Publication of this article was funded in part by the University of Florida Open-Access Publishing Fund. The funders had no role in study design, data collection, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.


The correct funding information is: "This study is supported by: Research Grants for PRESTO and SENTAN from JST, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas Molecular Brain Science and Research on Pathomechanisms on Brain Disorders from MEXT. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."


In the Funding Statement, the name of a funding organization is incorrect. The Funding Statement should read: "This study was partly supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 81270215) and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation funded project (Grant No. 2013M530664). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."


This activity was supported by unrestricted educational grants from Stallergenes Allergen Vaccines Worldwide, Nestlé Nutrition Institute, and UCB.Stallergenes - http://www.stallergenes.com/nc/en.htmlhttp://www.nestlenutrition-institute.org/enhttp://www.ucb-group.com/and http://www.todaysallergies.comJune 2008Genoa, ITALYDear Colleagues:Innovation in Continuity. WAO will continue to build on its existing programs to further support and develop new research, education and training initiatives in this specialty and to focus attention on the importance of the allergist as the key coordinator of allergy patient care.One of my first duties as President of the World Allergy Organization (WAO) is the pleasure of presenting the State of World Allergy Report 2008. This exciting new WAO initiative, launched at the World Allergy Congress in Bangkok in December 2007, will provide a biennial review of the explosion of allergies around the globe and will consider how the medical, social and economic issues surrounding allergic diseases should be addressed. This first report provides a snapshot of the prevailing situation in 2008 from the perspective of organizations, such as the WAO and the World Health Organization through the Global Alliance against Chronic Respiratory Diseases, which represent allergists and clinical immunologists -- the clinicians at the forefront of attempts to recognize, assess and address this global crisis. The focus of WAO's mandate for the next two years is The State of World Allergy Report is a call to action for everyone with an interest in allergy to develop a partnership with WAO in a global effort to control and manage allergic diseases on behalf of the world's population.Yours sincerely,Professor G. Walter CanonicaPresident, World Allergy Organization


There was an error in the Funding Statement. The correct funding is:Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada to WJR and MR (grant numbers not disclosed). DM received financial support from the Serbian Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Science, Project 177023. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Vasogliano" should be "Visogliano"A word was misspelled in the Abstract. "-218" should be "-281"There was an error in the Supporting Information. In Table S1, in the last column of the row "BH-1 Mandible", the value "


There were errors in the Funding statement. The correct statement is: This work was supported in parts by the National Center for Soybean Biotechnology and the Missouri Soybean Merchandising Council to HTN and by a grant (No. AP24-1-0076) from the RIKEN Strategic Research Program for R & D to L-SPT. DTL was supported by RIKEN Foreign Postdoctoral Fellowship. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.


The first and second authors, Xiuyu Chen and Minjie Lu, should be indicated as having contributed equally to the work.In addition multiple funding organizations and grants were incorrectly omitted from the Funding Statement. The Funding Statement should read: "This study was supported in part by the Research Grant of National Natural Science Foundation of China (81000604 and 81370036 )，PUMC Youth Fund and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2009-xhj04# and 3332013105), and Grant for Talent Research Star of Fuwai Hospital (2012‐FWXX01). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."


There was an error in the Funding section. The corrected Funding section should appear as follows:This study was supported by grants from National Institute of Health  to SJC (www.nih.gov). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.


There was an error in the Funding statement. The correct version of this Funding statement is available below.This study was sponsored by grants of Zhejiang Provincial Top Key Discipline in Surgery, the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province (Grant No. Z2100853) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 81070372). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.