Measles Status-Barriers to Vaccination and Strategies for Overcoming Them.

Background: The World Health Organization (WHO) set the year 2020 as a target date for the eradication of measles in Europe, yet Germany is still far away from this goal. In this article, we provide an overview of current vaccination gaps and barriers to vaccination among children and adults in Germany, as well as potential strategies for overcoming them.

Methods: This review is based on pertinent publications identified by a selective literature search in PubMed (Medline).

Weekly self-measurement of FEV1 and PEF and its impact on ACQ (asthma control questionnaire)-scores: 12-week observational study with 76 patients.

The "Asthma Control Questionnaire" (ACQ) is a very common questionnaire for assessing asthma control. This study compares different ACQ versions in a self-monitoring program over a 12-week period combining them with patients' self-measurements of peak expiratory flow (PEF) and forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1). The objective was to test the feasibility of FEV1-self-measurements and to compare ACQ versions regarding possible additional information given by lung function.

Reasons for encounters and psychiatric comorbidity in an urban Bavarian primary care out-of-hour service - results of a cross sectional study.

Background: International studies have shown a contribution of psychiatric comorbidity to high utilization rates in out-of-hour primary care (OOHC). Up to now, the impact of psychiatric comorbidity in German OOHC remains unclear. Therefore, we aimed to investigate reasons for encounter (RFE), possible psychiatric comorbidity, utilization rates, and a possible association between utilization rate and psychiatric comorbidity among patients of an urban OOHC unit.

Impact of regional socioeconomic variation on coordination and cost of ambulatory care: investigation of claims data from Bavaria, Germany.

Objectives: A considerable proportion of regional variation in healthcare use and health expenditures is to date still unexplained. The aim was to investigate regional differences in the gatekeeping role of general practitioners and to identify relevant explanatory variables at patient and district level in Bavaria, Germany.

Design: Retrospective routine data analysis using claims data held by the Bavarian Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians.