Human exposure to lead in the environment causes irreversible impairment of intellectual function. In Bangladesh, where some rural residents have unexpectedly high levels of lead in their blood, the source is proving difficult to pinpoint. This project will evaluate the severity of lead poisoning in rural Bangladesh and identify the pathway of exposure to help develop focused prevention strategies.

The United States devotes significant resources for the provision of health care, yet quality is often elusive or lacking. In 2004, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality launched a collection of evidence reports to bring data to bear on quality improvement (QI) opportunities. This new series, Closing the Quality Gap: Revisiting the State of the Science, consists of eight reports that continue the focus on improving the quality of health care through critical assessment of relevant evidence for selected settings, interventions, and clinical conditions.

The emergency department (ED) is an important source of care in a community. ED encounters can reflect aspects of community health, such as access to care, care coordination, quality of community-based care, underlying disease burden, availability of community-based supportive services, and other community resources.

This project focuses on identifying, evaluating, and developing measures of care coordination activities. Care coordination is the process of connecting the many different participants in a patient’s care – including the patient and any informal caregivers – to ensure that the right people have the right information at the right time so that patients receive high-quality, high-value, patient-centered care.