The Lancet
May 10, 2014 Volume 383 Number 9929 p1609 – 1692
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/issue/current

Editorial
Economic austerity, food poverty, and health
The Lancet
Preview
A century ago, the Scottish physician John Boyd-Orr saw first-hand how poverty and malnutrition lay at the heart of appalling health, especially among children in the slums of Glasgow, many of whom had rickets—the subject of a Seminar by Charlotte Elder and Nicholas Bishop in today’s Lancet, which details how this disease of the past is increasing in some parts of the UK. Later, Boyd-Orr’s vision and activism for improved population health through the delivery of equitable nutrition programmes helped establish the UK’s food policy during the austere years of World War 2 and beyond.

Human rights violations in Sri Lanka
The Lancet
Preview
5 years after the end of the 26 year long civil war, Sri Lanka has yet to secure its future stability. A World Report in this week’s issue describes torture, rape, detentions, and summary executions perpetrated by the Sri Lankan Government against people suspected of involvement in the defeated Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and government critics. Evidence suggests a state-sanctioned campaign rather than isolated incidents and, because of a culture of impunity for the perpetrators (mainly Sri Lankan army, security forces, police officers) and fear of reporting by victims, the true scale of abuse is unknown.

Comment
Influenza vaccine in pregnancy: policy and research strategies
Preview
Mark C Steinhoff, Noni MacDonald, Dina Pfeifer, Louis J Muglia
Influenza vaccination in pregnancy reduces maternal illness, improves fetal outcomes, prevents influenza in the infant up to 6 months of age, and potentially improves long-term adult outcomes for the infant (table 1). These effects on four life stages are not widely known by policy makers, and we provide a summary with recommendations for policy and needed research.

Data, children’s rights, and the new development agenda
Preview
Tessa Wardlaw, Abid Aslam, David Anthony, Céline Little, Claudia Cappa
The coming year will mark the 25th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child1 and the culmination of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). As people look to the future of human wellbeing, data will play an increasingly important part in identifying inequities and in informing and evaluating interventions so these are responsive and accountable to the world’s 2•2 billion children, especially those so far excluded from the benefits of development.

Worldwide prevalence of non-partner sexual violence: a systematic review
Prof Naeemah Abrahams PhD a, Karen Devries PhD b, Prof Charlotte Watts PhD b, Christina Pallitto PhD c, Prof Max Petzold PhD d, Simukai Shamu PhD a e, Claudia García-Moreno MD c
Summary
Background
Several highly publicised rapes and murders of young women in India and South Africa have focused international attention on sexual violence. These cases are extremes of the wider phenomenon of sexual violence against women, but the true extent is poorly quantified. We did a systematic review to estimate prevalence.
Methods
We searched for articles published from Jan 1, 1998, to Dec 31, 2011, and manually search reference lists and contacted experts to identify population-based data on the prevalence of women’s reported experiences of sexual violence from age 15 years onwards, by anyone except intimate partners. We used random effects meta-regression to calculate adjusted and unadjusted prevalence for regions, which we weighted by population size to calculate the worldwide estimate.
Findings
We identified 7231 studies from which we obtained 412 estimates covering 56 countries. In 2010 7•2% (95% CI 5•2—9•1) of women worldwide had ever experienced non-partner sexual violence. The highest estimates were in sub-Saharan Africa, central (21%, 95% CI 4•5—37•5) and sub-Saharan Africa, southern (17•4%, 11•4—23•3). The lowest prevalence was for Asia, south (3•3%, 0—8•3). Limited data were available from sub-Saharan Africa, central, North Africa/Middle East, Europe, eastern, and Asia Pacific, high income.
Interpretation
Sexual violence against women is common worldwide, with endemic levels seen in some areas, although large variations between settings need to be interpreted with caution because of differences in data availability and levels of disclosure. Nevertheless, our findings indicate a pressing health and human rights concern.
Funding
South African Medical Research Council, Sigrid Rausing Trust, WHO.

Seminar
Rickets
Charlotte Jane Elder, Nicholas J Bishop
Rickets, historically referred to as “the English disease”, is common worldwide. Absence of phosphate at the growth plate and mineralising bone surfaces due to inadequate vitamin D supply either from sunlight exposure or diet is the main cause. Inherited disorders causing hypophosphataemia have shown the intricacies of phosphate metabolism. Present advice about the provision of vitamin D to young infants needs to be clarified; the existing guidance is fragmentary and contradictory, and will not help to eradicate the disease.

Viewpoint
Global Health Service Partnership: building health professional leadership
Vanessa B Kerry, Fitzhugh Mullan
Shortages of nurses, doctors, and health professionals in resource-poor countries challenge the success of many health initiatives and health-system strengthening. In many of these countries, medical and nursing schools are few and severely short of faculty, limiting their capacity to scale-up and increase the number of skilled graduates and professionals to support the health system. In an effort to address this problem, the US Peace Corps has partnered with Seed Global Health, a non-profit organisation with expertise in education for health professions, to launch an innovative new programme that sends faculty to medical and nursing schools in under-resourced settings.