Everything published by PLoS Medicine is Open Access: freely available for anyone to read, download, redistribute and otherwise use, as long as the authorship is properly attributed.

This week PLoS Medicine publishes a special collection of articles that aim to highlight the profound influence of poverty upon health, as part of the Council of Science Editors’ Global Theme Issue on Poverty and Human Development (http://www.councilscienceeditors.org/globalthemeissue.cfm):

• Using information technologies to conduct clinical trials in low income settings

• Improving access to health care in the world’s poorest countries

Please mention PLoS Medicine in your report and use the links below to take your readers straight to the online articles:

Using information technologies to conduct clinical trials in low income settings

Eva Harris (University of California, Berkeley, USA) and colleagues in the United States and Nicaragua report their experience of integrating information technologies in clinical and epidemiological studies of dengue infection in Nicaragua.

Citation: Avilés W, Ortega O, Kuan G, Coloma J, Harris E (2007) Integration of information technologies in clinical studies in Nicaragua. PLoS Med 4( 0): e291.

IN YOUR ARTICLE, PLEASE LINK TO THIS URL, WHICH WILL PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE PUBLISHED PAPER: http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0040291

PRESS-ONLY PREVIEW OF THE ARTICLE: http://www.plos.org/press/plme-04-10-harris.pdf

CONTACT: Eva Harris University of California, Berkeley Division of Infectious Diseases, School of Public Health 140 Warren Hall Berkeley, CA 94720-7360 United States of America +1 510) 642-4845 +1 510 642-6350 (fax) eharris@berkeley.edu

Improving access to health care in the world’s poorest countries

Brigit Obrist (Swiss Tropical Institute) and colleagues in Tanzania and Switzerland present a framework for analysis and action to explore and improve access to health care in resource-poor countries, especially in Africa.

Citation: Obrist B, Iteba N, Lengeler C, Makemba A, Mshana C, et al. (2007) Access to health care in contexts of livelihood insecurity: A framework for analysis and action. PLoS Med 4( 0): e308.

IN YOUR ARTICLE, PLEASE LINK TO THIS URL, WHICH WILL PROVIDE ACCESS TO THE PUBLISHED PAPER: http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0040308

PRESS-ONLY PREVIEW OF THE ARTICLE: http://www.plos.org/press/plme-04-10-obrist.pdf

CONTACT: Brigit Obrist Swiss Tropical Institute Department of Public Health and Epidemiology Socinstrasse 57 Basel, Basel 4002 Switzerland +41 61 2848163 Brigit.Obrist@unibas.ch