Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a chronic respiratory disease predominantly affecting the older population. Not well known, COPD is often confused with asthma. Tobacco smoking is widely acknowledged as the most important risk factor for COPD, but occupational exposures from irritant dust, fumes, and biomass exposures, from the burning of wood and coal in indoor fires, also contribute to COPD prevalence.

This study provides parish estimates for the burden of obesity, diabetes and hypertension in Jamaica based on secondary analysis of the Jamaica Health and Lifestyle Survey 2008 (JHLS II).

This study assesses hypertension prevalence, treatment and levels of control among community-dwelling older adults in Jamaica. The prevalence of hypertension was 61.7%, with the majority (90.0%) of older adults being on treatment and 34.8% were controlled.

This study sought to determine the practices of family physicians/general practitioners in Kingston and St Andrew regarding the management of adult obesity and compare their management to the 2013 AHA/ACC/TOS Guidelines for the Management of overweight and obesity in adults.

To eliminate the disproportionate number of African American seniors suffering health conditions and to encourage healthy behaviours, churches within the African American community have initiated health promotion programmes and services. This type of health intervention could serve to lessen the risk of disease, while improving the health and well-being of Jamaica’s ageing population.

The Andersen framework identifying predisposing, enabling and need factors is used to analyse the receipt of care for activities of daily living, and instrumental activities of daily living among older adults, utilizing data from the 2012 Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions.

This study investigated the prevalence of persons with disabilities as frequent users of the Jamaica health system. Most persons with disabilities experienced difficulty using the systems for even common chronic complaints

Access to mechanical ventilation by neonates has increased tremendously at the University Hospital of the West Indies. The present challenge however, is decreasing mortality in these neonates who access this technology.

It is clear that a diverse spectrum of medical disorders is managed on the neonatal unit of the UHWI and that the fledgling neonatal unit providing basic care for neonates of the 1960s has matured into the level II Newborn Special Care Nursery and Level III NICU that it is today. The time is now opportune, for Neonatology to gain independent status as a Division of Neonatology within the Department of Child Health at the UHWI.

There has been a decrease in the neonatal mortality rate over the past six decades but further intervention is needed to achieve the sustainable developmental goal of less than ten neonatal deaths per thousand live births at the UHWI.