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Recent years have seen a growth in the importance afforded to environmental issues, including the environmental aspects of property. One manifestation of this growth is the emergence of the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) developed by the Building Research Establishment (BRE). Using a limited research vehicle, this paper examines the basic requirements for a BREEAM assessment and the skills required to undertake such an assessment. It compares these skills with those held by building surveyors and considers whether building surveyors are sufficiently well placed to offer BREEAM assessments as part of their portfolio of services. The conclusion is that BREEAM assessments do represent a potential market opportunity which merits consideration.

Conferences, like the delegates attending them, come in a variety of shapes, sizes and purposes. There is, for instance, the reward conference, a way of saying well‐done to employees, where after‐class entertainment is important and the bar looms as large as the blackboard. Then there is the spur, the seminar for the company which wants to motivate its sales force with the carrot of the good things that success will bring. A lesser grade of accommodation and catering at a top grade venue may be appropriate, tantalising the staff with a sight of the good life but leaving them with the task of attaining it.

A societal and educational analysis established the perspective that Australian teachers are working in a context of societal change, with concomitant pressures on their traditional approaches and methods. Further education was seen as a major method of assisting teachers to meet these pressures, and the study addressed the problem of developing policies to induce significant numbers of teachers to undertake further education.

This paper aims to explore how the TECH Model (testing for and treating infectious diseases and vaccination; environmental modification to prevent disease transmission; chronic disease identification and treatment; and health maintenance and education) can be used for assessing and achieving healthy prisons.

This paper explores the concepts of “health in prison” and “healthy prisons” in the context of recent research and guidance. The paper then considers the TECH Model as an approach to achieving healthy prisons.

Under each of the four TECH Model domains are tasks to achieve a healthy prison. For prisons with poor or no resources, each domain contains steps that will improve prison health and move towards a healthy prison for both prisoners and staff. Implementation can thus be “low‐TECH” or “high‐TECH” depending on the setting and the available resources and the model is specifically designed to provide options for resource‐poor as well as resource‐rich correctional settings.

The TECH Model is a first step in characterizing the components of a healthy prison and the processes to achieve this. This Model could be implemented in all levels of prisons internationally.

In response to the recent rapid influx of refugees from Myanmar, Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston (IM), a refugee resettlement agency, started to support them in June 2007. The study looked at the refugees' perspectives and identified the gaps in their understanding of the US health care system, health‐seeking behaviors and challenges in using health care in the United States. The major issues identified were non‐compliance with tuberculosis prevention medication due to barriers to obtaining medication refills, barriers to accessing speciality care services, transportation issues, written and oral language barriers, difficulties in applying for and using Medicaid and Gold Card, misunderstanding of emergency health services, lack of resources for health education, self‐treatment with Western medicine and income too low to buy private health insurance. In order to transform them into healthy citizens able to contribute to the US workforce, several multi‐faceted and comprehensive approaches and better co‐ordination between agencies are recommended.