As Skog has pointed out, the second-order preventive paradox of binge drinking reappeared, in that most binge drinkers were found to occur in the drinker group with low average consumption. Findings also indicate that, with respect to social harm, a preventive strategy aimed at the majority of the population, but on heavy-drinking occasions rather than on mean consumption, may be valuable.

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Abdominal compartment syndrome is still a controversial entity. We report on a patient who developed the classical hemodynamic, respiratory, and renal changes of abdominal compartment syndrome after surgical intervention for blunt abdominal trauma. A decompressive laparotomy improved the situation dramatically.

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In the first part of the study, the readiness of bartenders and waiters to serve alcoholic beverages to young teenagers was studied. The fieldwork was conducted in a random sample of bars and restaurants in Lausanne and in villages of the canton of Vaud, where 13-year-old and 15-year-old boys ordered either beer or pastis (an aniseed-flavoured aperitif). Results showed that alcoholic beverages were very accessible to 13-year-old and 15-year-old youths although the minimum legal age for purchasing and consuming beer is 16 years and for pastis is 18 years: 81% of the test orders were served. An analysis of interaction of patterns between servers and clients suggested that time necessary to refuse orders may play an important role in explaining this result. In the second part of the study, knowledge and attitudes of owners and managers of bars, restaurants and different kinds of commercial outlet were studied in a telephone interview survey about the minimum legal age for purchasing and consuming alcoholic beverages. Only 17% of the respondents knew the correct minimum legal ages for purchasing and consuming alcoholic beverages.

This article addresses the question if the number of life years men and women can expect to live in good health is increasing and secondly if the life years in long-term care decline to a shorter period before death (compression of morbidity) during the periods 1999-2003 to 2004-2008. The analyses is based on data of a health insurance company (Gmünder Ersatzkasse, GEK), which are calculated, using the prevalence-rate method of Sullivan. The results show that men and women at age 60 can expect to live longer (21.21 years instead of 20.04 years for men and 25.1 years instead of 23.96 years for women) and also live longer free of long-term care (19.89 instead of 18.89 years for men and 22.37 instead of 21.55 years for women). In addition to the prolonged life years, also the number of years a person can expect to live in long-term-care has increased (from 1.15 years to 1.32 years for men and from 2.41 years to 2.73 years for women). Therefore the data suggest that there is no compression of morbidity.

In Germany there are only insufficient data both with regard to general morbidity events as well as with regard to the effects of specific professions on the morbidity process. For this reason the data of the Gmuender Ersatzkasse (GEK) have been analysed with a longitudinal design for the period 1990 to 2003. Our sample includes all employed members of the GEK who had been insured as of January 1, 1990 and were between 30 and 59 years old at this baseline. The total sample comprises 129,173 men and 13,567 women. The statistical analysis was performed with the statistical package "Transitional Data Analysis" (TDA) which was developed especially for longitudinal data. The analysis includes both cumulated morbidity rates as well as transition rates (Cox regression). The analysis shows that the cumulated morbidity rates of the seven diseases are higher for women than for men in the age category 30-39 years. In the age categories 40-49 and 50-59 years the cumulated morbidity rates are higher for men than for women. With regard to the occupations, the highest morbidity rates are found for manual occupations and services without special skills. The lowest rates are found for professions with high skills, engineers and managers. The results of the longitudinal analysis show distinctive social gradients. For occupations with lower skills the morbidity rates are about 100 percent higher than those of occupations with higher skills. Longitudinal analyses on the basis of health insurance fund data can make an important contribution to the monitoring of health and morbidity and should therefore be conducted also by other health insurance funds.