This Week in PLOS Medicine: Global Access to Health Information, Integrating Mental Health, Upper GI Bleeds, & Cinacalcet

This week PLOS Medicine offers a global perspective on access to health information and integrating mental health. New research articles on mortality after upper GI bleeding and cinacalcet for chronic kidney disease are also featured.

In April’s editorial, the PLOS Medicine Editors reflect on the critical need for access to high quality health information across the globe and a recent analysis suggesting that governments have a legal responsibility to ensure access to health information for their citizens and health workers.

In the first article of a five-part weekly series providing a global perspective on integrating mental health, Pamela Collins and colleagues set the scene for why mental health care should be combined with priority programs on maternal and child health, non-communicable diseases, and HIV, and how this might be done. Forthcoming papers in the series will examine the specific instances of integrating mental health with maternal health, HIV, and non-communicable disease care, and a final paper will address cross-cutting issues.

Colin Crooks and colleagues examine patient outcomes in the 5 years after a non-variceal upper gastrointestinal bleed and found an increased risk of all causes of death, over half of which were due to non-gastrointestinal causes, particularly malignant tumors and cardiovascular disease.

Giovanni Strippoli and colleagues report findings of a systematic review and meta-analysis examining the benefits and harms of calcimimetic therapy in adults with chronic kidney disease (CKD). The routine use of cinacalcet therapy in people with CKD does not appear warranted; benefits may be limited to preventing parathyroidectomy in the small number of patients for whom surgery is contraindicated.

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