Among the readers of our journal this month will be both abusers and those who have been abused by people close to them. Throwing the spotlight on this difficult issue is one that people still have trouble with, and obtaining reliable data is still elusive. One of our research reports this month, on "Sexual assault among North Carolina women", and the linked editorial taking a more global perspective, try to do just that. If the lower limits of the estimates of women reporting physical violence

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... from their male partners are anywhere near accurate (20%-50%), it is a shocking indictment of the way in which men are socialised around the world and of our unwillingness to take effective remedial action. We need more action-orientated work in this area, and we might begin by tackling these questions where we have some direct control and influences, in our own families and neighbourhoods, in health and public services, and in the universitiesblind spots to acting in our own backyard are a major part of the problem. See pages 242, 265 Work on stressors in the workplace continues to refine our understanding of job control and its effect on public health. We have a research report on the impact of employee control over working time on subjective health and sickness absence. Lamb and colleagues provide helpful information on the value of promoting health walks as a community measure, and Silventoinen and his colleague, from Finland, have captured a long term cohort effect on inequalities in health in the Nordic countries that may reflect the rumbling impact of the turmoil in Europe half a century ago. See pages 246, 253 A warning by Suojanen, also from Finland, on the dangers of excessive fortification of food with calcium additives reminds us once again of the precautionary principle. And staying with the Scandinavians, quite a theme this month, the Inuit in Greenland were found to have lower blood pressures than their compatriots in Denmark although this effect was not found among the better educated, suggesting that the blood pressure of the Inuit, especially Inuit men, may be responsive to factors related to the Western way of life. See pages 259, 279