SHARE started Health Education Promotion Project in East Timor in 2002 and has been actively engaged for over 4 years. The political and social unrest in the spring of 2006 produced as many as 150,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs), almost one sixth of the total population of the country. Viewing a dire situation in which people were placed, SHARE launched humanitarian assistance in 20 camps from August through December 2006. The interventions carried out were, among others, monitoring malnourished children with UNICEF, health education/promotion and mobile clinic in IDP camps, and supportive activities for Bairo Pite Clinic.
 The health education cumulatively reached 753 persons in 20 camps. Main health topics covered were sanitation, nutrition and skin infections. The mobile clinic in the Metinaro Camp was carried out 12 times seeing 1,227 persons. Main diseases identified were upper respiratory tract infections, skin infections and acute watery diarrhoea.
 We think that; i) coordination with donors in compliance with East Timorese national policy on IDPs is essential, ii) NGOs with experience in long-term health promotion can have an important role to play in emergencies, iii) even in an emergency situation, focusing on primary health care is important from the early stage of humanitarian assistance, iv) it is vital to take sustainability of those activities into account from the planning stage.

OBJECTIVE: (1) To estimate the prevalence of cancer as an cause of abdominal pain, (2) to identify useful information of history and physical examination, (3) to assess performance of potential screening tests, and (4) to formulate an efficient algorithm for distinguishing patients with cancer.
DESIGN: Prospective observational study.
SETTING: General medical outpatient clinic in a university teaching hospital.
PARTICIPANTS: 470 outpatients (men, 216; women, 254; mean age±standard deviation, 44.6±16.5; age range, 16 to 89) complaining of abdominal pain at their first visits.
MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: A cancer causing abdominal pain was found in 18 patients (3.8%) . These 18 patients with cancer and the remaining 452 patients without cancer were compared regarding clinical findings. Findings significantly more common in patients with cancer were: age of 40 years or over; unexplained weight loss; insidious onset; and duration of pain longer than one preceding month without relief. Among recorded physical findings, countenance reflecting severe pain, fever, and abdominal tenderness were significantly associated with cancer. Elevation of LDH, WBC, CRP, ESR, and CEA were moderately useful discriminators for patients with and without cancer. The logistic regression analysis with complete clinical data set covering history, physical examination and laboratory tests showed that the only findings significantly associated with cancer were unexplained weight loss (odds ratio: 18.9, 95% CI 1.5-20.1), duration of pain over one month (odds ratio: 24.8, 95% CI 1.6-27.9), countenance of severe pain (odds ratio: 159.1, 95% CI 4.5-162.1), and WBC>10, 000 (odds ratio: 22.3, 95% CI 1.1-31.0) .
CONCLUSIONS: Our data support the value of the combined use of history, physical and selected laboratory findings in detecting cancer among patients with abdominal pain. Application of such selected criteria holds the promise of more efficient care with judicious and effective use of endoscopy or sonography without lowering the quality of care.