As the world´s population increases and people's living conditions are improving, larger areas are needed for houses as well as food production. This means that new areas are exploited and that people, livestock, blood sucking insects and wild animals are forced to live close together. In combination with the global warming, leading to extreme weather such as floods and storms, this allows both new and old pathogens to emerge. The number of "emerging infectious diseases", EIDs, has increased in recent years and many of them have their origin in poor, tropical countries. Moçambique is therefore considered to be a high risk area for EIDs. Schmallenberg virus, SBV, was discovered in 2011 as an "emerging infectious disease" in dairy cows in Germany.

The purpose of the present essay, as part of the project Self esteem and Life circumstances among teenagers, was to investigate the rate of both deliberate self-harm (DSH) and risk behaviour related to eating disorders in 14-year-old swedish adolescents, gender differences in DSH, and possible correlations between DSH and risk behaviours related to eating disorder. In addition, the effects of expressive writing (Pennebaker & Beall, 1986) on DSH and risk behaviours related to eating disorders were investigated. Data from two pilot studies are included. In total, 198 14-year-olds from four different schools in southern Sweden participated. For the purpose of measuring the rate of DSH, a simplified version of Gratz's (2001) Deliberate Self-Harm Inventory (DSHI) was used.