Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Urban Poverty And Health In Developing Countries: Household And Neighborhood Effects [Arabic], Mark R. Montgomery, Paul C. Hewett

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

In the United States and other high-income countries, where most people live in cities, there is intense scholarly and program interest in the effects of household and neighborhood living standards on health. Yet very few studies of developing-country cities have examined these issues. This paper investigates whether in these cities the health of women and young children is influenced by both household and neighborhood standards of living. Using data from the urban samples of 85 Demographic and Health Surveys, and modeling living standards using factor-analytic MIMIC methods, we find, first, that the neighborhoods of poor households are more heterogeneous than …

The Tostan Program: Evaluation Of A Community Based Education Program In Senegal, Nafissatou J. Diop, Modou Mbacke Faye, Amadou Moreau, Jacqueline Cabral, Helene Benga, Fatou Cisse, Babacar Mane, Inge Baumgarten, Molly Melching

Reproductive Health

This operations research project evaluated the effect and impact of a basic education program, developed by TOSTAN, a nongovernmental organization based at Thiès, Senegal. The basic education program consisted of four modules: hygiene, problem-solving, women’s health, and human rights. Through these four themes, emphasis was placed on enabling the participants, who were mostly women, to analyze their own situation more effectively and thus find the best solutions for themselves. The GTZ Supra Regional Project for the Elimination of Female Genital Cutting funded implementation of the program in 90 villages in Kolda Region, and the Population Council’s Frontiers in Reproductive Health …

Graduate Bulletin, 2004-2006 (2004), Minnesota State University Moorhead

Graduate Bulletins (Catalogs)

No abstract provided.

Parenting, Julia C. Torquati

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

How can parents successfully care for their children in the context of homelessness? This is a significant question because families with children represent approximately 40 percent of the homeless population in the United States, and the number of homeless children has been growing since the early 1980s. Negative consequences of homelessness to children’s health, education, and emotional and social development have been well documented. Homeless families in the United States can be considered a subset of limited-resource families, and as such they share some of the same challenges to effective parenting. However, homeless parents face additional challenges, and these challenges …

Did A Rising Tide Lift All Boats? The Nih Budget And Pediatric Research Portfolio, Daniel P. Gitterman, Robert S. Greenwood, Keith C. Kocis, Rick Mayes, Aaron N. Mckethan

Political Science Faculty Publications

This paper examines National Institutes of Health (NIH) pediatric research spending in absolute terms and relative to the doubling of the NIH overall budget between fiscal years 1998 and 2003. Pediatric spending increased by an average annual rate of 12.8 percent during the doubling period (almost on par with the NIH average annual growth rate of 14.7 percent). However, the proportion of the total NIH budget devoted to the pediatric portfolio declined from 12.3 to 11.3 percent. We offer recommendations for implementing existing commitments to strengthen the pediatric research portfolio and to protect the gains of the doubling period.

The Implications Of Early Marriage For Hiv/Aids Policy, Judith Bruce, Shelley Clark

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This brief is based on a background paper prepared for the WHO/UNFPA/Population Council Technical Consultation on Married Adolescents, held in Geneva, Switzerland, December 9–12, 2003. The final paper is entitled “Including married adolescents in adolescent reproductive health and HIV/AIDS policy.” The consultation brought together experts from the United Nations, donors, and nongovernmental agencies to consider the evidence regarding married adolescent girls’ reproductive health, vulnerability to HIV infection, social and economic disadvantage, and rights. The relationships to major policy initiatives—including safe motherhood, HIV, adolescent sexual and reproductive health, and reproductive rights—were explored, and emerging findings from the still relatively rare programs …

Involving Men In Maternity Care In India, Leila Caleb-Varkey, Anurag Mishra, Anjana Das, Emma Ottolenghi, Dale Huntington, Susan E. Adamchak, M.E. Khan, Rick Homan

Reproductive Health

The Men in Maternity study investigated the feasibility, acceptability, and cost of a new, more comprehensive model of maternity care that encouraged husbands’ participation in their wives’ antenatal and postpartum care. The study was conducted in India, in collaboration with the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), Delhi Directorate at their primary health facilities called dispensaries. The study found that men accompanied their wives to the clinics and participated actively in the intervention. There were significant changes in family planning knowledge and behaviors of both men and women; although there was little acknowledgement of STI risk, knowledge and use of dual …

Culturally Appropriate Information, Education And Communication Strategies For Improving Adolescent Reproductive Health In Cusco, Peru, Marco Florez-Arestegui Cornejo, Rosalinda Barreto Silva

Reproductive Health

The project Culturally Appropriate Information, Education and Communication Strategies for Improving Adolescent Reproductive Health in Cusco, Peru was designed in response to the evident lack of information and education on adolescent reproductive health in the country and, in particular, in the rural areas of the department of Cusco. Research revealed that a great need for sexual and reproductive health information still exists among indigenous adolescents in the rural areas of the region and that sexual education programs have to be sustainable. This report recommends that the Ministry of Education train more teachers in sexual and reproductive health topics, taking into …

When The Safety Net Fails: An Analysis Of Alternative Long-Term Care Services In Kentucky, Suzanne Dale

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

The Problem

In early 2003, the Kentucky Cabinet for Health Services, faced with a $450 million Medicaid shortfall, implemented several cost-cutting measures to the Medicaid program. The most visible measure included new stricter medical eligibility requirements for long-term care programs. As a result of these new requirements, approximately 2,813 elderly and disabled Kentuckians were denied services in Kentucky’s Aged/Disabled Home and Community-Based Waiver Program, a Medicaid program that provides long-term care services in people’s homes and in community-settings. The Cabinet for Health Services claimed that those who lost home and community-based Medicaid services could receive care through alternative state programs. …

Gender Differences In Time Use Among Adolescents In Developing Countries: Implications Of Rising School Enrollment Rates, Amanda Ritchie, Cynthia B. Lloyd, Monica J. Grant

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Researchers at the Population Council have been involved in the collection of data on time use from adolescents in India, Kenya, Pakistan, and South Africa. Three questions are addressed in this working paper: (1) How does time use change during the transition to adulthood? (2) Does gender role differentiation intensify during the transition? (3) Does school attendance attenuate gender differences? The data document differences in time use patterns between students and nonstudents. Although female adolescent students still work longer hours than male adolescent students, the gender division of labor that typically develops during adolescence is greatly attenuated among students when …

Combining Community Approaches And Government Policy To Reduce Hiv Risk In The Dominican Republic, Deanna Kerrigan, Luis Moreno, Bayardo Gomez, Hector Jerez, Ellen Weiss, Johannes Van Dam, Eva Roca, Clare Barrington, Michael D. Sweat

HIV and AIDS

A recent Horizons study conducted jointly with two Dominican NGOs assessed the impact of two environmental-structural models in reducing HIV-related risk among female sex workers in the Dominican Republic and compared their cost-effectiveness. In the two cities studied, there were improvements from pre- to post-intervention in the key outcome variables, however the type and level of these changes varied by intervention approach. Based on our findings, program planners and policymakers involved in the study in the Dominican Republic agree that the integrated solidarity and policy model in conjunction with ongoing peer education and community mobilization activities is an appropriate, cost-effective, …

Too Young To Be A Mother: A Description Of The Lives Of Married Adolescent Girls In Egypt, Omaima El-Gibaly, Susan M. Lee

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Improving the status and health of women is high on the agenda of the Ministry of Health and Population in Egypt. Investing in the lives of women who marry in their teens has long-term benefits for these girls and their children. Valid information is needed, however, to address these girls’ special needs. Adolescent health is currently one of the major concerns of the Ministry of Health and Population, as is delaying early marriage and addressing the reproductive and other health needs of married girls. The Ministry was a fieldwork partner with the Population Council, providing data collection from primary health …

Improving The Reproductive Health Of Youth In Mexico, Ricardo Vernon, Maricela Dura

Reproductive Health

This project assessed the impact of the Mexican Foundation for Family Planning’s Young People Program (YPP) on: a) the attitudes of community stakeholders toward informing youth about reproductive health issues and making reproductive health services available for sexually-active youth; b) the sexual and reproductive health knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of adolescents; and c) the way that providers offer reproductive health services to adolescents. In addition, the project determined whether adding a school-based sex education component increased the impact of community interventions on the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of adolescents. Survey results showed that the reproductive health knowledge and attitudes of …

Married Adolescents: An Overview, Nicole Haberland, Erica Chong, Hillary J. Bracken

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

The nascent work reviewed in this compendium indicates that married girls experience significant social isolation and limited autonomy. Across the studies examined, on indicators of mobility, exposure to media, and social networks, married girls are consistently disadvantaged compared to their unmarried peers. Similarly, across studies, on most of the domains explored here (mobility, decision-making, control over economic resources, and possibly gender-based violence), married girls tend to be less empowered and more isolated than slightly older married females. There may also be health issues associated with marriage during adolescence. Married girls are frequently at a disadvantage in terms of reproductive health …

The Adverse Health And Social Outcomes Of Sexual Coercion: Experiences Of Young Women In Developing Countries, Deepika Ganju, William Finger, Shireen J. Jejeebhoy, Vijaya Nidadavolu, K.G. Santhya, Iqbal Shah, Shyam Thapa, Ina Warriner

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Although evidence from developing countries is limited, what is available suggests that significant numbers of young women have experienced coercive sex. Studies in diverse settings in Africa, Asia, and Latin America reveal that forced sexual initiation and experiences are not uncommon in all of these settings. Many young victims of abuse fear disclosure as they feel they may be blamed for provoking the incident or stigmatized for having experienced it, and suffer such incidents in silence. Presentations at a meeting held in New Delhi in September 2003 highlighted findings from recent studies that suggest an association between early experiences of …

Fear Assessment: Cost-Benefit Analysis And The Pricing Of Fear And Anxiety, Matthew D. Adler

All Faculty Scholarship

Risk assessment is now a common feature of regulatory practice, but fear assessment is not. In particular, environmental, health and safety agencies such as EPA, FDA, OSHA, NHTSA, and CPSC, commonly count death, illness and injury as costs for purposes of cost-benefit analysis, but almost never incorporate fear, anxiety or other welfare-reducing mental states into the analysis. This is puzzling, since fear and anxiety are welfare setbacks, and since the very hazards regulated by these agencies - air or water pollutants, toxic waste dumps, food additives and contaminants, workplace toxins and safety threats, automobiles, dangerous consumer products, radiation, and so …

Program: 9th Biennial Symposium On Minorities, The Medically Underserved & Cancer. From Awareness To Action, The Unequal Burden Of Cancer, Intercultural Cancer Council

Informational and Promotional Materials

Program details the events, speakers, attendees, and discussions during the 9th Biennial Symposium on Minorities, the Medically Underserved & Cancer presented by Intercultural Cancer Council and Baylor College of Medicine. The symposium took place March 24-28, 2004 at the OMNI Shoreham in Washington, DC. See more at Intercultural Cancer Council Records.

Healing Wounds, Instilling Hope: The Tanzanian Partnership Against Obstetric Fistula, Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Erica Chong

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This edition of Quality/Calidad/Qualité describes a partnership formed to combat obstetric fistula in Tanzania. The Bugando Medical Center, the Women’s Dignity Project, the Tanzania Midwives Association, and the government cooperated on an extensive program for surgical repair, prevention, and policy research and activities. Lessons learned: 1) Fistula programs need to address social as well as medical issues. 2) Most repairs are successful, making an enormous difference in women’s lives. 3) Relatively little funding is necessary to start up a fistula program. 4) Fistula programs are vehicles for broader conversations about gender and poverty.

Moyens De Subsistance Des Adolescentes. Questions Primordiales Et Outils Essentiels : Rapport D'Un Atelier, Carey Meyers

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This report, co-published by the Population Council and the International Center for Research on Women, describes a workshop convened in Cairo in 1999 to learn more about the nature of both younger and older adolescents' work experience, differentiate the particular needs and potentials of adolescent girls, and identify programs and policies that might have promise for supporting them.

Long-Range Trends In Adult Mortality: Models And Projection Methods, John Bongaarts

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This Population Council working paper has two objectives: (1) to test a new version of the logistic model for the pattern of change over time in age-specific adult mortality rates, and (2) to develop a new method for projecting future trends in adult mortality. A test of the goodness-of-fit of the logistic model for the force of mortality indicates that its slope parameter is nearly constant over time. This finding suggests a variant of the model that is called the shifting logistic model. A new projection method based on the shifting mortality model is proposed and compared with the widely …

The Effect Of A Livelihoods Intervention In An Urban Slum In India: Do Vocational Counseling And Training Alter The Attitudes And Behavior Of Adolescent Girls?, Barbara Mensch, Monica J. Grant, Mary Philip Sebastian, Paul C. Hewett, Dale Huntington

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This Population Council working paper examines whether an experimental intervention for girls aged 14–19 that provided reproductive health information, vocational counseling and training, and assistance with opening savings accounts in slum areas of Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh, India had an effect on their attitudes and behaviors. Although the livelihoods program was acceptable to parents and feasible to implement, the project had only a minimal impact on the behavior and attitudes of adolescent girls in the experimental slums. The greatest changes between the baseline and the endline surveys were found in those outcomes that most closely reflected the content of the …

Urban Poverty And Health In Developing Countries: Household And Neighborhood Effects, Mark R. Montgomery, Paul C. Hewett

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

In the United States and other high-income countries, where most people live in cities, there is intense scholarly and program interest in the effects of household and neighborhood living standards on health. This paper investigates whether in these cities the health of women and young children is influenced by both household and neighborhood standards of living. To judge from our results, it appears that as a rule, poor urban households do not tend to live in uniformly poor communities; indeed, about one in ten of a poor household’s neighbors is relatively affluent, belonging to the upper quartile of the urban …

Integrating Adolescent Livelihood Activities Within A Reproductive Health Programme For Urban Slum Dwellers In India, Mary Philip Sebastian, Monica J. Grant, Barbara Mensch

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This project, whose collaborators included CARE, the Centre for Operations Research and Training, and the Population Council, tested the impact of economic skills training among girls in a slum in Allahabad, India. Recognizing the relative disadvantage of adolescent girls, the study aimed to build an evidence base for adolescent livelihoods programs. Participating girls and their parents welcomed the program, and the baseline survey clearly indicated the appropriateness of an intervention that addresses the capabilities and opportunities available to adolescent girls—including both vocational training and savings schemes. However, few girls turned their new skills into economic gain, in part because of …

Linking Reproductive Health To Social Power: Community Health Workers In Belize And Pakistan, Susana Galdos, Lucella Campbell, Patricia Mohammed, Debbie Rogow, Saumya Ramarao, Ali M. Mir, Nicole Haberland

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This issue of Quality/Calidad/Qualité focuses on two traditional family planning programs that undertook projects to help women enlarge their zone of influence in both the private and public spheres. The first case study focuses on the Belize Family Life Association (BFLA), a nongovernmental organization in a small Caribbean country. The second case study recounts the experience of the Pakistani government, which has an enormous, but entrenched, target-oriented family planning program. Both programs began by recognizing that women’s lack of social power is a major obstacle to their being able to protect their own health. Both trained village workers to regard …

Growing Up In Pakistan: The Separate Experiences Of Males And Females, Cynthia B. Lloyd, Monica J. Grant

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This Population Council working paper examines gender differences in transitions to adulthood in Pakistan. The survey covers key aspects of adolescents’ lives, including the timing of several adult transitions and a detailed accounting of time use over the previous 24 hours. The results of the analysis confirm the fundamental importance of schooling to transitions to adulthood. Those without any schooling, which still includes 15 percent of young men and 46 percent of young women, assume the work burdens of adults prematurely and are deprived of the opportunity for learning in an institutional setting outside the family. Those who do attend …

Community Approaches And Government Policy Reduce Hiv Risk In The Dominican Republic, Deanna Kerrigan, Luis Moreno, Bayardo Gomez, Hector Jerez, Ellen Weiss, Johannes Van Dam, Eva Roca, Clare Barrington, Michael D. Sweat

HIV and AIDS

Effective programs that avert new HIV infections among sex workers and their partners, and hence the general population, are critical components of national HIV-prevention strategies. Prevention efforts have frequently relied on interventions that reach members of these vulnerable groups as individuals, such as condom promotion and STI management. Now, many researchers and program implementers are increasingly turning to “environmental-structural” interventions that address the physical, social, and political contexts in which individual behavior takes place. A recent Horizons study conducted jointly with two Dominican NGOs—Centro de Orientación e Investigación Integral and Centro de Promoción e Solidaridad Humana—and the National Program for …

Opiniones Y Respuestas: Resultados De Una Encuesta De Opinión A Médicos Mexicanos Sobre El Aborto, Diana K. Lara, Lisa Goldman, Michelle Firestone

Reproductive Health

En México es incuestionable el papel crucial que los médicos juegan en la oferta de servicios seguros de aborto legal y en la atención a las mujeres con abortos en evolución, espontáneos o inducidos, y abortos complicados. Sin embargo, ningún estudio dirigido a personal de salud, y específicamente a médicos, se había realizado con una muestra representativa a nivel nacional. Una brecha de ese tipo en la literatura científica justificó la realización, entre julio y agosto de 2002, de una encuesta nacional en la cual se recopiló información sobre los conocimientos y las opiniones de médicos gíneco-obstetras, médicos familiares y …

Unwanted Pregnancy And Induced Abortion In Rajasthan, India: A Qualitative Exploration, Batya Elul, Hillary J. Bracken, Shalini Verma, Rajani Ved, Rajesh Singhi, Karin Lockwood

Reproductive Health

As part of a Population Council program of research on unwanted pregnancy and induced abortion in Rajasthan, the Council and Ibtada conducted a qualitative exploration of attitudes and behaviors regarding unwanted pregnancy and induced abortion in Alwar district. The study was intended to lay the groundwork for two quantitative studies on abortion undertaken subsequently in six districts of Rajasthan. The qualitative exploration shows that women, particularly those who are poor, turn to largely untrained community-level providers for abortion services. Additionally, women use home remedies in an often unsuccessful attempt to terminate unwanted pregnancies. Women with greater financial means obtain surgical …

Married Adolescents: A Review Of Programmes, Auralice Graft, Nicole Haberland, Rachel E. Goldberg

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Historically, major adolescent and reproductive health initiatives have failed to explicitly consider the needs of married adolescents. This paper provides insight into what is being done—or not being done—to support married adolescent girls and boys, how these populations’ needs are being conceptualized, and the extent to which social context is factored into program design. Some early work with adolescent mothers (married and unmarried) is considered. The degree to which selected adolescent programs have been able to reach married girls with their activities is briefly examined. A few basic parameters of potential interventions for married adolescents are presented, including an inventory …

Quad Angles

Syracuse University Magazine

No abstract provided.