bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Social and Environmental Influences on Child Mortality in Brazil: Logistic Regression Analysis of Data from Census Files
Authors: Victora Cesar G. , Smith Peter G. , Vaughan J. Patrick 
Published: July 2008

SummaryCensus data were used to investigate the influences of socioeconomic and environmental variables on child mortality rates in southern Brazil. By multivariate logistic regression analysis the effects of correlated factors were distinguished, after adjustment for maternal age and parity. Low family income and, to a lesser degree, low employment status of the head of the family were associated with high child mortality levels. Place of residence, education of the mother and of the head of the family, availability of piped water in the home, access to a toilet and type of housing were all associated with childhood mortality variation, even after allowing for the effects of income and employment. The contributions of the source of the water supply and type of sanitation facilities, however, were less clear and tended to become unimportant after controlling for the socioeconomic variables. There was also no apparent advantage in being covered by government health insurance.
Bedtimes and Sleep Duration in Relation to Smoking Behaviour in 14-year-old English Schoolchildren
Authors: Macgregor I. D. M. , Balding J. W. 
Published: July 2008

SummaryData from a survey of 3727 14-year-old children from 31 secondary schools in England in 1984–85 were analysed to obtain information about smoking habits, bedtimes and times of rising in the morning, on a weekday during school term. Subjects completed a questionnaire, anonymously, in class. Twenty percent of respondents reported that they currently smoked cigarettes. Smokers went to bed significantly later, and spent significantly less time in bed, than non-smokers. Twice as many smokers as non-smokers went to bed at or after 22.30, went to bed after midnight, and spent 7·5 hr or less in bed. Possibly, some adolescent smokers may be at risk from loss of sleep.
Breast-Feeding in London, 1905–19
Authors: Fildes Valerie 
Published: July 2008

SummaryMedical Officer of Health reports for London boroughs, 1900–19, are analysed to determine the incidence of neonatal breast-feeding, duration of lactation, reasons for early supplementation and premature weaning, and their relationship with infant mortality. In a sample of 222,989 infants, breast-feeding rates were very high. Over 90% were breast-fed in the first month, almost 80% at 3 months, and over 70% at 6 months. The poorest boroughs had the highest rates of neonatal breast-feeding, but also a higher incidence of early supplementation and premature weaning. There was a significant positive correlation between breast-feeding and infant mortality due to poor maternal diet and health, poor nutritional quality of supplementary and substitute foods, and the use of an unhygienic feeding bottle. Energetic campaigns to counteract these problems probably contributed to the fall of infant mortality in this period.
Fertility and Suicide Rates: A Time Series Analysis in the United States
Authors: Lester David , Yang Bijou 
Published: July 2008

SummaryIn a time series study of the USA from 1933 to 1984, fertility rates were associated with the suicide rates of those aged 15–44. The higher the fertility rate the lower the suicide rate for these age groups, for both whites and non-whites, and for both men and women. The results were seen as supporting Durkheim's theory of suicide.
Recent trends and patterns of non-Maori fertility in New Zealand
Authors: Basavarajappa K. G. 
Published: July 2008

SummaryThe birth rates per 1000 married females of specified ages and durations of marriage generally attained their post-war maxima in 1946–47 and then declined. While this declining trend was a brief one for females of younger ages and shorter durations of marriage, it continued for females of older ages and longer durations. Since 1961 the rates for all (younger and older) women have declined markedly. Does this recent decline in annual fertility, especially that for females of younger ages and shorter durations of marriage, herald a decline in the total fertility of cohorts who have not yet completed their childbearing? Many believe it to be so. However, an examination of the cumulative fertility of cohorts marrying since 1936 showed that (a) the total fertility of cohorts who have completed their childbearing varied between a narrow range of 2500–3000 and (b) the cumulative fertility up to 5 or 10 years of marriage duration of later cohorts was considerably higher (13–40% higher) than that of earlier cohorts. These facts, and similar ones for Australia covering a wider period (Basavarajappa, 1964), are thought to suggest that the total fertility of cohorts who have not yet completed their childbearing might not be far outside the limits of 2500 and 3000.
The sociobiological aspects of the National Survey on Fecundity and Fertility in Belgium
Authors: Cliquet R. L. 
Published: July 2008

SummaryIn 1966, a National Survey on Fecundity and Fertility was organized in Belgium. Approximately 3000 married women under 41 years of age and living with their husbands were interviewed and asked about their reproductive histories. The present paper records the sociobiological aims and methods and some preliminary results of this survey. The aims were to:(1) study the influences of contraception on human needs and qualities, in this case mainly potential fecundity;(2) study the influence of attempts to increase the potential fecundity level in modern society on fecundity gene frequencies;(3) study the influences of the overall socio-cultural environment on fecundity and fertility variables with particular reference to differences in social status in Western society;(4) analyse the role of social assortment of fecundity and fertility variables on the biological structure, and possibly the composition, of modern populations.A relatively large, but far from complete body of data has been collected on a number of individual fecundity and fertility variables, on the medical processes employed to increase fecundity, on contraception, and on a number of conventional sociological and demographic variables.The principles underlying the present approach to the study of fecundity are explained, and a few preliminary results for one of the general fecundity classifications are shown.The information collected on contraception has been qualitatively analysed and a correction and evaluation method is described. Data on the use of the different contraceptive methods show that substantial sections of the Belgian population are limiting their family size in a way which is inefficient, from both sexual and familial standpoints.
Illegitimate Fertility of Psychotic Women
Authors: Stevens Barbara C 
Published: July 2008

Earlier studies on psychotic patients suggested that their illegitimate fertility was lower than expected on the basis of general population trends. The present findings were part of a study on marriage and fertility of women suffering from schizophrenia and affective disorders since the impact of community orientated psychiatry; 1300 women were selected from admissions to a London hospital during 1955–63 and followed up until August 1966.The proportion of total live births which were illegitimate was 19·1% among the schizophrenics, 7·5% among the affectives and 12·7% in the general population of London during 1961. The high illegitimate fertility of schizophrenics is probably related to their low probability of marriage; more births occurred before than after admission, especially among the older group of women suffering from affective disorders. Most of the births were the result of a serious relationship rather than casual promiscuity, and they were more frequent among Jamaican patients and patients with probable psychopathic personalities in both clinical groups. The genetic and social relevance of the study is discussed.
Malnutrition, Infection and Child Growth in Jamaica
Authors: Miall W. E , Desai Patricia , Standard K. L 
Published: July 2008

A semi-longitudinal study of factors influencing child growth in a rural community in Jamaica provided an opportunity to explore the relationships between diarrhoea, respiratory infections and body weight.Respiratory infections and diarrhoea both reached peak incidences between the ages of 6 and 24 months when children are at highest risk of malnutrition. Respiratory infections had no demonstrable influence on growth. Diarrhoea was more common in boys than in girls and more common in underweight children. It had no influence on long-term weight increases, though it did have the expected influence on short-term increments.The findings suggested that much of the diarrhoea seen in this community of children may have been secondary to undernutrition rather than a cause of it.
Selection of a family planning method: a Philippine example
Authors: Ballweg John A. 
Published: July 2008

The sample under consideration in this study was composed of 3445 women who accepted some method of pregnancy prevention after consultation with the National Family Planning organization in the Republic of the Philippines. Subjects were divided into four groups: those women who used an oral contraceptive, women using the IUD, women practising the rhythm method, and those who relied on other methods of birth control.This study attempted to reveal sources of information on family planning and reasons for acceptance of a birth control method, as well as the woman's actual and ideal family size and the interval since her last pregnancy. In addition, the relationship between the woman's educational level and the type of technique selected and husband's occupation as a correlate of the method chosen were also investigated.The findings appear to suggest, among other things, that women near the end of the child-bearing years were less likely to select one of the more effective methods. Women with large families and those who reported the desire for no additional children tended to favour the more reliable techniques. Surprisingly, the two measures of status failed to reveal significant relationships with the selection of a given technique.
The limits of acceptable family size: evidence from Melbourne, Australia
Authors: Ware Helen 
Published: July 2008

SummaryThe data in this paper are drawn from interviews with a probability sample of 2652 once-married women under the age of 60 currently living with their husbands in 1971 in metropolitan Melbourne. Although drawing from other material from the 2½ hr interviews the discussion concentrates upon the family size ideals of these wives. In addition to the customary measures of ideal family size, new measures of the upper and lower limits of acceptable family size are described, together with the reactions of the whole sample to a wide range of specified family sizes and the reasons for accepting or rejecting them. It is shown that the eventual achievement of zero population growth will almost certainly depend upon the two-child family becoming the norm for the great majority of couples, since childless or one-child marriages are desired by only 2% of couples. Currently, however, 20% of wives consider two-child families to be undesirably small. The marked religious, country of origin and educational differentials in acceptance of the two-child family are also discussed.
Sexuality, birth control and abortion: a decision-making sequence
Authors: Diamond Milton , Steinhoff Patricia G. , Palmore James A. , Smith Roy G. 
Published: July 2008

SummaryA matched group of women who conceived during a 2-month period in 1971 was used to trace some parameters involved in their decision to carry their pregnancies to term or to seek an abortion.Several specific indices to the decision were considered: whether coitus was anticipated; whether the pregnancy was planned; whether birth control methods were used; and how the pregnancy ended. The effects of age, marital status, religion, reasons for the abortion or carrying the pregnancy to term, and attitude towards a possible delivery were also studied.It was found that coitus was anticipated by the majority of women, but pregnancy was unplanned for. Two-thirds of the women who did not want to become pregnant were not using a contraceptive method; yet, regardless of whether pregnancy was planned or unplanned, one of three women chose to have an abortion.Among the most common reasons for women indicating that contraceptive measures were not used were: ‘I didn't want sex to seem planned’ and ‘I thought I was in a safe period’. The decision to have an abortion usually depended upon the woman's marital status, age, religion, and previous use of birth control. Surprisingly, among women who had not planned to become pregnant, the percentage of women choosing abortion was the same from both subgroups of women who used or did not use contraception. It was also surprising that no strong relationship seemed to exist between the type of contraceptive technique used and the decision to have an abortion.Women who planned ahead to have an abortion if they became pregnant were more often using contraception; thus for these women abortion was not a primary method of family planning but a back-up for failed contraception. Women who had their babies, infrequently considered abortion as an alternative.It was predicted and found true that women who positively viewed the prospect of having a child chose to carry the pregnancy to term while those who expressed unhappiness at having a baby chose abortion. Unexpectedly, we found the overwhelming majority of women who claimed ‘I would be neither happy nor unhappy to have this baby’ chose to have an abortion. Thus a woman's so-called neutral statement regarding a desire was generally seen not to be neutral.Our use of a pregnant population of women who conceived at the same time (conception cohort) for the analysis of the decision of whether to have an abortion or carry to term, when abortion is legal, thus seemed to be feasible and practical.
A note of the distribution of marriage distance among the santals in the neighbourhood of Giridih, Bihar
Authors: Basu Amitabha 
Published: July 2008

SummaryMarriage distance is an important variable in human genetics. The distribution of marriage distance has been studied among the Santals, a large agricultural tribe of eastern India, in the neighbourhood of Giridih, Bihar. A Type III Pearsonian curve was fitted to the observed distribution; the fit was found to be good. Possible explanations have been suggested for the distribution pattern among the Santals and for the difference with respect to this pattern between the Santals and other populations.
Spontaneous Abortion and Birth Order
Authors: James William H. 
Published: July 2008

SummaryIt is well established that, in general, pregnancies at advanced maternal ages or of advanced birth order are at greater risk of aborting spontaneously. It does not follow that each individual woman, as she proceeds through her reproductive life, becomes steadily more prone to abort. The present paper attempts to analyse evidence on how individual women's abortion probabilities vary during their reproductive lives. Statistical examination of the data suggests that:1. A spontaneous abortion in a given birth rank is more likely than a live birth in the same rank to be followed by a further pregnancy. Abortion-prone women have more pregnancies than other women.2. There is no significant overall tendency for spontaneous abortions to appear early or late in sibships even when account is taken of the reproductive compensation reported above.3. Pathological examination of spontaneously aborted fetuses suggests that more (perhaps many more) than 10% of spontaneous abortions (e.g. those associated with trisomy and maternal isoimmunization) are causally associated with advanced maternal age or birth order.4. The mean maternal age of spontaneously aborted fetuses which fail to grow in culture is higher than that of fetuses which are successfully cultured.One would infer:A. (from suggestions 1 and 2 above) that reproductive compensation (rather than a real birth order effect) is a major reason why abortion rates are higher at higher maternal ages and higher birth ranks;B. (from suggestions 2 and 3 above) that there must be another group of abortions, roughly equal in number, which are causally associated with low maternal age or early birth order.Little is known about this second group of reproductive casualties (those associated with low birth order or maternal age), but it is suggested that some have CNS malformations. I have made similar suggestions in regard to stillbirth and neonatal death.
A Twin Study of Personal Preferences
Authors: Faust Judith 
Published: July 2008

SummaryThe object of the study was to investigate the genetic nature of personal preferences in such spheres as food, friendship, art, music, ambition, marriage and so on. The subjects chosen for the research were forty-eight pairs of identical and forty-eight pairs of non-identical twins, divided equally into males and females, with ages ranging between 17 and 40 years. Each subject, individually, was given an oral questionnaire (‘Fads and Fancies’), the answers to which were analysed statistically. The results indicate very little difference between the concordance rates of identical and non-identical twins, suggesting that the issues discussed might not be genetically influenced. One possible reason for such findings could be the unrepresentative nature of the sample.
Knowledge, attitudes and practice of family planning: profile of a Bedouin community in Saudi Arabia
Authors: Sebai Zohair A. 
Published: July 2008

SummaryFamily planning is not being practised in Wadi Turaba in western Saudi Arabia, which is a Bedouin community with different stages of settlement. Children are wanted in the family, and the more children, especially boys, the better the social status of the family in the community. The desire of a mother for more children does not appear to be affected by her age group, history of previous marriages or history of previous pregnancies.Knowledge about contraceptives practically does not exist, except on a small scale in the settled community. Every woman, following the Koranic teachings, weans her child exactly at the age of 2 years, which obviously leads to the spacing of births. In rather rare situations, coitus interruptus is practised.
The contraceptive situation in the Irish Republic
Authors: Wilson-Davis Keith 
Published: July 2008

SummaryThe 1935 Criminal Law Amendment Act translated the Catholic Church's doctrine regarding contraception into the law of the land prohibiting the sale, importation and advertising of ‘unnatural methods’ of contraception.Over the years, public opinion has changed and it has been estimated that over 20,000 Irish wives are taking the pill in spite of Humanae Vitae. Family planning clinics have been set up in Dublin.In 1973, the Supreme Court ruled in the McGee case that the ban on importation was unconstitutional and violated private rights.Three private member's bills have been defeated and a Government bill to amend the 1935 Act is before the present session of the Dáil. It is a conservative measure seeking to restrict the importation and selling of contraceptives to licensed persons and making it an offence for unmarried persons to purchase them. It is probable that the bill will be defeated by Government members who regard it as too permissive and that the law will be further liberalized by more test-cases in the Courts.
The Fitness of the Human Zygote
Authors: James William H. 
Published: July 2008

SummaryThe fitness of human zygotes depends on both biological and demographic parameters. Some of the demographic parameters are changing at present in this country and accurate estimates of them are not available but this imprecision has no great bearing on the estimate of fitness offered below.Of 100 human zygotes, now, in this country, it is estimated that embryonic and early fetal loss (before the end of the 3rd month) accounts for 44; induced abortion, 7; late fetal loss (after the 3rd month), 4; and mortality between birth and maturity, 1½. Of the remaining 43½ who reach maturity, it is estimated that 8 fail to reproduce, leaving 35½ who do reproduce.The standard error of this estimate must be large because of the large standard error of the estimate of the incidence of natural reproductive wastage from which it was derived.
A Comparison of the Colour Aptitude and Memory of Art Students
Authors: Cobb Stephen R. 
Published: July 2008

SummaryUsing the ISCC and the Burnham-Clark-Munsell tests, the colour aptitude and colour memory of a group of art students have been compared with a control group, matched for sex and age. The results of the colour aptitude test show that, for the men, but not for the women, the art students performed significantly better than the control group. With the colour memory test, there was no significant difference between the art students and the controls but, overall, the women had better results than the men.
The Changing Pattern of Human Reproduction in Scotland, 1928–72
Authors: Baird Dugald 
Published: July 2008

Fifty years ago, in the early 1920s, Marie Stopes published her books on childbearing, contraception and sex, and immediately became famous. Indeed recently when an American jury was asked to select the 25 most influential books published in the previous 50 years, Marie Stopes was one of a list of twelve authors which included Marx, Lenin, Freud, Einstein, William James and Hitler.I was fortunate to read her books when I began my career as a practising obstetrician in Glasgow in 1928 and I propose to discuss the changes in human reproduction which have occurred in the last 50 years under the headings of three of Marie Stopes' best known books: (1) Radiant Motherhood, (2) Planned Parenthood and (3) Married Love.
Patterns of contraceptive failures: the role of motivation re-examined
Authors: Cobliner W. Godfrey , Schulman Harold , Smith Vivian 
Published: July 2008

SummaryThe vicissitudes of contraceptive efforts were studied by means of personal interviews in a sample of 100 women using the outpatient facilities of a metropolitan municipal hospital.The women were consecutive abortion repeaters, free of any mental or emotional impairment, who made genuine efforts to practise birth control. The circumstances of their failure to prevent recurrent unwanted pregnancies were analysed, and led to these conclusions.1. The average number of birth control methods used by the subjects was 1.9, which figure does not include a resumption of a method once replaced.2. The role of motivation is but one, and not necessarily the most essential, element in successful contraceptive practice.3. The interplay between contraceptive technology and various elements of human behaviour puts a limit on the effectiveness of any current contraceptive method; it products a significant and irreducible number of contraceptive failures that are relatively independent of any subjective motivation.4. As a result of such interplay, many women would temporarily suspend contraceptive practice; the subsequent activation of psychological mechanisms then makes them ignore the risk of preganancy.
Socio-economic factors associated with unwanted births to married women: a geographical analysis using census indicators
Authors: Brennan Mary E. , Hebel R. 
Published: July 2008

SummaryThe proportion of unwanted births to married women who were delivered in a district maternity hospital during a 3-month period in 1971 was computed for each ward in the administrative area. The percentage varied from 5 to 20% with an average of 10%. These results were compared with the distributions of socio-economic variables derived from the 1971 Census. Party was shown to be the most important indicator; Kendall's rank correlation coefficient was 0·56 (P <0·01). When the effect of parity was eliminated by the use of Kendall’s partial rank correlation coefficient, overcrowding and family structure were shown to be statistically significant (P <0·05).