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        <title>Population and Health InfoShare</title>
        <description>Population and Health InfoShare : Newest 15 Documents. Sharing Knowledge to Improve Public Health Worldwide</description>
        <link>http://www.phishare.org/documents/?order=Date%20DESC</link>
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            <title>Population and Health InfoShare logo</title>
            <link>http://www.phishare.org/</link>
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        <item>
            <title>Bicycles Pedaling Into the Spotlight</title>
            <link>http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/Bike/2008.htm</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Bicycle production measures our ability to provide affordable transportation, reduce traffic congestion, lower air pollution, increase mobility, and provide exercise to the world’s growing population.

The world produced an estimated 130 million bicycles in 2007 -- more than twice the 52 million cars produced. Bicycle and car production tracked each other closely in the mid-to-late 1960s, but bike output separated sharply from that of cars in 1970, beginning its steep climb to 105 million in 1988. Following a slowdown between 1989 and 2001, bike production has regained steam, increasing in each of the last six years. Much of the recent growth has been driven by the rise in electric, or “e-bike” production, which has doubled since 2004 to 21 million units in 2007. Overall, since 1970, bicycle output has nearly quadrupled, while car production has roughly doubled.

Promoting the bike as a clean and efficient alternative to the personal automobile is a practical way for cities to reduce traffic congestion and smog. To simultaneously confront those problems as well as climate change and an emerging obesity epidemic, government leaders and advocacy groups are working to bring cycling back to prominence in the urban transport mix.

A number of European cities have set the standard for bicycle use and promotion, via pro-bike transportation and land use policies, as well as heavy funding for bicycle infrastructure and public education.]]></description>
            <author>epi@earth-policy.org (Earth Policy Institute)</author>
            <pubDate>Mon, 12 May 2008 18:36:49 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>Youth InfoNet 45</title>
            <link>http://www.fhi.org/en/Youth/YouthNet/Publications/YouthInfoNet/45.htm</link>
            <description><![CDATA[This issue of the monthly e-newsletter on youth reproductive health and HIV prevention features 16 program resources with Web links, and 11 journal article summaries on research from Brazil, China, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Thailand, Uganda, United States, and Zambia.]]></description>
            <author>news@fhi.org (Family Health International)</author>
            <pubDate>Mon, 12 May 2008 15:47:50 +0100</pubDate>
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        <item>
            <title>Index to JHPN articles: June 2000-December 2007</title>
            <link>http://www.icddrb.org/images/Index-to-JHPN-Articles-2000-2007.pdf</link>
            <description><![CDATA[The Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition (JHPN) was relaunched in June 2000 expanding the scope of the former Journal of Diarrhoeal Diseases Research (JDDR).

The Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition is a peer-reviewed journal, and each manuscript is reviewed by at least 3 experts in the respective fields. The Journal is indexed/abstracted by all the major international indexing/abstracting systems, including Clinical Medicine, Research Alert, SCI Expanded, SCI JCR, Index Medicus, PubMed/ MEDLINE, POPLINE, Google Scholar, Elsevier Bibliographic Databases (Scopus, Embase, EMBiology, and EMCare), Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, CAB Abstracts, CAB Health, etc.
 
The Index to JHPN Articles includes citations of papers that were published during June 2000–December 2007. The Index covers review articles, original papers, new concepts, short reports, letters, meeting reports, commentaries, and editorials.
 
The first part of the Index has been arranged alphabetically by names of authors with cross references to co-authors. The second part of the Index includes references to subjects covered in the papers. The Subject Index also includes information on countries. The Subject Index has been organized in alphabetical order by subjects..
 
The Index will particularly be useful to those who are interested to know about the types of papers published, who published, and the subjects covered in the Journal.

ICDDR,B special publication no. 127]]></description>
            <author>pthorpe@icddrb.org (ICDDR,B)</author>
            <pubDate>Mon, 12 May 2008 06:01:11 +0100</pubDate>
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        <item>
            <title>Chakaria Health and Demographic Surveillance System: focusing on the poor and vulnerable. ...</title>
            <link>http://www.icddrb.org/images/Chakaria-HDSS-Report-SR102.pdf</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Chakaria is one of the 465 upazilas (sub-districts) in Bangladesh. It is located between latitudes 21o34' North and 21o55' North and longitudes 91o54' and 92o13' East in the southeastern coast of the Bay of Bengal. Administratively, it is under Cox's Bazar district with a population of around 410,770 in 2006. The highway from Chittagong to Cox's Bazar passes through Chakaria. The east side of Chakaria is hilly, while on the west side towards the Bay of Bengal is lowland.

ICDDR,B started its activities in Chakaria in 1994. The focus of the activities has been to facilitate local initiatives for the improvement of health of the villagers in general and of children, women, and the poor in particular. Thus, the activities of the project have been participatory with emphasis on empowering the people by raising awareness about health, inducing positive preventive behaviour through health education, and providing technical assistance to any health initiatives taken by the village-based indigenous self-help organizations. Some major initiatives taken by the villagers included assessment of health needs, defining actions for health, implementing them, and monitoring their implementation and outputs. Among the health-related activities, identification of volunteers for health education, mobilizing local resources for the establishment of village health posts and their management, introduction of a pre-paid family health card, and establishment of health cooperatives have been the major ones. 

Collection of data from sample households on a quarterly basis, referred hitherto as Chakaria Health and Demographic Surveillance System (Chakaria HDSS), has been initiated in both the areas since 1999. The primary purpose of this surveillance system is to monitor the impact of interventions with equity focus and generate relevant health, demographic and socioeconomic information for policies and programmes, and further research. This report presents data collected through the Chakaria HDSS during 2006.

ICDDR,B scientific report no. 102]]></description>
            <author>pthorpe@icddrb.org (ICDDR,B)</author>
            <pubDate>Mon, 12 May 2008 05:46:51 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>HIV, Tuberculosis, and Multidrug Resistance: Implications for HIV-Infected Children</title>
            <link>http://www.pmtct.org/wchiv?page=tp-02-10</link>
            <description><![CDATA[This piece is part of the UCSF Center for HIV Information's series, Emerging Issues in PMTCT. It addresses the implications that HIV and TB coinfection and MDR-TB have for children, particularly the challenges in diagnosis and treatment and the need for increased, coordination and contract tracing.]]></description>
            <author>hdron@chi.ucsf.edu (UCSF Center for HIV Information)</author>
            <pubDate>Fri, 02 May 2008 18:17:28 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>2006 Mali DHS Final Report</title>
            <link>http://www.measuredhs.com/pubs/pub_details.cfm?id=759&amp;srchTp=home</link>
            <description><![CDATA[The Ministry of Health of the Republic of Mali recently released the final report for the 2006 Mali Demographic and Health Survey (EDSM-IV) in Bamako. The EDSM-IV interviewed 14,000 women ages 15 to 49 and 4,000 men ages 15 to 59. Significant gains were made in rural areas for both maternal and child health. Immunization coverage of children ages 12 to 23 months increased markedly since 2001 as did women’s use of antenatal care during pregnancy. The survey results show reductions in morbidity and mortality but other areas, such as fertility and malnutrition rates, saw little change.]]></description>
            <author>erica.nybro@orcmacro.com (MEASURE DHS (Demographic and Health Surveys))</author>
            <pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2008 15:51:36 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>Trends in Youth Reproductive Health in Ethiopia, 2000 and 2005</title>
            <link>http://www.measuredhs.com/pubs/pub_details.cfm?id=761&amp;srchTp=home</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Young adults’ reproductive health is steadily improving in Ethiopia, but there is still much room for improvement. Trends in Youth Reproductive Health in Ethiopia, 2000 and 2005 compares results from the 2000 and 2005 Ethiopia Demographic and Health Surveys (EDHS) for young adults ages 15-24. It was funded by the Packard Foundation. The report looks closely at changes in key indicators, such as sexual activity, use of contraception, and unmet need for family planning.  Sexual activity among young men has dropped dramatically since 2000, when 44 percent had ever had sexual intercourse. By contrast, five years later, 23 percent of young men had had sex. Sexual activity among young women also decreased during that time while their use of contraception increased.]]></description>
            <author>erica.nybro@orcmacro.com (MEASURE DHS (Demographic and Health Surveys))</author>
            <pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2008 15:49:40 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>Men’s Condom Use In Higher-Risk Sex: Trends and Determinants in Five Sub-Saharan Countries</title>
            <link>http://www.measuredhs.com/pubs/pub_details.cfm?id=766&amp;srchTp=home</link>
            <description><![CDATA[This working paper examines men’s condom use at last higher-risk sex (i.e., nonmarital, noncohabiting partner) in five sub-Saharan countries: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia. The two most recent DHS surveys in each country are analyzed to show trends in various indicators. Use of condoms has increased substantially in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, and Tanzania, with smaller increases in Kenya and Zambia. Multivariate analysis shows that higher education is a consistently strong, positive predictor of condom use at last higher-risk sex, whereas higher wealth status is not significant in most surveys.]]></description>
            <author>erica.nybro@orcmacro.com (MEASURE DHS (Demographic and Health Surveys))</author>
            <pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2008 15:45:52 +0100</pubDate>
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        <item>
            <title>Assessment of a Capture-Recapture Method for Estimating the Size of the Female Sex Worker ...</title>
            <link>http://www.cpc.unc.edu/measure/publications</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Purpose: To assess the use of capture-recapture methods for estimating the size of sex worker populations in sub-Saharan Africa.

Methods: We used a capture-mark-recapture method to estimate the size of the bar-based female sex worker population in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and compared this estimate with an estimate obtained by counting sex workers.

Results: Enumerators counted 6,997 women entering 56 bars known for sex worker activity. For the capture-recapture estimate, we interviewed 1,381 sex workers at 15 bars one Saturday night and 1,469 sex workers at the same bars a week later. Of these 1,469 women, 521 reported being interviewed the previous Saturday. The capture-recapture estimate of 3,894 (1381 x 1469 / 521) was considerably lower than the number counted. When we assumed that half the women returned to the same bar (rather than randomly mix among bars) and based the estimate on bars where the proportion recaptured was more than 20 percent, the estimate (7,855) of the 56-bar population was closer to the estimate obtained by counting.

Conclusions: Estimating the size of populations at risk for transmitting HIV is critical for AIDS prevention. The capture-recapture method may prove useful but requires collecting data to assess the direction and extent of bias in estimates.

Key Words: AIDS, population size, population surveys, epidemiological methods, prostitution, Africa, sampling]]></description>
            <author>measure@unc.edu (MEASURE Evaluation)</author>
            <pubDate>Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:09:23 +0100</pubDate>
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        <item>
            <title>Comparative Analysis of Program Effort for Family Planning, Maternal Health, and HIV/AIDS, 30 ...</title>
            <link>http://www.cpc.unc.edu/measure/publications</link>
            <description><![CDATA[CONTEXT: Many developing countries have mounted national programs for family planning, for maternal health, or for HIV/AIDS, but rather little is known about how closely these three programs parallel or support each other. Measures of program effort are now available for all three activities, collected in the 1999-2000 period, with common data on 30 countries that contain half of the developing world's population.

METHODS: All three studies used questionnaires completed by expert observers for each country. Experts from a variety of backgrounds and institutional affiliations were identified, with a different set of persons for each study since the field operations were entirely separate and done at different times. Each program was rated on a large number of features, and the ratings were all quantified as the percent of the maximum possible scores.

RESULTS: As an average, the strength of effort of these three programs is similar across the 30 countries, at slightly over half of the maximum scores. However the averages conceal sharp variations. In some countries the total scores are close for two or even all three of the programs, but in others there are large disparities. In addition, there is no correspondence across countries in the strength of the family planning and the HIV/AIDS programs, although both correlate appreciably with the maternal health programs. Policy scores are relatively high and vary rather little across the regions, but access to services shows substantial differences from one program to another; moreover Sub-Saharan Africa scores low on family planning and maternal health, but about as well on HIV/AIDS as do the other regions. Over time, countries with the weakest efforts have improved their scores more than countries with the strongest efforts have.]]></description>
            <author>measure@unc.edu (MEASURE Evaluation)</author>
            <pubDate>Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:05:37 +0100</pubDate>
        </item>
        <item>
            <title>The Social Side of Service Accessibility</title>
            <link>http://www.cpc.unc.edu/measure/publications</link>
            <description><![CDATA[This methodological project relates both to the conceptualization and measurement of potential program effects. The starting point is the hypothesis that the social side of service accessibility--i.e., social network characteristics that affect access to information and redundancy in the information obtained--is important to an understanding of accessibility and its effects. Our results suggest that this is true. Using a unique survey data set for Nang Rong, Thailand, we formalize social network concepts at the individual and village level, and then examine effects on contraceptive choice--method and source--in the context of models that also take into account physical proximity. To quickly summarize our results: Proximity to family planning outlets affected contraceptive choices, especially source choices. Women living further away from a local health center were less likely to choose a local health center, and women living further away from a hospital were less likely to choose a hospital. Proximity mattered less, however, for women living in households directly linked by sibling ties to other households in the village and to siblings living in other places. Results inform the design and interpretation of evaluation efforts in a variety of settings, and the potential role of social networks in bringing about program effects. While the specific focus is the provision of family planning services, the idea extends to the provision of STD or maternal and child health services as well.]]></description>
            <author>measure@unc.edu (MEASURE Evaluation)</author>
            <pubDate>Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:01:30 +0100</pubDate>
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        <item>
            <title>Multi-media campaign exposure effects on knowledge and use of condoms for STI and HIV/AIDS ...</title>
            <link>http://www.cpc.unc.edu/measure/publications</link>
            <description><![CDATA[This paper evaluated the influences of multi-media Behavior Change Communication campaigns on knowledge and use of condoms for prevention of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections in target areas of Uganda. Data were drawn from the 1997 and 1999 Delivery of Improved Services for Health Evaluation Surveys, which collected information from representative samples of women and men of reproductive age in the districts served by the DISH project. Logistic regressions were used to assess the associations between BCC exposure and condom knowledge and use, controlling for individuals' background characteristics. While there was some evidence of bias of self-report, results indicated that exposure to BCC messages, especially via radio, was strongly associated with higher condom knowledge and use. A dose-response effect between the number of media channels and condom knowledge was observed. Certain gender differences were also found, with message content seemingly more important in terms of instilling safer sex practices.]]></description>
            <author>measure@unc.edu (MEASURE Evaluation)</author>
            <pubDate>Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:57:51 +0100</pubDate>
        </item>
        <item>
            <title>Association of mass media exposure on family planning attitudes and practices in Uganda</title>
            <link>http://www.cpc.unc.edu/measure/publications</link>
            <description><![CDATA[This paper examined the influences of multi-media Behavior Change Communication campaigns on women's and men's use of and intentions to use contraception in target areas of Uganda. Data were primarily drawn from the 1997 and 1999 Delivery of Improved Services for Health evaluation surveys, which collected information from representative samples of women and men of reproductive age in the districts served by the DISH project. Additional time-trend analyses relied on data from the 1995 Demographic and Health Survey. Logistic regressions were used to assess the associations between BCC exposure and family planning attitudes and practices, controlling for individuals' background characteristics. To minimize the biases of self-reported exposure, the analyses also considered cluster-level indices of the penetration of BCC messages in the community. Results indicated that exposure to BCC messages was associated with higher contraceptive intentions and use. While there was some evidence of bias of self-report, the pathways to behavior change appeared different for women and men.]]></description>
            <author>measure@unc.edu (MEASURE Evaluation)</author>
            <pubDate>Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:54:55 +0100</pubDate>
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        <item>
            <title>The Role of User Charges and Structural Attributes of Quality On the Use of Maternal Health ...</title>
            <link>http://www.cpc.unc.edu/measure/publications</link>
            <description><![CDATA[This study examines the role of household out-of-pocket costs and structural attributes of quality on the use of maternity care in Morocco using empirical data collected from both households and health care facilities. The study uses a nested mixed multinomial logit model to estimate the effects of structural attributes of quality, price, distance, and individual characteristics of women on the utilization of skilled and unskilled delivery assistance. The availability of a special DHS supplement on household out-of-pocket health care expenditures, as well as individual-, household-, and facility-specific information, makes this the first study of the demand for maternity care based on DHS data. The Moroccan setting provides substantial variation in the types of assistance available to women, ranging from home delivery aided only by friends and relatives at one extreme, to modern private hospitals at the other end of the spectrum. The reduced-form model specifications contains price, travel time, and different combinations of structural attributes of quality, including the availability of medical equipment, drugs, and infrastructure, the numbers and types of practitioners in the facility, and the availability various types of maternity services, and the interaction of these variables with individual characteristics of Moroccan women. The coefficient estimates are used to carry out policy simulations of the impact of changes in the level of out-of-pocket fees on utilization patterns for maternity care in Morocco.

As of 1995, the majority of Moroccan women still gave birth at home, without the assistance of a skilled birth attendant (55.9 percent). Rural women were five times as likely as urban women to have home births without skilled assistance (78.7 percent vs. 18.8 percent). All forms of maternity care were more economically and geographically accessible to urban compared to rural women. The public sector was the most common source of facility based care (34 percent), as well as a more important source of care for urban (58 percent) than rural (19 percent) women. Rural women from richer households were considerably more likely than poor women to use public providers; while in urban areas, where there is better availability of private practitioners, wealthier women were slightly less likely to use public providers. Facility-based private health care providers assisted 16 percent of urban deliveries, but fewer than one percent of rural deliveries. On the whole, quality of care measures, such as the availability of drugs, equipment and infrastructure, were not substantially better in private facilities than in public facilities.

Our policy simulations showed that increases in out-of-pocket costs for public facilities would be expected to have very little impact on women living in better-off households, but would have a substantial and detrimental effect on the poor. Health reform strategies that involve increases in out-of-pocket payments in the form of co-payments could be implemented without untoward effects on appropriate use of maternity care for better-off women, but would be contra-indicated for poorer and rural households. Among wealthier households, the positive effect of quality improvements was greater than the dampening effect of user fee increases, even if out-of-pocket costs of using public facilities were to be doubled. However, among the poor, the net effect of any strategy that involved increases of more than ten percent in out-of-pocket costs would have a detrimental influence on utilization rates, regardless of quality improvements.

Our findings suggest that in Morocco, unlike countries with stronger traditions of skilled and mobile midwifery services, maternity continues to be a risky proposition, particularly for poor and rural women. The Moroccan government's emphasis on expanding social health insurance to improve financial access to public sector maternity services for the poor and for rural populations is clearly an urgent priority.]]></description>
            <author>measure@unc.edu (MEASURE Evaluation)</author>
            <pubDate>Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:51:20 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>How and When Should One Control for Endogenity Biases? Part I: The Impact of a Possibly ...</title>
            <link>http://www.cpc.unc.edu/measure/publications</link>
            <description><![CDATA[The interpretation of coefficients estimates from ordinary least square regressions and other statistical models depends crucially on whether any explanatory variable in the statistical model is correlated with the ôerror termö influencing the outcome of interest. If there is a relationship between any explanatory variable and the unmeasured determinants of an outcome, then one usually cannot interpret any of the estimated coefficients as the impact of the corresponding covariate on the outcome of interest. In the medical and public health literature, this is often called the problem of confounding effects. In economics and sociology, one typically calls this the problem of endogenous regressors. Regardless of the label chosen for this relationship, the presence of a correlation between the measured and unmeasured determinants of an outcome results in biased estimators of the impacts of all covariates.

In this paper we explore the severity of the possible biases that can arise when such correlations are present, and we examine the performance of some simple estimators that have been developed to reduce the bias. We start out by examining ordinary least square models with continuous outcomes and continuous regressors because most of the intuition about the problems and the solutions can be developed simply in that context. We then examine endogeneity problems and solutions for three other sets of models that researchers often encounter in practice: a continuous outcome influenced by an endogenous binary regressor; a binary (discrete) outcome determined by an endogenous continuous regressor; and a binary outcome being influenced by an endogenous binary regressor. In nearly all instances we focus on the estimation of the impact of the possibly endogenous regressor on the outcome of interest, but it is important to recognize that estimators for all effects in a model, not just those for the endogenous variables, usually are biased when any explanatory variable is endogenous. We also examine the performance of estimators in situations where the researcher cares about more than just the bias of the estimator.]]></description>
            <author>measure@unc.edu (MEASURE Evaluation)</author>
            <pubDate>Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:46:56 +0100</pubDate>
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