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        <title>InfoShare Partner - Population Council</title>
        <description>Population and Health InfoShare : Newest 15 Documents by Population Council. Sharing Knowledge to Improve Public Health Worldwide</description>
        <link>http://www.phishare.org/documents/PopCouncil/?order=Date%20DESC</link>
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        <item>
            <title>Sexual and gender based violence in Africa: Literature review</title>
            <link>http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/AfricaSGBV_LitReview.pdf</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV), in its various forms, is endemic in communities around the world, cutting across class, race, age, religion and national boundaries. Exposure to gender-based violence and sexual coercion significantly increases girls’ and women’s chances of early sexual debut, experiencing forced sex, engaging in transactional sex, and non-use of condoms. The impact of sexual and gender-based violence resonates in all areas of health and social programming: survivors of sexual violence experience increased rates of morbidity and mortality, and violence has been shown to exacerbate HIV transmission, among other health conditions (IGWG of USAID, 2006). While girls are the most visible survivors of sexual violence, they are far from being the only ones who suffer from the consequences: children of both sexes constitute the majority of abuse survivors, and adult men and the handicapped are minority groups who are often neglected in research and interventions. 

There is growing awareness of the links between sexual and gender-based violence, health, human rights and national development in East, Central and Southern Africa (ECSA). However, there are few programmes that simultaneously address the determinants and consequences of SGBV in an integrated and comprehensive manner, with responses being implemented separately by the NGO and public sectors, and by separate line ministries within national governments. In addition to this, few guidelines or frameworks exist to guide policymakers and programme managers in developing and implementing the comprehensive response necessary to address the health and criminal justice consequences of violence, and to reduce the determinants of violent behaviour within communities. Moreover, in most situations, organizations and ministries are undertaking activities without reference to or liaison with other key actors and networks within their country or more widely in the region.

This literature review is intended to inform partners in the Population Council-coordinated regional network that aims to develop a multi-sectoral and comprehensive response to SGBV in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa. The review is structured around seven components collectively designed to meet the medical, psychological and justice needs of survivors of sexual violence. The components consist of a comprehensive review of region-specific policies, programmatic experiences and best practices relating to the appropriate medical management of sexual violence, enabling effective criminal justice responses to all SGBV cases, and the reduction of levels of violence at the community level.]]></description>
            <author>pubinfo@popcouncil.org (Population Council)</author>
            <pubDate>Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:09:04 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>Sexual and gender based violence in Africa: Key issues for programming</title>
            <link>http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/AfricaSGBV_KeyIssues.pdf</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV), in its various forms, is endemic in communities around the world, cutting across class, race, age, religion and national boundaries. Exposure to gender-based violence and sexual coercion significantly increases girls', and women's risk of early sexual debut, experiencing forced sex, engaging in transactional sex, and unprotected sex. The impact of sexual and gender-based violence resonates in all areas of health and social programming: survivors of sexual violence experience increased rates of morbidity and mortality, and violence has been shown to exacerbate HIV transmission, among other health conditions. While women are the most visible survivors of sexual violence, they are far from being the only ones who suffer from the consequences: children of both sexes constitute the majority of abuse survivors reporting for medical and police services, and adult men and the handicapped are groups who are often neglected in research and interventions. 

This brochure summarizes the key points from a literature review on SGBV designed to inform partners across Africa. The review is a resource for developing a comprehensive model of care, support and prevention that partner countries can adapt, as a whole or in part. It is structured around a set of components that are collectively designed to meet the full range of survivors' medical, psychological and justice needs in an integrated manner, while contributing to community level prevention efforts.]]></description>
            <author>pubinfo@popcouncil.org (Population Council)</author>
            <pubDate>Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:06:26 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>Girls\' adolescence in Burkina Faso: A pivot point for social change</title>
            <link>http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/BurkinaFaso_Girls.pdf</link>
            <description><![CDATA[As closer attention is paid to the lives of adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa, girls are found to be clearly disadvantaged, compared with their male counterparts. In Burkina Faso 74 percent of girls aged 15-19 cannot read (INSD and ORC Macro 2004). Burkinabé girls are frequently married at a young age, and more than one-third of married girls find themselves in polygamous unions as second or third wives, married to much older men. Understanding and recognizing girls' realities is an important first step in planning appropriate and meaningful interventions for them. Girls who are unmarried, "promised," engaged, or married face different constraints and merit different program approaches. This report aims to fill gaps in our knowledge regarding adolescent Burkinabé girls so as better serve the needs of this most vulnerable population.]]></description>
            <author>pubinfo@popcouncil.org (Population Council)</author>
            <pubDate>Mon, 22 Oct 2007 15:58:18 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>Support by migrants to their elderly parents in rural Cambodia and Thailand: A comparative study</title>
            <link>http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/wp/pgy/002.pdf</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Population Council Poverty, Gender, and Youth Working Paper no. 2. Internal migration in Southeast Asia raises questions about strains upon traditional systems of support for older adults. While remittances to parents’ households play a role in rural household economies, uncertainty remains regarding whether and under what circumstances children interact with their elderly parents. This paper focuses on the adult children of older persons living in rural Cambodia and Thailand and examines the determinants of personal visits, monetary remittances, and more general forms of household support. Analyses consider ways in which geographically distant children support parents, the extent to which characteristics of parents, children, and households enhance or detract from these intergenerational interactions, and how determinants of intergenerational interaction vary between the two countries. Comparisons between countries of conditions and characteristics of families provide insights into how social, economic, and cultural forces motivate provision of support to aging parents.]]></description>
            <author>pubinfo@popcouncil.org (Population Council)</author>
            <pubDate>Mon, 04 Jun 2007 14:38:13 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>Providing new opportunities to adolescent girls in socially conservative settings: The Ishraq ...</title>
            <link>http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/IshraqFullReport.pdf</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Out-of-school girls are among the most disadvantaged adolescents in rural Upper Egypt. Compared with girls attending school, they are more likely to be engaged in poorly paid farm work, more likely to be married early, and at greater risk for early childbearing and poor pregnancy outcomes. To respond to their situation, the Ishraq program was designed: a holistic intervention to address the unmet needs of out-of-school adolescent girls. The pilot phase of Ishraq was launched in four rural villages of one of the country's poorest regions through the partnership of Caritas, the Center for Development and Population Activities, the Population Council, and Save the Children. This research report provides data from the baseline and endline surveys conducted during the pilot.]]></description>
            <author>pubinfo@popcouncil.org (Population Council)</author>
            <pubDate>Tue, 22 May 2007 13:32:05 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>Teacher absence as a factor in gender inequalities in access to primary schooling in rural Pakistan</title>
            <link>http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/wp/pgy/001.pdf</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Poverty, Gender, and Youth Working Paper no. 1. Public-sector education in many countries in western and southern Asia, including Pakistan, is characterized by separate schools for boys and girls at the primary and secondary levels. We examine the case of Pakistan, where primary school enrollment among girls in rural areas is substantially lower than among children in urban areas and boys in rural areas, owing to lack of access to government girls’ schools. Our focus is on teacher absence as a further barrier to schooling for girls. Absence rates among the all-female teachers in government girls’ schools are substantially higher than among the all-male teachers in government boys’ schools. In 1997, about 35 percent of teachers in government girls’ schools and 22 percent of teachers in government boys’ schools in our sample from Northwest Frontier Province and Punjab were absent during unannounced visits to schools. About 25 percent of enrolled girls and 17 percent of enrolled boys in government schools did not have a teacher present to teach their class. By 2004, the percentage of enrolled children without a teacher was lower because of reduced absences of teachers in both Punjab and NWFP, but the gender gap remained. Whether they teach in government or private schools, women who live in the same community as the school are substantially less likely to be absent. In government girls’ schools, better basic amenities are also related to lower teacher absence. Both findings suggest the importance of recent government investments in schools and the higher inter-village travel costs faced by women relative to men.]]></description>
            <author>pubinfo@popcouncil.org (Population Council)</author>
            <pubDate>Tue, 22 May 2007 13:27:03 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>Patterns and implications of male migration for HIV prevention strategies in Andhra Pradesh</title>
            <link>http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/India_TechBrief.pdf</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Population Council India Technical Brief no. 1]]></description>
            <author>pubinfo@popcouncil.org (Population Council)</author>
            <pubDate>Thu, 19 Apr 2007 14:26:15 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>Marriage and childbirth as factors in school exit: An analysis of DHS data from sub-Saharan Africa</title>
            <link>http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/wp/219.pdf</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Population Council Policy Research Division Working Paper no. 219. This paper explores the potential importance of marriage and childbirth as determinants of school-leaving in sub-Saharan Africa and identifies some of the common underlying factors that contribute to premature school-leaving and early marriage and childbearing. We find that the risks of leaving school during adolescence for reasons other than childbirth or marriage far exceed the risks associated with these two demographic events. Consistent with overall trends of rising school enrollment and declines in early marriage and childbearing, we also find that the risks of leaving school during adolescence because of childbearing or marriage have declined relative to the past. Among the possible common causes underlying premature departure from school and early marriage and childbearing, our results suggest that delayed ages of school starting—a factor associated with being behind grade for age—could be a factor predisposing girls to a greater likelihood of both leaving school early and early marriage and childbearing. These findings have important policy implications. First, to the extent that demographic events such as early marriage and childbearing trump the school environment as a determinant of school exit during adolescence, our data indicate that early marriage rather than early childbirth is more likely to limit girls’ educational horizons, at least in the case of francophone Africa. This result suggests that the reproductive health community should see early marriage as a central area of concern for adolescent reproductive health. Second, our results suggest that “schoolgirl pregnancy” rarely accounts for more than a relatively small percent of girls who leave school. Third, policies that inform parents about the value of starting their children in school on time are likely to have beneficial effects both for grade attainment and for adolescent reproductive health regardless of school quality.]]></description>
            <author>pubinfo@popcouncil.org (Population Council)</author>
            <pubDate>Tue, 19 Dec 2006 15:55:37 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>The impact of immunization on the association between poverty and child survival: Evidence from ...</title>
            <link>http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/wp/218.pdf</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Population Council Policy Research Division Working Paper no. 218. Research conducted in Africa has demonstrated consistently that parental poverty and low educational attainment adversely affect child survival. Research conducted elsewhere has demonstrated that low-cost vaccines against preventable diseases reduce childhood mortality. Therefore, the extension of vaccination to impoverished populations is widely assumed to diminish equity effects. Recent evidence that childhood mortality is increasing in many countries where vaccination programs are active challenges this assumption. This paper marshals data from accurate and complete immunization records and survival histories for 18,368 children younger than five in a rural northern Ghanaian population that is generally impoverished, but where family wealth and parental educational differentials exist nonetheless. Time-conditional Weibull hazard models are estimated to test the hypothesis that childhood immunization offsets the detrimental effects of poverty and low educational attainment. Findings show that the adverse effects of poverty disappear and that the effects of educational attainment are reduced in survival models that control for immunization status. This finding lends empirical support to policies that promote immunization as a strategic component of poverty-reduction programs.]]></description>
            <author>pubinfo@popcouncil.org (Population Council)</author>
            <pubDate>Tue, 19 Dec 2006 15:51:33 +0100</pubDate>
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        <item>
            <title>Poverty, wealth inequality, and health among older adults in rural Cambodia</title>
            <link>http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/wp/217.pdf</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Population Council Policy Research Division Working Paper no. 217. This paper examines the distribution of household wealth and tests whether associations exist between wealth inequality and health outcomes among older adults living in one of the world’s poorest regions, rural Cambodia. The 2004 Survey of the Elderly in Cambodia, the first probability sample survey of the country’s elderly population, is employed. Health is conceptualized as having multiple components and is operationalized using a disablement process. As such, associations are shown for four types of health indicators—symptomatic conditions, sensory impairments, physical functioning limitations, and disabilities related to activities of daily living. Wealth inequality is determined using a Demographic and Health Survey index, which operationalizes wealth as the ownership of a variety of assets. Results confirm difficult economic conditions among most elderly in rural Cambodia. The lowest wealth quartile lives in households that own virtually nothing, while the next two quartiles are only slightly better off. Nevertheless, logistic regression that adjusts for age, sex, and several other covariates indicates heterogeneity in health exists across quartiles that otherwise appear qualitatively similar. Those in the bottom quartile of wealth report more health problems than those in the second and higher quartiles. An exception occurs using disability as a health outcome since those in the lowest and highest quartiles have similar probabilities of reporting limitations in activities of daily living. It is difficult to determine the factors behind the relationship between wealth and well-being, particularly given the cross-sectional nature of the data, although the final section speculates on causal directions. This study suggests there is some validity to generalizing the relationship between wealth inequality and health to extremely poor populations and that a very small difference in wealth makes a relatively large difference in regard to the association with health among those living in impoverished surroundings.]]></description>
            <author>pubinfo@popcouncil.org (Population Council)</author>
            <pubDate>Tue, 19 Dec 2006 15:48:13 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>Late marriage and the HIV epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa</title>
            <link>http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/wp/216.pdf</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Policy Research Division Working Paper no. 216. The causes of wide variation in the sizes of HIV epidemics among countries in sub-Saharan Africa are not well understood. This study assesses the potential roles of late age at marriage and a long period of premarital sexual activity as population risk factors for HIV infection in the region. The relationship between marital status and the prevalence and incidence of HIV is examined with ecological data from 33 sub-Saharan African countries and with individual-level data from nationally representative Demographic and Health Surveys in Kenya and Ghana in 2003. The ecological analysis finds a significant positive correlation between HIV prevalence and the median age at first marriage, and between HIV prevalence and the interval between first sex and first marriage. In the individual-level analysis, the risk for HIV infection per year of exposure among sexually active women is higher before than after first marriage. These findings support the hypothesis that a high average age at marriage in a population leads to a long period of premarital sex during which partner changes are relatively common, thus facilitating the spread of HIV.]]></description>
            <author>pubinfo@popcouncil.org (Population Council)</author>
            <pubDate>Mon, 25 Sep 2006 18:49:13 +0100</pubDate>
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        <item>
            <title>How long will we live?</title>
            <link>http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/wp/215.pdf</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Population Council Policy Research Division Working Paper no. 215. Since 1800 life expectancy at birth has doubled from about 40 years to nearly 80 years in high-income countries. Pessimists expect these improvements to end soon because we are approaching biological limits to longevity, whereas optimists predict continued rapid improvements without limits. To shed light on this controversy, past trends in the juvenile, background, and senescent components of life expectancy are examined in 16 high-income countries. Large increases in conventional life expectancy before 1950 are found to be primarily attributable to reductions in juvenile and background mortality. After 1950 the rate of improvement in life expectancy slowed because declines in juvenile and background mortality slowed, but senescent mortality fell more rapidly than before, thus becoming the main cause of rising life expectancy at birth. The role of smoking in the past half-century is also quantified. In the future, background mortality and juvenile mortality will have little or no impact on longevity because they have reached very low levels. There is, however, no evidence of approaching limits, and life expectancy will likely improve at a rate of approximately 1.5 years per decade owing to continued declines in senescent mortality.]]></description>
            <author>pubinfo@popcouncil.org (Population Council)</author>
            <pubDate>Mon, 11 Sep 2006 16:37:11 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>Urban versus rural mortality among older adults in China</title>
            <link>http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/wp/214.pdf</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Population Council Policy Research Division Working Paper no. 214. Urban versus rural place of residence has proven to be a critical health determinant over time and across countries. Several studies have demonstrated an urban advantage in mortality in China. This variation by place of residence could be a function of differences in characteristics of individuals, differences in urban and rural communities, or a combination of individual and community factors. Population aging, coupled with a growing distinction between urban and rural life, is creating some urgency in the effort to determine the magnitude of the urban advantage among older adults and to ascertain the mechanisms responsible for the association. Using data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey, with additional information from the 2000 Chinese Census, the current study examines urban/rural variation in mortality of adults aged 50 and older. The analysis describes differences in mortality and examines the extent to which variations are accounted for by socioeconomic and health-access and health-availability characteristics that are measured at individual and community levels. Age-specific mortality rates across regions and Cox proportional hazard model ratios are provided using mortality data from 1989 to 2000. Results show unadjusted rural mortality to be 30 percent higher than urban mortality. Adjusting for cadre status and number of amenities within the community reduces the difference to about 18 percent, so that these two covariates account for about 40 percent of the baseline urban advantage.]]></description>
            <author>pubinfo@popcouncil.org (Population Council)</author>
            <pubDate>Mon, 11 Sep 2006 16:33:41 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>The political demography of the world system, 2000–2050</title>
            <link>http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/wp/213.pdf</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Policy Research Division Working Paper no. 213. Population policies are deliberately constructed or modified institutional arrangements and/or specific programs through which governments influence, directly or indirectly, demographic change. For any given country, the aim of population policy may be narrowly construed as bringing about quantitative changes in the membership of the territorially circumscribed population under the government’s jurisdiction. Governments’ concern with population matters can also extend beyond the borders of their own jurisdictions. Thus, international aspects of population policy have become increasingly salient. Additions to the population are primarily the result of individual decisions concerning childbearing. Within the constraints of their social milieu, these decisions reflect an implicit calculus by parents about the private costs and benefits of children. But neither costs nor benefits of fertility are likely to be fully internal to the family: they can also impose burdens and advantages on others in the society. Such externalities, negative and positive, represent a legitimate concern for all those affected. The essay briefly discusses how individual and collective interests were reconciled in traditional societies, summarizes the population policy approaches adopted by the classic liberal state, and sketches government responses to the low-fertility demographic regime that emerged in the West between the two World Wars. In greater detail it considers international population policies after World War II and contemporary population policy responses to below-replacement fertility.]]></description>
            <author>pubinfo@popcouncil.org (Population Council)</author>
            <pubDate>Thu, 20 Jul 2006 14:39:18 +0100</pubDate>
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            <title>Pregnancy-related school dropout and prior school performance in South Africa</title>
            <link>http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/wp/212.pdf</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Policy Research Division Working Paper no. 212. Although considerable attention has been paid to the prevalence of adolescent childbearing in the less-developed world, few studies have focused on the educational consequences of schoolgirl pregnancy. Using data collected in 2001 in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, this paper examines the factors associated with schoolgirl pregnancy, as well as the likelihood of school dropout and subsequent re-enrollment among pregnant schoolgirls. This analysis triangulates data collected from birth histories, education histories, and data concerning pregnancy to strengthen the identification of young women who became pregnant while enrolled in school and to define discrete periods of school interruption prior to first pregnancy. We find that prior school performance—defined as instances of grade repetition or non-pregnancy-related temporary withdrawals from school—is strongly associated with a young woman's likelihood of becoming pregnant while enrolled in school, dropping out of school if she becomes pregnant, and not returning to school following a pregnancy-related dropout. Young women who are the primary caregivers to their children are also significantly more likely to have left school than are women who shared or relinquished childcare responsibilities. Furthermore, young women who lived with an adult female were significantly more likely to return to school following a pregnancy-related dropout. Given the increasing levels of female school participation in sub-Saharan Africa, our findings suggest that future studies will benefit from exploring the causal relationships between prior school experiences, adolescent reproductive behavior, and subsequent school attendance.]]></description>
            <author>pubinfo@popcouncil.org (Population Council)</author>
            <pubDate>Fri, 09 Jun 2006 19:31:54 +0100</pubDate>
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