Suchergebnisse

This study investigates the link between health-related variables and risks of divorce. The findings indicate that physical characteristics associated with poor health – namely, obesity and short stature – are not significantly related to risks of marital dissolution for either men or women. On the other hand, risk-taking behaviours – such as smoking and drug use – are strongly related to higher risks of divorce for both sexes. Overall, the results emphasize the need to accommodate health-related variables in the dominant economic and social psychological theories of marital dissolution.

In this paper we examine the experience of one poor country, Guatemala, that provided childhood immunization partly through a major national campaign, and provided pregnancyrelated services through government health facilities, during the 1980s. Specifically, we compare the breadth of coverage of these two types of services using national sample survey data collected in 1987. We then draw upon results of previous qualitative studies to explore the social, cultural, and organizational factors that may account for differences between the use of immunization and the use of pregnancy-related health services.

En este artículo se examina la experiencia de Guatemala en la provisión de inmunización infantil hecha parcialmente por una campaña nacional de vacunación, y en la provisión de servicios de salud relacionados con el embarazo por un sistema de entidades gubernamentales y no gubernamentales, durante los años ochenta. Los resultados muestran que los programas de salud basados predominantemente en campañas alcanzan con frecuencia a más sectores de la población en comparación a los servicios previstos por clínicas. Específicamente, los diferencias en el uso de servicios relacionados con el embarazo son más grandes por etnicidad individual, etnicidad de la comunidad, distancia de una clínica, y distancia de la ciudad de Guatemala, en comparación a la cobertura del programa de vacunación.

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la estabilidad en el tiempo de las uniones conyugales en México y su relación con algunos factores sociodemográficos. Se utiliza la información que presenta la Encuesta Mexicana de Fecundidad de 1976, sobre los siguientes aspectos: el tipo o naturaleza de la unión al momento de su formación; la edad de la mujer a la primera unión; la presencia o no de fecundidad premarital; el grado de escolaridad de la mujer; la experiencia o inexperiencia ocupacional previa a la unión, y la condición rural-urbana que subyace al proceso de socialización de la mujer. Entre los hallazgos más importantes del trabajo destaca que las primeras uniones urbanas presentan mayores probabilidades de terminar por divorcio o separación que las rurales y semiurbanas. Asimismo, se señala la presencia de un incremento real en el tiempo de las probabilidades de disolución, lo cual lleva a la autora a plantear que en México empieza a observarse un debilitamiento de la cohesión conyugal en las uniones más jóvenes

AbstractWe consider a broad set of variables used by social scientists and clinicians to identify the leading predictors of five‐year survival among American adults. We address a question not considered in earlier research: Do the strongest predictors of survival vary by age, sex or race/ethnicity? The analysis uses hazard models with 30 well‐established predictors to examine five‐year survival in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. We find that the simple measure of self‐assessed health and self‐reported measures of functional ability and disability are the strongest predictors in all demographic groups, and are generally ranked considerably higher than biomarkers. Among the biomarkers, serum albumin is highly ranked in most demographic groups, whereas clinical measures of cardiovascular and metabolic function are consistently among the weakest predictors. Despite these similarities, there is substantial variation in the leading predictors across demographic groups, most notably by race and ethnicity

Beliefs about child illness were investigated using semi-structured interviews with mothers and providers in four rural Guatemalan communities. The two most common forms of child illness in Guatemala – diarrhoea and respiratory disease – were focused upon. These illnesses are particularly difficult to prevent and treat, especially with the rudimentary health services available in rural areas of developing countries. Comparisons with other ethnographic studies in Guatemala suggest that some traditional models of illness causation identified in these earlier investigations are relatively unimportant in the communities studied here. This finding, in conjunction with frequent responses related to hygiene and water, suggests that traditional explanations may be co-existing with biomedical views of illness causation to a greater degree today than in the past.