Suchergebnisse

Aims:
Anemia accounts for 40% of maternal deaths in India. In order to address this problem, the Government of India implemented the largest programme with the greatest potential to reduce maternal mortality by free distribution of Iron-Folic Acid (IFA) supplementations especially during Antenatal Care (ANC) visits. But the major concern among the policymakers and researchers has been poor adherence to the supplement among pregnant women. However, we tend to think that given the severity of the problem, there is no investigation on the adherence issue. Hence, the aim of the paper is to understand whether IFA consumption by pregnant women in India is largely a distribution problem of IFA supplements through ANC.


Background:
The distribution of Iron-Folic Acid (IFA) supplementation is not working especially through Antenatal Care (ANC) attendance. The program implementers believe that it is because of lack of adherence to IFA supplements by pregnant women. It is important to investigate the problem before any policy changes are made without proper evidence.


Objectives:
The purpose of this study is to examine whether the problem of IFA consumption by pregnant women is due to the problem of public distribution of IFA supplements through ANC attendance.


Methods:
This study had used the fourth round of District Level Household Survey data, which collects information on IFA supplements, their distribution and consumption. Bivariate and tri-variate analyses were used to understand the relationship between IFA distribution to pregnant women and their consumption patterns in 19 Indian states and two Union Territories (UTs) of pregnant women (88,487) and between the age of 15-49 years.


Results:
In almost all the states except Chhattisgarh, more than 75% of the pregnant women consumed 100 or more IFA supplements when they received 100 or more IFA supplements from providers. Similar is the case even among those women who received 100 or more IFA supplements through 1 or 2 ANC attendance except Arunachal Pradesh (60%), Meghalaya (67%), Pondicherry (57%) and Andaman and Nicobar (0%). The consumption of IFA supplements among pregnant women gets better than 75% if they receive 100 or more supplements only after attending three or more ANCs.


Conclusion:
It seems that distribution is a problem in the consumption of IFA supplements by pregnant women in India. Full antenatal attendance by the women could be part of the problem but not supplying at least 100 IFA supplementations to even those who attend ANC due to stock-outs and ineffective management is a serious concern. Hence, Governments should distribute at least the recommended 100 IFA supplements to the women in their 1st ANC attendance to address anaemia.

Recent Canadian immigrants have increasing education levels but decreasing earnings, partly due to the devaluation of foreign education and work experience. This study uses 2002 Ethnic Diversity Survey data and examines the value attributed to foreign education for immigrants based on their duration of stay in Canada, which proves to be an important methodological distinction. Immigrants from developing countries experience the most acute devaluation. The findings outline the limitations of human capital theory in explaining the labor market experience of Canadian immigrants and have implications for the current "point system" used to select immigrants to Canada.

Using a theoretical synthesis based in the Nested Ecological framework, the study examines an anomaly from our previous investigation (Brownridge and Halli, 2002) in which we were surprised to find that immigrant women from "developed" nations have a lower prevalence of violence than Canadian‐born women. Based on a representative sample of 6,581 women, the results of the present study show that the key variables that account for this anomalous finding are at the microsystem level. More specifically, a tendency for partners of immigrant women from "developed" nations to be highly educated, and for immigrant women from "developed" nations to have longer‐term relationships and be less likely to have young children in the home, appear to account for their lower likelihood of violence. These results are placed in the context of the unique situation of immigrants from "developed" nations and a selection hypothesis is articulated as underpinning the results.

Studies of the economic status of recent immigrants to the United States have questioned the generalizability of some earlier findings based on assimilation theory. In Canada, however, little research has been done on this issue, and that has left mixed results. The present study attempts to address the economic performance of immigrants in Canada through an examination of their poverty status. This is particularly important now because, since the late 1980s, many industrial nations including Canada have been subjected to an unexpected surge of poverty known as 'new poverty.' The findings indicate that immigrants in Canada are consistently overrepresented among the poor; that their poverty rates are particularly high in larger cities, which have larger concentrations of immigrants; and that among immigrants, the poverty rates are higher for visible minorities, who are mostly recent immigrants. One particularly surprising finding was that the second-generation immigrants, who were expected to outperform their parents, had higher poverty rates. A series of logistic regression models are developed to shed some light on the possible reasons behind these trends. Of the three sets of potential contributors – human capital, assimilation and structural factors – the first two were found more relevant. The models also revealed that the human capital factors were less rewarding for immigrants than natives.

À partir des données des recensements canadiens de 1991 et de 1996, nous nous penchons sur la question des immigrants pauvres et à faible revenu, un sujet très peu traité dans les travaux de recherche précédents sur l'immigration. Comparativement aux Canadiens de souche, les immigrants sont constamment surreprésentés dans la classe des pauvres. Cette surreprésentation comporte une orientation ethnique et raciale claire: les immigrants appartenant aux minorités visibles vivant les pires conditions. Les modèles de régression logis‐tique révèlent que, dans leur cas, les chances d'être pauvres sont con‐sidérablement plus élevées même en tenant compte de toutes les autres variables pertinentes. Les taux de pauvreté des différentes générations d'immigrants ne suivent pas un modèle logique; ceux qui ont émigréà l'adolescence vivent dans des conditions anormales de pauvreté extrême. La comparaison entre la situation des immigrants en 1991 et en 1996 révèle que l'investissement en matière de capital humain favorise de moins en moins les immigrants.Using the 1991 and 1996 Canadian census data, the present study addresses the issue of poor or low‐income immigrants, a topic largely overlooked in previous immigration research. The authors found that, compared to native‐born Canadians, immigrants were consistently over‐represented among the poor, and that this over‐representation had a clear ethnic and racial colour, with visible minority immigrants experiencing the most severe conditions. For them, the logistic regression models show, the odds of poverty are noticeably higher, even after controlling for all other relevant variables. The poverty rates of different generations of immigrants also show an unexpected pattern, in which those who have migrated during their adolescent years experience unusually severe poverty conditions. A comparison of the situation in 1991 and 1996 shows that human capital endowments are becoming less rewarding for immigrants.

Research on immigrants' socio‐economic performances in Canada has produced mixed results. One reason for this has been the fact that many studies have used measures that rely on average performance of immigrants, and also treat immigrants as a homogeneous group. Also, some measures of economic performance are unnecessarily complicated.The present article argues that this practice masks the diversity of experiences that exist among immigrants. In particular, it is argued that indices based on average income do not adequately reveal the status of low income immigrants.Using poverty status as an indicator of economic performance, the study xamines and compares different groups of immigrants, in terms of their ethnic origin, period of immigration, age at immigration, and their geo‐graphical location in Canada.