Suchergebnisse

The changing demographic structure of the population, resulting in unparalleled growth of the elderly population, means that e-inclusion of this population group is considered to be a social and political priority in the context of the Information Society. Most research studies have only considered individual variables -such as age, gender, education, income and health- in the explanatory models of e-inclusion of senior citizens, while ignoring macro variables, such as the welfare systems and public policies in each country. Simultaneously, most studies focus on small-scale samples, lack international comparisons and do not consider the combined effect of several variables that influence Internet use. This study aims to analyse possible differences between two countries that have different welfare systems and public policies, after controlling for the effects of the individual variables that have been identified in the literature as relevant for Internet use. The study focuses on a sample of 8639 individuals, aged 50 years and over, residing in Portugal and Estonia, who participated in the SHARE project (Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe). The results of the logistic regression analysis demonstrate that welfare systems and public policies have an impact on the likelihood of Internet use, thus reinforcing the importance of developing public policies to foster e-inclusion of senior citizens. ; The Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT)

Este é um estudo quantitativo realizado em 2014 com 1.486 mulheres e com o objetivo de investigar os sintomas musculoesquelético e sua associação com as características sociodemográficas em mulheres. Foram analisadas características sociodemográficas, presença de síndrome musculoesquelética, limitações nas atividades e necessidade de consultas a profissional de saúde devido aos mesmos. Foi identificado que 62,45% das mulheres relatou a síndrome musculoesquelética em pelo menos uma região do corpo. No entanto, 73,69% não apresentou limitações nas atividades e 66,35% não consultou profissional da saúde em função. Maior número de regiões com sintomas, limitações e consulta a profissional foi observado nas mais jovens e que não tinham união estável. A alta prevalência de síndrome musculoesquelética em mulheres é um desafio ao o sistema público de saúde.

In the context of the needs and rights of older migrants, migration history
is particularly important where the elderly forced migrants are twice as
vulnerable. Bearing in mind the intense process of population aging in Serbia
which holds the attention of scientists and experts, and the large number of
refugees who immigrated in the 90-ies from the former Yugoslav republics,
selected sociodemographic structures of the elderly forced migrants in Serbia
were analyzed as well as the relevant legal and strategic framework. The aim
was to contribute to increasing knowledge of the demographic challenges of
this subpopulation of forced migrants, as well as the differences relative to
the domicile aging population. The data used in this study included a
contingent of forced migrants aged 65 and over, on the basis of additionally
processed Census data from 2011, based on questions about the place of birth
of the person, year of arrival, the country in which the person lived and the
reasons for migration. Hence, the category which is the subject of research,
is not defined on the basis of formal refugee status. A comparison of
selected sociodemographic characteristics was made in relation to the
domicile population, which in the paper means the population of Serbia
without forced migrants. The research results indicate that older forced
migrants in Serbia have characteristics of the general population of older
people in Serbia. Their age gender and marital structures are relatively
similar. Most older women are widows who are heads of households, while a
significant number are persons with disabilities as well. However, the
process of aging of the elderly, present within the local population has not
affected forced migrants yet, so this population is to some extent more
vital. Data on the economic activity of the elderly forced migrants in Serbia
point out to the lack of income as the main problem they are faced with.
Older forced migrants are economically active to a lesser extent compared to
the domicile elderly population, while the major differences between the two
subgroups of the population are observed among the economically inactive
persons. There is a noticeable smaller share of pensioners and a
significantly higher share of persons who perform only housework in their
households of elderly forced migrants than for the domicile aging population,
largely owing to the female population. This can be explained by the lower
level of female employment of forced migrants in countries of origin but
could also result from the circumstances of exile. Single person elderly
households of forced migrants are twice as vulnerable in economic terms than
the domicile one, which confirms the high dependence of these groups of older
migrants on financial aid. The lack of income of one part of the elderly
forced migrants is a consequence of the unresolved issue of pension payments
from Croatia, as most of the older forced migrants in Serbia are people from
that former republic of Yugoslavia. The older forced migrants in Serbia from
the former Yugoslav republics are relatively few in number, but a sensitive
population that has legally integrated into the community since 2001 and is
facing the same challenges as the local elderly population. Due to the
circumstances of refugeeism in Serbia, these persons, as opposed to older
migrants in other countries, have no linguistic or cultural barriers that
could potentially hinder their integration within society but also within the
social welfare and health care. However, although they have all legal rights
as the local population, refugeeism gives a specific earmark to the social
aspects of aging of these persons, and hinders their integration into
economic and social life.

SummaryIn the Lyon region of France, 356 couples of childbearing age were interviewed regarding their fertility intentions. Couples intending to have, and not to have, further children were compared. The former are less often skilled workers or qualified office staff, the woman is less likely to work, and the couple had their first child at a relatively late age. These differences are still present after adjustment for the couple's ages and number of children.

Human mobility has been traditionally studied using surveys that deliver snapshots of population displacement patterns. The growing accessibility to ICT information from portable digital media has recently opened the possibility of exploring human behavior at high spatio-temporal resolutions. Mobile phone records, geolocated tweets, check-ins from Foursquare or geotagged photos, have contributed to this purpose at different scales, from cities to countries, in different world areas. Many previous works lacked, however, details on the individuals' attributes such as age or gender. In this work, we analyze credit-card records from Barcelona and Madrid and by examining the geolocated credit-card transactions of individuals living in the two provinces, we find that the mobility patterns vary according to gender, age and occupation. Differences in distance traveled and travel purpose are observed between younger and older people, but, curiously, either between males and females of similar age. While mobility displays some generic features, here we show that sociodemographic characteristics play a relevant role and must be taken into account for mobility and epidemiological modelization. ; Partial financial support has been received from the Spanish Ministry of Economy (MINECO) and FEDER (EU) under projects MODASS (FIS2011-24785) and INTENSE@COSYP (FIS2012-30634), and from the EU Commission through projects EUNOIA, LASAGNE and INSIGHT. The work of ML has been funded under the PD/004/2013 project, from the Conselleria de Educación, Cultura y Universidades of the Government of the Balearic Islands and from the European Social Fund through the Balearic Islands ESF operational program for 2013-2017. JJR acknowledges funding from the Ramón y Cajal program of MINECO. ; Peer reviewed

SummarySome recent data are presented on the size and selected sociodemographic characteristics of the Afghan refugee population in Pakistan. Although the official figures show that there were 3·27 million registered Afghan refugees in Pakistan, it is estimated that the actual number may be as high as 3·6 million. There is an excess of females over males, mainly due to war-related activities and excessive casualties particularly among males. While infant and childhood mortality rates are declining and are lower than the levels prevalent in Pakistan, as well as in Afghanistan during the prewar period, the fertility levels among Afghan refugees seem very high indeed.

China&rsquo ; s increasing attention to patient satisfaction evaluation is part of an international trend of patient-centered healthcare. Patient sociodemographic characteristics are important intrinsic factors that will influence satisfaction. This paper aims to better understand how sociodemographic factors affect Chinese patient satisfaction with tertiary outpatient services using data from the 2017 China National Patient Survey. A total of 28,760 outpatient survey responses were analyzed, spanning 136 tertiary hospitals across 31 provinces. Multilevel logistic regression with fixed hospital effects was used to examine the association of patient satisfaction across multiple healthcare domains with sociodemographic factors. Results show that patients who were of a migrant population, of highest income, most educated, and who had medical aid insurance reported the lowest levels of overall satisfaction. Specifically, increasing age was correlated with decreased satisfaction in process management and affordability domains, while high-income and high-education outpatients reported lower satisfaction scores in the hospital environment domain. Furthermore, migrant patients experienced lower satisfaction across several domains. These intricate findings suggest that hospitals should tailor their services and evaluation metrics to specific patient demographics, and that the government should adopt policies that reduce disparities in healthcare access and affordability to ultimately improve the satisfaction of vulnerable groups.