The increase in human longevity has been a factor in the increase in world population but the increase in human longevity has not been uniform across countries and within countries and this inequality is increasing, which is a matter of concern as regards sustainable development. Understanding the inequality in the increase in human longevity is important for determining appropriate health policies by providing insights into disparities in population health and mortality. This article highlights the inequality in the gain in life expectancy at birth in India in the period 1976–2020. The difference in gain in life expectancy at birth has been decomposed into gain attributed to improvement in mortality at different ages. The article calls for a decentralised approach to health policy and planning to address the challenge of differential gain in life expectancy at birth across mutually exclusive population groups within the country; and argues that a reduction of inequality in the gain in life expectancy at birth within the country may contribute to accelerating the increase in life expectancy at birth for the country, which remains low by international standards.
Objective
This study primarily aims to explore the change in risk profile of women giving birth in Northern Ireland, with a particular interest in socio-demographic determinants of interpregnancy weight change. Furthermore, the novel linkage of two data resources in Northern Ireland (NI) highlights the potential for transformative research in maternal health.
Methods
The NI Maternity Services System (NIMATS) provides access to biological variables collected during the gestational period. The NI Longitudinal Study (NILS) is a rich source of Census information providing a demographic, social and economic background we would not otherwise obtain from NIMATS alone. We used descriptive statistics to explore demographic, social and economic determinants of maternal obesity. We then identified a sub-population of women with more than one pregnancy and categorised according to whether they have lost weight, gained weight or remained the same between pregnancies. Logistic regression was used to explore socio-economic and demographic correlates of interpregnancy weight changes.
Results
The data enabled analysis of over 44,000 pregnancies spanning an eight-year period. A shift in risk factors such as older age, higher BMI, and proportion with a metabolic disorder can be observed during this short time. These were found to have associations with birth outcomes such as delivery method and birth weight. Furthermore, the linkage of these two datasets has also allowed us to link pregnancies to the same mother, enabling exploration of weight changes during the interpregnancy period(s).
Conclusion
Given the increased demand in maternity services during recent years, research in maternal socio-demographic profiles facilitated by the unique linkage of NILS and NIMATS has the potential to provide important insights. Results can also highlight socio-economic groups most vulnerable to weight gain between pregnancies and help develop targeted interventions.
Abstract Introduction Here we present the Scottish Linked Pregnancy and Baby Dataset (SLiPBD), a new national data resource held by Public Health Scotland (PHS). Methods SLiPBD comprises a population-based e-cohort of all fetuses and births (babies) from pregnancies to women in Scotland from 2000 onwards. It is updated monthly by linking and reconciling the following national datasets: antenatal booking records; general and maternity hospital discharge records; termination of pregnancy notifications; and statutory live and stillbirth registrations. Results Key information included on all babies in SLiPBD includes estimated date of conception, end of pregnancy date, gestation, multiple pregnancy status, pregnancy outcome, and maternal sociodemographic characteristics. For live births, additional information on the birth, the baby’s sociodemographic characteristics, and subsequent infant deaths is included. Following the cohort refresh in January 2024, SLiPBD contained 1,770,226 babies from 1,750,830 pregnancies to 898,161 women. Of the 1,770,226 babies, 1,284,461 (73%) were live births, 5,731 (0.3%) stillbirths, and 316,897 (18%) and 114,840 (6%) came from a pregnancy ending a termination or early spontaneous loss respectively. 22,414 (1%) had an unknown pregnancy outcome, and for 25,883 (1%) the pregnancy was still ongoing. Data completeness for key sociodemographic characteristics except for ethnicity was very high, and variables showed expected patterns. Ethnicity data completeness is poor on historical records but improving over time. Completeness of unique patient identifiers was very high. External validation to source datasets was reassuring. Conclusion SLiPBD can be analysed standalone or linked to other national vital event and health datasets held by PHS. It supports longitudinal and intergenerational analyses, enabling epidemiological and health service surveillance and research on maternal and child health. Researchers interested in accessing pseudonymised extracts of SLiPBD through the Scottish NHS safe haven facility should contact Research Data Scotland. PHS will continue to refine SLiPBD as source datasets improve. Key features The Scottish Linked Pregnancy and Baby Dataset (SLiPBD) is a new national data resource created and maintained by Public Health Scotland to facilitate epidemiological and health service analyses focused on maternal and child health. SLiPBD comprises a population-based e-cohort of all fetuses and births (babies) from pregnancies to women in Scotland from 2000 onwards. At least 68,000 babies (of which at least 46,000 are live births) are included annually. SLiPBD is updated on a monthly basis by linking and reconciling records relating to ongoing and completed pregnancies from the following existing national datasets: antenatal booking records; general and maternity hospital discharge records; termination of pregnancy notifications; and statutory live and stillbirth registrations. Key information included on all babies in SLiPBD includes estimated date of conception, end of pregnancy date, gestation, multiple pregnancy status, pregnancy outcome, and maternal sociodemographic characteristics. For live births, additional information on the birth, the baby’s sociodemographic characteristics, and any subsequent infant deaths is included. Inclusion of unique personal identifiers for the mother and (where applicable) baby used within the health service and on statutory birth registration records ensures SLiPBD provides a core intergenerational spine record, allowing linkage between mothers and babies, and to other national datasets. Subject to governance approvals, researchers can access pseudonymised extracts of SLiPBD (linked to other national datasets as required) through the Scottish NHS safe haven facility, which is supported by Public Health Scotland. Interested researchers should submit an initial enquiry form to Research Data Scotland (https://www.researchdata.scot/accessing-data/).
Background: The Hispanic community in the US experiences disproportionate burdens of stroke risk. Family types could impact health outcomes as a mechanism of social support, urging examination of their impact on stroke-related risk factors. We study associations between family types and hypertension/obesity prevalence among Hispanic adults and secondarily assess modification by nativity. Methods: The SERVE OC (Skills-Based Educational Strategies for Reduction of Vascular Events in Orange County) study, initiated in late 2022, is an ongoing community-based RCT focused on Hispanic populations to enhance their health behaviors. We collected baseline bio-measures, demographics, and household data. Hypertension and obesity were defined using AHA and CDC guidelines. We used logistic regression to estimate the odds of hypertension and obesity among family types adjusted for age and gender and assessed nativity modification using an interaction term. Results: Among 147 Hispanic adults, 56.0% had hypertension, 58.2% had obesity. The mean age was 44.9 years, with 68.5% females and 19.6% foreign-born. Family types included nuclear (44.4%), multigenerational (32.5%), and other (23.1%). Compared with nuclear, multigenerational households showed higher hypertension and obesity odds yet did not reach statistical significance. Individuals in other (6.52; 1.55-27.46) family types had significantly higher obesity odds and differential associations with obesity by nativity (interaction p=0.067). The modifying effect of nativity factors for hypertension was not steadily shown. Conclusion: Our study reveals the interrelation of family types and stroke risk factors, particularly obesity, in Hispanic populations. This highlights the need for culturally tailored prevention strategies. SERVE OC emerges as a vital platform to dissect these intricacies and formulated targeted interventions, alleviating stroke risk within the Hispanic community in the US.
Communities across Southeast Asia face challenges posed by natural disasters, including floods, which disproportionately impact vulnerable populations. In light of the growing frequency and severity of extreme weather events attributed to climate change, there is a pressing need to explore and strengthen community flood resilience. Community resilience is pivotal in mitigating flood-related damages and fostering successful recovery efforts. This paper examines the socio-economic and environmental factors shaping community resilience in flood-prone areas of Southeast Asia. Socio-demographic determinants, exposure to floods, social cohesion, communication networks, socio-economic status, and cultural diversity significantly influence resilience capabilities, with disparities exacerbating socio-economic inequality. The interplay of these factors underscores the complexity of community disaster resilience, with some factors acting as moderators, mediators, or confounders in shaping outcomes. The paper highlights that understanding the dynamics of community resilience formation is imperative for informed policy interventions to enhance disaster preparedness and response in flood-prone areas of Southeast Asia. The contributors to flood resilience are interrelated with social determinants of health, underscoring the vital role of broader socio-economic and environmental factors in shaping community well-being. Future research should explore the relationships within these complex dynamics to guide effective resilience-building strategies tailored to local contexts.
Charini Nanayakkara, Peter Christen, Chris Dibben
et al.
Objectives
With the increasing digital availability of large population databases of historical census or vital event records, the tasks of storing, cleaning, processing, linking and analysing such data become more challenging. Suitable computing platforms and software systems are required to handle such databases, and facilitate the application of complex record linkage algorithms, for example to reconstruct populations that cover a full country over many decades. We present our efforts to achieve these goals on a database of over 20 million vital event records spanning over 120 years to create a “Historic Population Platform” (HiPP).
Approach
We created a graph database using the Neo4J software, where each birth, death and marriage certificate is represented as a node. We then generated actor nodes from these certificates which represent individuals (such as birth babies and their parents, or marriage brides and grooms). Data cleaning steps included the correction and imputation of invalid, corrupted, and missing age and date values using information from related certificates.
Results
Our initial graph database contains over 100 million nodes and nearly 200 million edges, while our data cleaning methods help to substantially increase the number of valid age and date values.
Conclusion
The availability of large historical population databases provides exciting opportunities for social science and health research. However, existing methods have limitations in handling data quality and the sizes of such databases. We presented novel methods to deal with these challenges which we hope will be of use for other projects that aim to build a HiPP.
This article focuses on the typology of countryside architectonical forms in the region of South-Moravia in southeastern Czechia and on the expression of village identity through architecture in case study villages. Original folk architecture has been altered by new types of constructions built in rural areas since the 1950s, followed by a more recent wave of new architectural forms that have developed since the 1990s. The number of architectural types in case study villages was predominantly calculated using the panoramic sceneries on mapy.cz. The coefficients of countryside identity were allocated to architectural types based on basic folk house features. The value of countryside identity is higher in smaller villages except for suburbanized settlements of the regional capital of Brno.
The problem of providing rehabilitation assistance to the population has been repeatedly discussed in the global community. One of the important events in recent years was the meeting of participants in Rehabilitation 2030: Call to Action, where the problem of increasing dissatisfaction in rehabilitation services worldwide, especially in low- and middle-income countries, was discussed. The upward trend in the need for rehabilitation activities will increase in line with global trends in demographic change associated with the aging population and an increase in the number of people living with sequellae of diseases and injuries. The prevalence of health conditions associated with severe functional limitations, of which many are caused by non-communicable diseases, increased by 9.9% and affected almost 14 million people from 2006 to 2016 in the World Health Organization European Region. Devices for monitoring vital signs can become one of the potentially important components of effective rehabilitation with an increased number of technical means of rehabilitation. The constant transfer of these parameters to the cloud storage, followed by machine learning algorithm processing, will determine the prescribed drug therapy efficiency and determine the need for timely hospitalization for a medical organization. This study aimed to assess the needs of patients with a chronic consciousness impairment, and relatives caring for them, using the possibilities of remote monitoring. The study showed that the use of hospital-replacing outpatient equipment that records the vital signs of patients opens up new opportunities for consolidating the information into a big data archive to assess the treatment efficiency and the characteristics of patient rehabilitation with the implementation of the most optimal measures to influence the rehabilitation process approach.
El objetivo general del estudio es elaborar los mapas de ruido del centro histórico de la ciudad de Matanzas, Cuba. Se aplicó una metodología de medición y modelación de datos a partir de la cual se obtuvieron cuatro mapas para diferentes horarios del día y uno promedio que muestran las zonas de mayor contaminación sonora. Se concluye que el ruido existente en la mayor parte del área analizada viola lo recomendado por la OMS y lo establecido en la NC 26 de 2012.
Human settlements. Communities, Demography. Population. Vital events
Las posibilidades que surgen con el cambio social se reproducen de manera adyacente, con la necesidad de encontrar escenarios, que hagan posible la vida, de una manera digna, sobre todo, en comunidades con vulnerabilidad; en situaciones de riesgo y condiciones objetivas y subjetivas que se reproducen por las adversidades y contradicciones de los contextos. Existen muchos esfuerzos académicos, por generalizar y/o sistematizar las experiencias, por medio de marcos teóricos y metodológicos, que surgen de concepciones contenidas en los paradigmas, de investigación, los cuales se enmarcan en el propósito de ver y comprender la realidad. Este artículo, expone de manera breve, la Teoría de Cambio, como una alternativa de pensamiento, pero a la vez como una praxis para ncausar las transformaciones. El contenido de esta pro1puesta se desarrolla a partir de un análisis de las dimen2siones del cambio social, a través de escenarios de trans3formación que llevaron a las mujeres de comunidades rurales de Langue, Valle, Honduras, a tener autonomía y gestión. Lograr un mundo mejor, es otra vez, una utopía, pero también es un supuesto, que, a través de las transformaciones sociales, subleva de nuevo la realidad para que nazca un mundo posible, inclusivo, con equidad y nuevas relaciones sociales; en un momento sociohistórico, donde el modelo de desarrollo vigente está poniendo en riesgo la sostenibilidad de la vida.
Важнейшим фактором, влияющим на состояние здоровья населения, является демографический. В связи с этим, исследование показателей естественного движения насе- ления, динамики численности и многих других являются основополагающими при определе- нии перспектив развития системы здравоохранения и многих других социальных объектов и услуг, так или иначе связанных с населением и поддержанием его здоровья на должном уров- не. Особый интерес представляют исследования динамики рождаемости и смертности за сравнительно большие промежутки времени, включающие в себя какие-либо события, так или иначе повлиявшие на рождаемость и смертность населения. В настоящей статье исследуется территориальная дифференциация рождаемости и смертности населения России в период 2005-2018 гг. Поскольку статья имеет полимасштаб- ный характер: демографические элементы рассматриваются по федеральным округам Рос- сии, ее регионам и, отдельно, по регионам Северо-Кавказского ФО. С целью возможности сопоставления регионов с различными географическо-социальными по- казателями (площадь, численность населения и т.д.) были применены относительные пока- затели (число рождений и смертей за год на 1000 жителей). Результатом исследований явилось выявление территориальной дифференциации основных демографических показателей населения России за 2005-2018 гг. и определение особенностей их влияния на состояние здоровья людей и структуру системы здравоохранения. The most important factor infl uencing the health status of the population is demographic factor. In this regard, the study of indicators of the vital movement of the population, population dynamics and many others are fundamental in determining the prospects for the development of the health care system and many other social facilities and services, one way or another related to the population and maintaining its health at the proper level. Of particular interest are studies of the dynamics of fertility and mortality over relatively long periods of time, including any events that somehow infl uenced the birth and mortality of the population. This article examines the territorial differentiation of the birth and death rates of the population of Russia in 2005-2018. Since the article is of a poly-scale nature, demographic elements are considered for the federal districts of Russia, its regions and, separately, for the regions of the North Caucasus Federal District. In order to be able to compare regions with different geographical and social indicators (area, population, etc.), relative indicators were used (the number of births and deaths per year per 1000 inhabitants). The result of the research was the identifi cation of territorial differentiation of the main demographic indicators of the population of Russia for 2005-2018 and determining the characteristics of their impact on the health status of people and the structure of the health care system.
This article sets out to describe the individual mobility of persons affected by the war in former Yugoslavia from a long-term, biographical perspective. It evaluates how the conflict and post-conflict conditions limit or enhance the spatial range of individual activities. The time-geographical approach is applied through the usage of spatio-temporal records of the war and post-war life. Thirty-two respondents from Bosnia and Herzegovina were interviewed, and asked to generate an “ex-post facto” open time-space activity diary. The article demonstrates the usefulness of the time-space activity diary usage as a significant instrument for a sensible analysis of life-paths.
Bladimir Carabali Hinestroza, Hiram Beltrán Sánchez, Tirza Aidar
et al.
Este artículo tiene como objetivo estimar la tasa específica de mortalidad en la región del litoral Pacífico colombiano durante el periodo 1993-2013. En esta región, las condiciones de pobreza y abandono estatal históricamente han estado por encima del promedio nacional. A esto se suma que, desde finales del siglo XX, el conflicto armado registró un fuerte recrudecimiento. Mediante el uso de métodos indirectos se estimaron tasas de mortalidad específica y la esperanza de vida por sexo. Nuestros resultados advierten que la tasa de mortalidad registró su mayor incremento en uno de los periodos de mayor intensidad de la violencia armada (1998-2003), lo cual llevó a un retroceso en la esperanza de vida en los hombres, especialmente en la población de 15-35 años; mientras que las estimaciones para 2008-2013, tiempo de menor conflictividad armada, las estimaciones de los mismos indicadores muestran
Social Sciences, Demography. Population. Vital events
Evan M. Koch, R. Schweizer, Teia M. Schweizer
et al.
Abstract Knowledge of mutation rates is crucial for calibrating population genetics models of demographic history in units of years. However, mutation rates remain challenging to estimate because of the need to identify extremely rare events. We estimated the nuclear mutation rate in wolves by identifying de novo mutations in a pedigree of seven wolves. Putative de novo mutations were discovered by whole-genome sequencing and were verified by Sanger sequencing of parents and offspring. Using stringent filters and an estimate of the false negative rate in the remaining observable genome, we obtain an estimate of ∼4.5 × 10−9 per base pair per generation and provide conservative bounds between 2.6 × 10−9 and 7.1 × 10−9. Although our estimate is consistent with recent mutation rate estimates from ancient DNA (4.0 × 10−9 and 3.0–4.5 × 10−9), it suggests a wider possible range. We also examined the consequences of our rate and the accompanying interval for dating several critical events in canid demographic history. For example, applying our full range of rates to coalescent models of dog and wolf demographic history implies a wide set of possible divergence times between the ancestral populations of dogs and extant Eurasian wolves (16,000–64,000 years ago) although our point estimate indicates a date between 25,000 and 33,000 years ago. Aside from one study in mice, ours provides the only direct mammalian mutation rate outside of primates and is likely to be vital to future investigations of mutation rate evolution.
Although death records are useful for planning and monitoring health interventions, such information is limited in most developing countries. Verbal autopsy (VA) interviews are alternatively used to determine causes of death in places without or with incomplete hospital records. This study was conducted to determine all causes and cause-specific mortality in Korogwe health and demographic surveillance system (HDSS) undertaken in Korogwe district, northeastern Tanzania. The study was conducted from January 2006 to December 2012 in 14 villages under Korogwe HDSS. Vital events such as births, deaths and migrations were routinely updated quarterly. A standard VA questionnaire was administered to parents/close relatives of the deceased to determine cause of death. Overall, 1325 deaths of individuals with median age of 46 years were recorded in a population with 170,471.4 person years observed (PY). Crude mortality rate was 7.8 per 1000 PY (95% CI 7.2–8.4) and the highest rate was observed in infants (77.9 per 1000 PY; 95% CI 67.4–90.0). The overall mortality increased between 2006 and 2007, followed by a slight decline up to 2011, with the highest decrease observed in 2012. Causes of deaths were established in 942 (71.1%) deaths and malaria (198 deaths, 21.0%) was the leading cause of death in all age groups except adults (15–59 years). HIV/AIDS (17.6%, n = 365) was the leading cause of death in individuals aged 15–59 years followed by malaria (13.9%) and tuberculosis. Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) including stroke, hypertension, cancer, and cardiac failure caused majority of deaths in elderly (60 years and above) accounting for 37.1% (n = 348) of all deaths, although malaria was the single leading cause of death in this group (16.6%). The study showed a significant decline of deaths in the Korogwe HDSS site and malaria was the main cause of death in all age groups (except adults, aged 15–59 years) while HIV/AIDS and NCDs were the main causes in adults and elderly, respectively. Further surveillance is required to monitor and document changes in cause-specific mortality as malaria transmission continues to decline in this and other parts of Tanzania.