Tanja Mueller, Lynne Jarvis, Victoria Stark
et al.
Introduction
Prescribing data has been collected electronically in Scotland for many years; however, data are collated in individual, non-overlapping datasets based on the origin of the prescription (e.g., primary or secondary care). The vision was to create a unified view of all prescribing data to provide a longitudinal dataset of medicines use for patients treated by the National Health Services (NHS) Scotland, irrespective of where or how that care was provided.
Methods
The Scottish Combined Medicines Dataset (SCoMeD) is, in essence, a data virtualisation tool collating information from three previously available prescribing datasets: the Prescribing Information System (PIS); the Hospital Electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration (HEPMA) national dataset; and the Homecare Medicines (HCM) dataset. This allows the creation of study cohorts (patient groups of interest) that meet specified criteria across all prescribing settings and facilitates the retrieval of the prescribing history for individuals pre-identified from other datasets. Records contain a unique patient identifier (Community Health Index number) which is used to identify patients for inclusion in the dataset and also enables linkage to other routinely collected data, including hospital admission episodes and death records.
Results
SCoMeD contains details on the patient (age, sex, geographical information) and on the medication prescribed. Medication-related information includes what was received and when; strength and dose information are also available. The earliest date of data availability depends on the source (PIS, 01/2010; HEPMA, 07/2022; HCM, 01/2019). Data is held by Public Health Scotland.
Conclusion
SCoMeD facilitates a range of different studies, including cross-sectional/point-prevalence studies and drug utilisation studies as well as longitudinal studies, e.g., cohort and case-control studies. With the possibility to link to other relevant datasets, additional areas of interest may include health policy evaluations and health economics studies. Access to data is subject to approval; researchers need to contact the electronic Data Research and Innovation Service in the first instance.
BACKGROUND: Despite declining fertility rates in the West, high fertility rates persist among many North American ethnoreligious populations. Such populations often reside in cultural enclaves where pro-natalist norms are insulated from external influences, yet intra-enclave fertility rates vary. Internal community influences on fertility remain understudied. OBJECTIVE: Using a diffusion framework, we examine how social and physical distances within an Amish enclave are associated with fertility patterns. We assess the relationship between household live births and proximity to others who have differing adherences to traditional pro-natalist attitudes. METHODS: We use contemporary cross-sectional data on the rural Amish enclave of Holmes County, Ohio, United States. We test hypotheses for 5,706 Amish households and their proximity to households of ordained church leaders, strict adherents, and lenient adherents, and their proximity to villages. RESULTS: Models demonstrate that spatial proximity predicts reproductive behaviors in uneven, identity-dependent ways. For example, among strict-denomination completed-fertility households and lenient-denomination households at high reproductive risk, living near ordained householders is associated with higher fertility, while there is no evidence for this effect among lenient completed-fertility or strict reproductive-risk households. CONCLUSIONS: Findings reveal a complex relationship between socio-spatial factors and fertility behaviors. Within this high-fertility enclave, fertility patterns may operate through multiple pathways related to place and religious identity rather than through a unidirectional pathway with singular outcomes. CONTRIBUTION: This study provides insights into how residential proximity relates to demographic behaviors, highlighting internal spatial processes that moderate high-fertility norms.
The spatial patterns of internal migration trace general socio-economic processes and thus represent one of the most important indicators of the diffusion of development within the territory. At the same time, internal migration flows represent a feedback loop for the increase of development disproportions. Considering that one of the main strategic objectives of spatial development in Serbia at all territorial levels (national, regional and local) is a more balanced distribution of the population, a broader and deeper insight into the extent and flows of internal migration can make an important contribution to spatial planning. Against this background, the study aims to identify various sources of statistical data and possible methodological solutions for conducting an analysis of internal migration in Serbia. The study utilises three different types of data provided by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, including: Population Census (migration characteristics of the population), Internal Migration statistics (immigration and emigration data based on changes of residence) and birth and death statistics (combined with population census data). The research results provide information on the advantages and disadvantages of using the above-mentioned data sources, e.g. data quality, availability, level of detail, etc. In addition, a comparative analysis carried out with all three data sources revealed on specific examples possible discrepancies in the results.
Sanitation change continues to be on the forefront of the global development agenda, even as it is becoming clear that the targets established in the Sustainable Development Goals will not be met. But since improving access to safely managed sanitation facilities remains a cost-effective and impactful measure to improve people’s lives, it is still important to assess currently implemented policies to be able to learn from best practices and to understand how different approaches work under different contexts. This paper provides comparative analysis of country-level policies in India and Ethiopia, two countries that achieved notable progress in eliminating open defecation through distinct sanitation strategies, with the aim of confronting the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches. While in India the primary emphasis has been on the supply-side, i.e., provision of subsidized sanitation infrastructure, Ethiopian strategy prioritized the demand-side by addressing change in sanitation behavior through Community Total Led Sanitation. The analysis shows that neither of the strategies can fully achieve the sanitation change and a combination of both seems to be the most impactful approach in combating open defecation. It also argues that policymakers must consider not only local socioeconomic and budgetary constraints but also historical, institutional, sociocultural, and geographical specifics in deciding what type of subsidies would be the most fitting. At the same time, they also need to address the appropriate social norms to achieve the desirable change in sanitation behavior.
El presente trabajo analiza el efecto de la concentración de inmigrantes del barrio de residencia entre los inmigrantes recientes (llegados entre 2005 y 2011) nacidos en Perú, Paraguay y Chile en Montevideo sobre la probabilidad de estar ocupados. Las características sociales y económicas de la zona de asentamiento repercuten en el tipo de integración: los inmigrantes con menor capital social y económico tienden a asentarse en los barrios más pobres y aquellos con mayor capital social y económico en barrios más ricos. Sin embargo, ninguna de las dos situaciones implica un efecto positivo o negativo per se en la integración económica dado que una mayor concentración de población inmigrante puede proveer de mayores redes que faciliten la inserción laboral en el país de destino en los primeros años de asentamiento. Con la intención de dilucidar el efecto de la concentración de inmigrantes del barrio de residencia sobre la probabilidad de estar ocupado entre los inmigrantes recientes este trabajo se propone contestar la siguiente pregunta: ¿Varía la probabilidad de los inmigrantes recientes de estar ocupados según el grado de concentración de inmigrantes del barrio de residencia y entre el país de nacimiento? Con base en el censo de población de Uruguay de 2011 se estimaron modelos de regresión logística multinivel que permiten analizar en su conjunto el efecto de las características individuales y estructurales sobre la probabilidad de estar empleado.
Social Sciences, Demography. Population. Vital events
El objetivo de este artículo consiste en estudiar el número, la evolución, las características y la distribución territorial de las viviendas en renta en México y en sus principales ciudades, así como los atributos sociodemográficos de las personas y los hogares que residen en éstas. La pregunta que guía al artículo es la siguiente:¿cuál ha sido la importancia de la vivienda en renta en la demanda habitacional del país en el periodo 1950-2015, y cómo se ha relacionado la vivienda en renta con los procesos más generales de la ciudad, como la pobreza, la desigualdad y la segregación? Para cumplir con estos propósitos, se utiliza la información sobre tenencia de la vivienda contenida en los censos de población y vivienda de 1950 a 2010 y la Encuesta Intercensal 2015. El análisis se centra en las 95 ciudades con mayor tamaño de población en 2010. Entre los principales hallazgos destaca que el dinamismo de las viviendas en arrendamiento en México no ha sido significativo, en gran medida por la política habitacional instaurada por el Estado mexicano, que ha priorizado la tenencia en propiedad de la vivienda. El mercado de vivienda en renta se circunscribe a ciudades específicas y a ciertas zonas dentro de las ciudades, especialmente edificios y vecindades ubicadas en áreas centrales. La proporción de viviendas en renta se relaciona con la dinámica demográfica de la ciudad, el mayor número de hogares unipersonales, la densidad de población más alta, su especialización en actividades turísticas y la mayor desigualdad social. Existe también una estrecha relación entre el curso de vida de las personas, el ciclo de las familias y el tipo de tenencia en su selección residencial.
Human settlements. Communities, Demography. Population. Vital events
For several decades, demographic forecasts had predicted that the majority of Germany’s cities and rural areas would experience population decline in the early 21st century. Instead, recent trends show a growing population size in three out of every four German districts. As a result, there are currently severe shortages of housing and childcare in regions that were projected to decline but have instead grown in recent years. Other regions, by contrast, continue to lose young people in particular. Most of these differences between regions stem from within-country as well as international migration. An important question for both regional demographic research as well as local policy-makers is thus how well net migration rates in cities and rural districts can be predicted several years into the future. In this study, we develop models that predict migration (both within-country as well as international migration) at the level of municipalities for two demographic groups, namely young people aged 18 to 24 years, and families (people aged 30 to 49 years and underage children). We collect data on economic, demographic and other characteristics such as distances to large cities or universities for around 3,000 German municipalities (Gemeinden). The model is trained on a subset of these data from the period 2005-2009 and predicts net migration rates among young people on an unseen test dataset in the future (i.e. for the period 2011-2015). The results show that the model can predict future net migration by young people aged 18 to 24 years reasonably well (R² > 0.5), although there were quite significant changes during the period under study, for example refugee immigration to Germany. Family migration, on the other hand, cannot be predicted equally well (R² = 0.25). Some important lessons emerge concerning the predictability of regional and international migration and the usefulness of demographic forecasts for local policy-makers.
Urban groups. The city. Urban sociology, City population. Including children in cities, immigration
Introduction
High dimensional propensity scores (HDPS) aim to account for unmeasured confounding. However, it is unclear to what extent HDPS are able to attain this.
Objectives and Approach
This study aimed to test how well HDPS can account for confounding due to social determinants of health when using only health data. A retrospective cohort study was used to examine the effect of exposure to prescription opioids in utero on childhood outcomes (ADHD, school readiness, NICU admission, and hospitalization within the first year of life). Administrative health and social data were linked at the individual level and HDPS for each outcome were calculated using the mothers’ health data. Exposed and unexposed mother-child dyads were then matched. Standardized differences of mothers’ social factors (history of teen birth, lowest income quintile, ever received income assistance (i.e., welfare), ever lived in social housing, history with child protection services, residential mobility, and contact with the justice system) were compared before and after matching to determine to what degree the HDPS could account for differences in social determinants of health. Additional HDPS analyses were performed with social factors included in the HDPS with the health data.
Results
Before matching, standardized differences between exposed and unexposed groups for the social factors ranged between 0.40-0.75. Income assistance and lowest income quintile consistently had the greatest and smallest standardized difference for all outcomes, respectively. After matching, using health data only, standardized differences decreased considerably, ranging from 0.05-0.27. When including social factors into the HDPS, the addition of income assistance produced the smallest standardized differences with a range of 0.01-0.13 for all outcomes.
Conclusions
Using the HDPS with health data only can reduce confounding due to social factors. If data are available, including income assistance in the HDPS may further reduce confounding for all social determinants of health.
Abstract High sampling variability complicates estimation of demographic rates in small areas. In addition, many countries have imperfect vital registration systems, with coverage quality that varies significantly between regions. We develop a Bayesian regression model for small-area mortality schedules that simultaneously addresses the problems of small local samples and underreporting of deaths. We combine a relational model for mortality schedules with probabilistic prior information on death registration coverage derived from demographic estimation techniques, such as Death Distribution Methods, and from field audits by public health experts. We test the model on small-area data from Brazil. Incorporating external estimates of vital registration coverage though priors improves small-area mortality estimates by accounting for underregistration and automatically producing measures of uncertainty. Bayesian estimates show that when mortality levels in small areas are compared, noise often dominates signal. Differences in local point estimates of life expectancy are often small relative to uncertainty, even for relatively large areas in a populous country like Brazil.
Early college high schools (ECHS) are small schools of choice which provide students with the opportunity to earn, at no financial cost to them, two years of transferable college credit or an associate's degree while simultaneously satisfying high school graduation requirements. This promising intervention is aimed at smoothing the transition from high school to college for under-represented minorities and students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. There are about 80 ECHS in North Carolina, although the model is implemented in many other states as well.
While much is known from prior research about the impacts of the intervention on educational attainment, nothing is known about longer term outcomes such as employment, wages, criminal involvement, and voting behavior. The present study will briefly describe the data collection process, research methods, and preliminary findings on the effects of the intervention on voting and criminal conviction in North Carolina. We will also present results on whether impacts on long term civic outcomes are mediated by educational attainment. Quasi-experimental impacts have been validated against impacts generated from a randomized controlled trial of the same intervention in a subset of the sites during the same time period.
The team assembled personally-identified population level statewide administrative data on all NC high school students (including ECHS) and linked it to records housed at community colleges, universities, the Department of Public Safety (incarceration), and Board of Elections (voting). Together this effort comprises one of the more comprehensive administrative data collection efforts linking student level K-12, postsecondary, and longer-term outcomes.
<b>Background</b>: During the 20th century the Czech Republic went through profound changes in female employment, gender roles, population and family policies, and public childcare. The educational structure of the female population changed tremendously. At the same time, completed cohort fertility fluctuated between 1.8 and 2.2 children per woman. <b>Objective</b>: This article analyses the changes in the level of completed cohort fertility by education, during educational expansion in the Czech population under the economic, cultural, and institutional background of the state socialist regime, and after its breakdown. <b>Methods</b>: The changes in the level of completed cohort fertility by education are analysed by means of decomposition, complemented by the analysis of parity composition. <b>Results</b>: During the 20th century, education-specific completed cohort fertility increased, rather than declined. Fertility levels converged upwards, contributing to high uniformity within educational categories. The overall changes in fertility levels were driven by changes in the educational structure. These trends resulted in the dominance of the two-child family, while large families were disappearing and childlessness dropped to the biological minimum. <b>Conclusions</b>: An egalitarian economic system with traditional family-friendly policies, in combination with a family-unfriendly labour market, developed into a male breadwinner model of low gender equity. Future family policies should focus on the reconciliation of work and family. <b>Contribution</b>: The study contributes to the discussion on links between education and fertility, adding a new picture to the mosaic of country-level analyses. The Czech Republic is an example of a country with high educational homogeneity of fertility behaviour where the education-specific levels of fertility converged upwards.
El objetivo del presente trabajo es modelar y pronosticar tasas de fecundidad por edad de la madre en Argentina para períodos sin datos, con base en estadísticas vitales (1980-2014), estimaciones previas disponibles para el lapso 1955-1980, censos y proyecciones de población. Para ello, a partir de modelos de series de tiempo funcionales se proyectaron y retropoyectaron las tasas de fecundidad por edad para los períodos 1895-1955 y 2015-2040 para todo el país. Los datos obtenidos permitieron construir probables escenarios pasados y futuros de la fecundidad por edad y se revelaron relativamente coherentes con la información y las tendencias sociodemográficas generales, lo que permitió reabrir preguntas acerca del proceso de transición de la fecundidad.
Social Sciences, Demography. Population. Vital events
Старение населения заставляет исследователей всего мира все глубже изучать вопросы экономической активности пенсионеров. В России в последние годы занятость людей пенсионного возраста значительно возросла при практически неизменном значении этого показателя для населения в основном трудоспособном возрасте. Этот факт требует объяснений. Выявить основные тенденции занятости пенсионеров позволяет анализ микроэкономических данных Российского мониторинга экономического положения и здоровья населения (РМЭЗ) НИУ ВШЭ.
В статье на основе данных Росстата и РМЭЗ НИУ ВШЭ прослеживается динамика занятости людей после достижения стандартного пенсионного возраста (55 лет для женщин и 60 - для мужчин) до 70 лет. Показано, что в 2002-2013 гг. возросла занятость пенсионеров всех возрастов, но по абсолютному приросту в уровне занятости лидируют женщины в возрасте 60-64 года. В статье также исследуются основные характеристики занятости пенсионеров. На основе анализа микроэкономических данных РМЭЗ НИУ ВШЭ показано, что среди всех работающих пенсионеров за рассматриваемый период выросла доля тех, кто работает в образовании, здравоохранении, науке, ЖКХ, МВД и ВПК (секторах экономики с преобладающей ролью государства). Поэтому основные траектории занятости в пенсионном возрасте – либо продолжение работы в этих сферах деятельности, либо смена работы, зачастую предполагающая занятость на должностной позиции, не требующей высокого уровня квалификации и официального оформления трудоустройства. В отличие от развитых стран, в России наблюдавшийся за последние годы рост экономической активности пенсионеров не был связан с повышением гибкости рынка труда. Ни доля самозанятых, ни доля частично занятых пенсионеров за рассматриваемый период не выросли.
Although partner market opportunities are generally considered to be important for relationship stability, they have never been measured accurately. In order to be able to test the anticipated effects of partner market opportunities, this study conceptualises them as individual opportunities for contact and interaction in concrete social contexts, like the neighbourhood, the workplace, leisure activities, etc. Using data from the German Marriage Market Survey, we first examine the impact of individual partner market opportunities on the risk of separation. Second, we examine to what extend the most frequently studied determinants of divorce and separation depend on partner market opportunities. Our results show that the number of opposite sex contacts increases the probability of separation. Sharing the same contacts with one’s partner decreases the risk of separation. Our results indicate further that reducing opposite sex contacts in the course of the relationship is partly responsible for the higher stability of longer-lasting relationships. Having a migration background is associated with fewer opposite sex contacts. This means that having a migration background would be more destabilising if these individuals did not have less opposite sex contacts than individuals without a migration background. In contrast, joint home ownership, church attendance, higher education and residing in western Germany would generally be more stabilising if these factors were not connected with more opposite sex contacts.
Urban groups. The city. Urban sociology, City population. Including children in cities, immigration
<b>Background</b>: Several theories compete to explain the main drivers of urbanisation, past and present, in relation to both demographic transition and economic development. One hypothesis is that rural-to-urban migration is the driver of urbanisation; another is that urban mortality decline actually triggered urban transition. <b>Objective</b>: This paper reconsiders the relationship between demographic (vital) migration and urban transitions by analysing the long-term contribution of natural and migratory movements to urban transition. The respective contributions of birth, death, and migration and their timing will indicate whether economic development, through labour force migration, or vital transition mainly determines urban transition. <b>Methods</b>: After examining the spatial dimension of the demographic transition theory, we use 19th and 20th century series on Sweden and Belgium to better identify the migration component of urban transition through the computation of growth difference between urban and rural areas, accounting for the often neglected reclassification effect. <b>Results</b>: In both Sweden and Belgium, migration is the direct or indirect (through reclassification) engine of urban transition and its contribution precedes the onset of vital transition, while the vital transition has a secondary, unstable, and negative role in the urban transition. <b>Conclusions</b>: Changes in the economic sphere are reinstated as the underlying cause of population change, acting through the shift of human capital in space. Methodological consequences are then drawn for analysing vital and urban transitions in an increasingly interdependent world. <b>Contribution</b>: The paper contributes to the theoretical literature on urban and demographic transitions in relation to economic development. The proposed method evaluates migration contribution without having to measure it.