Jon Anson

Women's health and labour force status: An enquiry using a multi-point measure of labour force participation

Previous research indicates that working women are healthier than housewives, that the unemployed are less healthy than those currently employed, and that transitions into and out of paid work may be particularly associated with poor health. Women respondents in the 1979 U.S. National Health Interview Survey were divided into five categories: the long term employee, the newly employed, the unemployed, the recently non-employed and the housewife. The categories were compared on six measures of self-reported health and illness behaviour, controlling for age, SES, marital status, and age of youngest child. As expected the long term employees were the healthiest, followed by the recently employed; the unemployed and the housewives were not distinguishable in terms of their health; and the recently non-employed were the least healthy. This pattern was found for both the total sample, and for the sub sample of married mothers. The dynamic relationship between employment status and health, is discussed.

Death rests a while: holy day and Sabbath effects on Jewish mortality in Israel

The purpose of this study was to replicate and expand previous research examining the association between holy days and the timing of death. We analysed daily numbers of deaths of Jewish men and women aged 35 and above in Israel from 1983 to 1992, controlling for long term and seasonal trends. For all men, and for younger women (ages 35-74) there was a clear and significant dip-peak pattern in the number of deaths around the Sabbath (Saturday), but no consistent dip-peak pattern around other holy days. This pattern was found for all causes of death (particularly cerebro-vascular causes), was stronger for men than for women, and was not found among young Jewish children, or among the non-Jewish population.

Sex Differences in Mortality at the Local Level: An Analysis of Belgian Municipalities

Explanations for the consistentfemale mortality advantage have ranged from thebiological, through the behavioural to thesocial, but we are still far from asatisfactory explanation. The current mortalityadvantage, which women enjoy in almost allsocieties and age groups, is not a historicaluniversal. Indeed, it may even be a uniquedevelopment of the 20th century. Even ifthis is the case, however, this does not makeit a necessary corollary of low mortality.Human mortality reflects the pattern of socialrelationships, standards of living, livingarrangements, and patterns of power andinequality in the society, and althoughmortality levels are similar for men and forwomen, they nonetheless display importantdifferences. These differences, in their turn,reflect the pattern of relationships betweenmen and women in the society. The presentanalysis looks at mortality levels anddifferences between men and women in Belgium.We focus on aggregate effects at themunicipality level (the smallest level oflocal government), and show that mortality isnegatively associated with high standards ofliving; familial solidarity; immigrantconcentration and a stable, locally born,population. It is positively associated with ahigh tendency to cohabitation. Male mortalityis more sensitive to social conditions than isfemale mortality so that as conditions improvethe female mortality advantage declines. Wealso show that net of these conditions thereremains a mortality disadvantage inWallonia, and this can only partly be explainedin terms of social differences between the twomajor regions of the country.

Thank God it's Friday: The weekly cycle of mortality in Israel

The purpose of this study was to explore the weeklycycle of mortality among Jews in Israel. Drawing onprevious research on the association between holy-daysand the timing of death, we hypothesized thatmortality of Jews declines on Sabbath (Saturday), andrises to a peak on Sundays. We analysed daily numbersof deaths of Jewish men and women aged 5 and above inIsrael from 1983 to 1992, and found a clear andsignificant dip-peak pattern in the number of deathsaround the Sabbath. This pattern was found for allcauses of death, was stronger for men than for women,and was not found among young Jewish children, oramong the non-Jewish population.

Mortality and living conditions: Relative mortality levels and their relation to the physical quality of life in urban populations

The general inverse association between mortality and the availability of material resources has been well established in large populations. Using data for Israeli urban locations, we show that indirectly standardized mortality ratios (SMR) are well able to capture this relationship in small populations for which reliable age specific mortality data are not available; and that they are inversely related to the standard of living, as measured by a variety of census based indicators. It is thus suggested that SMRs offer a ready indicator of living standards in populations for which more specific indicators may not be readily accessible.

Surviving the holidays: gender differences in mortality in the context of three Moslem holidays.

Drawing on E. Durkheims [(1915) The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, London: George Allen & Unwin] discussion of religious holy-days and on his argument regarding the implications of institutional gender differences [(1897/1951) Suicide, New York: Free Press], it was hypothesized that holy days may affect mortality patterns differentially by gender. The present study focused on Moslems in Israel a very different social and religious context than those that have been studied before. The 1983–1992 data on Israeli Moslem deaths were used. After removing the long-term growth and the seasonal effects, womens mortality was found to be significantly greater in the month of Ramadan than in the month before, and in the two weeks before the feast of ’Id el-Adhha than in the two weeks after it. For men, mortality was higher in the two weeks after the feast of ‘Id el-Fitr than in the two weeks before it. Religious holidays, then, have a different effect on the pattern of mortality of men and women, reflecting their different roles in the preparation and celebration of the holy day rites.

Regional mortality differences in Britain, 1931-87: a two dimensional analysis.

In a recent analysis, Illsley, Le Grand & Mullings argued that, over the years 1931-87, regional inequalities in mortality in Britain effectively disappeared for most age groups. The present study reanalyses their data, breaking regional life tables down into their two major components, the level of survivorship, and the shape of the mortality curve. It is shown that whereas there has been a consistent decline in regional inequalities in the level of mortality, there has not been a comparable convergence in the shape of the mortality curves. These shape differences, implying premature adult mortality, are now the major source of variation among the regions.

Demographic indices as social indicators

A social indicator is derived from readily available demographic data: population age structures, mortality rates, sex ratios, and children—women ratios (fertility). It is suggested that an indicator based on just two of these variables can be as reliable a measure of the physical quality of life in a population as a multivariable indicator based directly on socioeconomic data. Unlike multivariable indicators, which are expensive to collect, the demographic data are readily available. Their use as social indicators would thus offer a simple, cheap, and effective means of monitoring the standard of living in small, geographically defined populations and in evaluating the effects of policy interventions. The analysis is based on Israeli towns, with use of data from the census of 1983.

Delayed abortion among teenagers: can a population at risk be identified?

Although only a small proportion of abortions performed in the United States are second-trimester abortions, teenagers obtain a large percentage of them. Yet the literature on abortion seekers is remarkably lacking in a discussion of who the pregnant teenagers who seek abortions are, particularly those who seek second-trimester abortions. We report a study of 97 adolescents who turned for help to a public abortion clinic in Missouri during 1989. We examined the impact of demographic variables, social-behavioral variables, and pregnancy-related variables (pregnancy, contraception, and abortion histories and attitudes toward abortion) on the stage of pregnancy at which the teens arrived at the clinic. Only contraceptive use and a positive attitude toward abortion were predictive of late arrival at the abortion clinic.

Cost recovery and the true cost-effectiveness of contraceptive provision.

The decline in financial support for family planning programs in recent years has prompted donors and program managers to become more attentive to issues of program cost recovery and cost-effectiveness. Couple-years of protection (CYP) per dollar spent are typically used to determine the protective impact and cost-effectiveness of individual contraceptive methods. This measure however inadequately assesses the level of protection offered by each method. The authors therefore propose adjusted CYPs which take into account the relative risk of pregnancy among users of each method. The general methodology for establishing true cost-effectiveness ratios for family planning methods and operations is outlined with the methodology presented for computing the adjusted total CYP taking into account subsidies and the varying risks of pregnancy for users of different ages. The approach is then applied to Profamilia data from Colombia. Calculations demonstrate how recovering costs and investing the proceeds from family planning programs lead to the cross-subsidization of methods. Of particular interest it is found that more subsidized contraceptive methods tend to be supported by less subsidized methods. The data further indicate that because of the differences in the relative risk of pregnancy of women of different ages sterilization the most effective contraceptive methods is not necessarily the most cost-effective method in terms of the number of CYPs it offers per unit cost.