Children and youth

I assess the impact of Ishraq, a second-chance informal education program for adolescent girls in rural Upper Egypt. The program provides literacy and life skills. Participation is voluntary resulting in a potential selection bias. An experimental design with randomization of treatment and control villages was infeasible. Instead, propensity score matching to identify control villages matching Ishraq villages in terms of population size, poverty level and prevalence of girls’ education.
The evaluation method used is propensity score matching at the end of the program. Additionally, the IV method is used where the instrument is the distance to the youth center YC, where the program is housed, as it proxies cost of participation. A set of attitudinal and knowledge outcomes is used to measure the impact of Ishraq: (1) improvement in girls’ functional literacy, (2) mobility and access to safe social spaces, (3) acquisition of life skills, including financial literacy skills, knowledge of hygiene, general health, puberty changes and reproductive health, and participation in sports, and (4) empowerment-related outcomes including attitudes toward gender roles and marriage, knowledge of women’s rights and basic civic facts, attitudes toward FGM, self-esteem and participation in decision-making.

This paper will focus in urban youth's strategies of political identification and participation in Algeria. It will analyze Algerian Youth's participation in debates on national identity and their use, modification and transformation of political representations in the last decade (after Civil War) as well as the current context of popular pro-democracy movements of Arab Spring. It will be composed of two sections: 1)Algerian youth's adoption and transformation of socio-historical representations (arguably Arabist vis à vis colonized and Islamist vis à vis occidentalized francisé) and debates on national identities. How do Algerian Youth respond to sociopolitical representations? How do they transform them? 2)Tensions of new social and political representations. This section will examine Algerian youth's participation in current popular movements for democratic change. What are the messages articulated by Algerian youth in the current demonstrations - since January 2011? Do youth's vindications coincide with other social movements' (as Syndicate and political parties) or can be distinguished as 'youth specific'? Can we distinguish between articulated messages by youth students and non-students' demonstrations? Are there different kind of messages of resistance or diverse politicall representations in youh movements?

Immunization leads to improvement in child health in states throughout the country. Immunization (Expanded program on Immunization in 1974) is preventing millions of death every year in addition to reducing the risk of disability caused by infectious diseases. However the wider benefits of immunization are not reaching to all children of country in an equitable manner. It is reflecting the inherent inequality in access of basic health services which is provided free of cost by government. The study focuses on immunization coverage across India from three rounds of National Family Health Survey (1992-93 to 2005-06). It shows the level, trends and differentials in childhood immunization and dropouts with respect to multiple dose vaccine at national level. Three-quarters of children have received all the recommended vaccinations in Tamil Nadu, Goa, and Kerala. Immunization coverage has improved substantially since NFHS-1, when only 36 percent of children were fully vaccinated and 30 percent had not been vaccinated at all. There is very little change, however, in full immunization coverage between NFHS-2 (42 percent) and NFHS-3 (44 percent). Religion and zone of states also have some effects. Emphasis on these demand enhancing factors is necessary to make the immunisation programme.

Though empirical research has established the household wealth and maternal characteristics as significant predictors of child malnutrition, little is known about the role of community and parental attributes in explaining child malnutrition in India. The aim of this paper is to examine the role of community and household factors in explaining malnutrition among children under five in the Empowered Action Group (EAG) states of India. The eight EAG states constitute about half of India’s population and lag behind in key demographic and socioeconomic indicators.
The unit data from National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 3 is used in the analyses. Bi-variate analyses, concentration curves and multilevel models are used to understand the patterning and contextual effects of child malnutrition in the EAG states. The dependent variables, weight-for-age, height-for-age and weight-for-height are analysed with respect to three composite indices; community socioeconomic status (SES), household wealth and household social status. Results indicate that in EAG states half of children in poor communities and households were underweight, stunted

Using the available studies and materials relevant to child sexual abuse (CSA), this literature review investigates the scope of CSA in Vietnam, the vulnerability of Vietnamese children as well as the possibilities to improve CSA identification and prevention. The results show that the magnitude of CSA is substantial in Vietnam. There was a huge discrepancy between the number of reported cases and the estimated incidents. It could be said that CSA is largely hidden in Vietnam. There exists individual, relationship, community and societal risk factors for CSA victimization in Vietnam. The existing CSA identification and prevention are far from sufficient. There is a shortage of human resources, legal documents, guidelines. The result suggests that improving the policy, legal environment is really in need, especially with emphasis on promoting CSA researches, rehabilitation care, social marketing, developing monitoring and evaluation system to prevent CSA from the first place and to reduce the negative consequences on victims, their families and society at large.

The aim of this study was to (i) develop a material affluence scale (MAS) for measuring adolescent SES in health inequality research in developing countries, (ii) compare the association of the MAS with the parental SES measures (parental occupation and education), and (iii) evaluate the association of parental SES and MAS with key health and health behaviour indicators. We used school-based cross-sectional survey conducted in thirty districts within three administrative regions in southern Ghana (a West African country) among adolescents ages 12-18-year old (N=1,195) as an example. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used as the main statistical technique. MAS categorised adolescents into material affluence groups (MAS scores for the poorest, poor, average, affluent and most affluent were-1.679, -0.355, 0.354, 0.725 and 1.022 from the first principal component quintile respectively), it has adequate internal coherence (α =0.622) and moderately correlates with parental SES (r=0.39, p<0.001). MAS and parental SES showed similar pattern of strength and direction of association with selected health and health behaviour indicators. MAS presents a viable alternative method for measuring adolescent’s SES in health inequality research in developing countries and could be useful as well in western countries.

The literature on neighborhood context and health suggests that the life-course processes involved in building trajectories of health are not adequately captured in cross-sectional analysis, which has been the empirical focus of much of the research in this area. In this study we use data from the U.S. Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K) to examine the impact of longitudinal measures of neighborhood racial composition on child self-rated health between kindergarten and 8th grade. We employ two-level multilevel longitudinal logistic regression models to examine variation in the initial status and trajectories of child self-rated health over time. Since the ECLS-K tracked child mobility over time, we are able to model the impact of changes in neighborhood racial composition. We find that compared to children living in low white neighborhoods, children living in high white neighborhoods had higher odds for initial good health (OR=2.10; p<0.001). Children living in high black, Hispanic, and minority neighborhoods has significantly lower odds of initial good health (OR=0.58; p<0.001, OR=0.31; p<0.001 and OR=0.39; p<0.001, respectively). Hispanic children living in high minority neighborhoods have higher odds of good health status compared to those living in low minority neighborhoods (OR=0.34; p<0.01).

The present study aim is to analyze the association between anaemia and infectious diseases - diarrhoea among children under five years in Bihar (India) relation with certain background characteristics of mothers using the third National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3, 2005-06 ). The highest prevalence of anaemia is found in Bihar (Any anaemia -78 percent) as compared to other states of India. However, sever is just 2 percent but moderate is 47percent and mild anaemia level is 30 percent. It is observed that about 82.4 percent of children who had diarrhoea in last two weeks are anaemic which is quite high as compared to those children who are not anaemic. According to mother’s background characteristics, proportion of children suffered from diarrhoea is higher for those who are living in rural areas, belongs from poor household and have unimproved toilet facility. The odd ratio shows the probability of children suffered from diarrhoea in last two weeks are significantly higher among urban Muslim male children who are anaemic and could not access the improve source of toilet facility.

Childhood moving has been associated with negative outcomes, almost regardless of the specific outcome studied. Most studies struggle to differentiate whether the move is harmful in itself or whether the adverse outcomes are results of underlying causes.
We use detailed data on complete cohorts of children born in Norway 1965-1980 (N=967 151), their parents and siblings, and information on all their residential relocation between the around 400 municipalities in Norway. We use both logistic regression and sibling fixed-effects models. First, we assess how different outcomes are affected by the number of times a child has moved. Next, we examine whether the child’s age at moving is important.
The results suggest that risks for not completing high school, low adult income, early parenthood and early mortality increase with each additional residential relocation during childhood. For instance, odd ratios for not completing high school were 1.64 (CI 1.61-1.68) for children who moved more than 3 times compared with non-movers. The logistic regression results were largely confirmed by the sibling fixed-effects models. Considering age at moving, we found that moves prior to elementary school did not have significant adverse long-term effects, whereas moves during middle school (13-15 years) appeared to be particularly detrimental.

In recent times, young underage people in and out of school engage in the consumption of alcohol and other psychoactive substances without restraints as a mark of adulthood and modernisation. This is made possible through advancement in packaging (through modern technology) and easy access to locations where these products are available. This development portends a great risk for these youths, the family structure and the nation at large. One therefore becomes curious regarding the regulations put in place regarding substance consumption among underage and youths in general. Equally, one is inquisitive about the dimensions of violence in relation to substance consumption in the country coupled with activities put in place over time to educate and discourage the youths regarding its consumption. While studies have showed the relationship between substance consumption and violent behaviour, not much is being done in this regard in recent times. This study critically examines substance consumption and violence among youths in Nigeria; the nexus between family, nation and substance consumption among youths and policies set up in this regard in the county over time. Finally, some recommendations shall be made on how the key players can be up and doing in this regard