Poster session on Health, mortality and longevity (1)

Commonly, methods such as rate-ratios and rate-differentials are applied to assess inter-temporal, inter-regional and inter-group progress. However, an indiscriminate application of these methods is identified as an area for concern. In particular, rate-ratios are sensitive to the adopted definition of an indicator (achievement or failure) and tend to be larger (smaller) at lower (higher) overall levels. Clearly, they are effective only when considered along with overall levels and the adopted definition of the indicator. Also, it is critical that the progress is assessed both in terms of achievement and the effort toward achievement. Given such intricacies, this paper reviews the existing methods for progress assessment and discusses an alternative level-sensitive approach that informs regarding effort and offers similar conclusions irrespective of the adopted definition of the indicator. Data from the official MDG monitoring database is analysed to present an international comparison of achievements in reducing child and infant mortality rates.

Although childhood immunization is considered important for improving child survival, most morbidity and mortality in children are due to vaccine preventable diseases such as measles, poliomyelitis, tuberculosis, whooping cough, diphtheria, and tetanus. Globally, immunization coverage has increased during the past decade, but in African Regions including Nigeria, the coverage is still unacceptably low. It is therefore important to identify the factors that are associated with full child immunization in Nigeria.
The study analyzed the 2008 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey children’s data. A total of 4,421 children aged between 12-23 months delivered by 4,421 women aged 15-49 years formed the analysis sample. The dependent variable was full child immunization constructed from a number of variables on uptake of the various WHO recommended immunizations (coded 0 – No and 1 – Yes). Binary logistic regression model was used to identify the critical determinants of full child immunization status.
Results show that about 30% of the children received full immunization. The significant determinants of full child immunization were religion, residence, place of delivery, antenatal visit, mother’s occupation, mother’s education, mother’s age wealth and region.

United Nations Millennium Development Goals(MDGs) has set the target of reducing high rates of infant (and child) mortality (IMR) by two thirds to be reached by 2015 using 1990 as the benchmark year. The availability of time series data on Infant Mortality rate from Inter- Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation(IGME) led by UNICEF and WHO, it has become possible to track the rate of progress towards this goal. Using the IGME 2012 data for all the South Asian Countries, I have considered three specific issues in this article. (1). How does the South Asian Countries fair in reducing the IMR towards this MDG target? Although the time series data exhibit declining trends for all the countries in South Asia, to what extent such trends are attributed by their average annual progress trajectory over the period for which data are available? (2). Whether deterministic or stochastic trend can attribute the IMR decline in South Asian countries and what alternative time series models be used to forecast the decline in Infant Mortality? Can we find a serviceable representative model for the entire region? (3) In case, a satisfactory representative model for the entire region exists, how do we assess the forecast accuracy using the model and quantify the propagation of forecast error?

We study mortality selection in the first 90 days of life. Using micro-data for a region with internal strong mortality differences before mortality transition, we try to understand if children who survived a strong risk of death during the first three months of life (q0-2) were “selected”, i.e. they had higher probability of surviving during the following 33 months (q3-35). The neonatal selection process played a non negligible role in determining the post-neonatal mortality level in Veneto during 1816-35. For the cohorts where neonatal mortality selection was severe (q0-2>40%), the hazard ratio of surviving during the following 33 months was 20/30% lower than for the cohort where neonatal mortality selection was relatively small (q0-2<20%). This result suggests a sort of homeostatic mechanism, as the mortality differences in q0-35 are lower than the mortality differences in q0-2 and q3-35.

Russia is among 3 leaders according to suicides conducted by teenagers – 22 per 100,000 of corresponding population. In Russia suicidal mortality in adolescents (15-19 years) during period 1992-2009 increased by 20.6% in boys and by 23.2% in girls. Official statistics registers manifest suicides. In reality, scales of teenagers’ suicides could be much higher due to some subjective and objective factors leading to under-registration of losses. The section where suicides could be hidden is “Injuries of undetermined intent”. Suggested approach is based on verification of incident by its realization mechanism. It allows with high probability to suppose that in Russia there is persistent under-registration of teenagers’ suicides. In general, during 2000-2009 it amounted 13.7% in male and 22.1% in female adolescent population. Possible over-estimation of suicides number while using such an approach is determined by different poisonings and jumps (fallings) from high place but it is compensated by possible underestimation of such incidents due to other sources as well as deaths classified to R00-R99 causes. The question of this study is not about exact numbers of teenagers who died from suicides but about an effort to reconstruct true level of losses with due consideration of possible sections where suicides could be hidden.

There is the long-term regress of mortality in Belarus. At present one of the factors is the hazardous alcohol consumption. Although this fact the alcohol industry is still due to real annual money. It should be mentioned, that it is not the profit but the income. To this, the comparison of the losses and income was done. The main demographic losses caused by alcohol consumption is the number of people who had died because of hazardous drinking. To calculate the total number of death the direct and indirect causes was estimated. Economic losses were recalculated with the special method of the estimation of the value of life. As a result the demographic losses caused by alcohol consumption were presented in dollars. The income is the net alcohol state budget money or excises on spirits, wine, beer and other alcohol beverages. The main conclusions of the research are that the alcoholisation of population in Belarus gives not only the significant contribution to mortality, but also is the economic loss due to 1$ income is 1,5$ losses only by mortality.

Migration is an important livelihood strategy for households with limited sources of income. It helps in the upward mobility of migrants and their families. Using a nationally representative cross-section data for India, we compare consumption expenditure and intake of calories and proteins of households which migrated with those which did not migrate. We also compare outcomes across households with and without a short-term migrant. Since the decision to migrate is itself affected by other factors, we use certain regional and demographic indicators as instruments. Valid instruments include location quotient (i.e. agglomeration of economic activities), estimates of population living in urban and peripheral urban areas and migrant flows into the district. Two-stage instrumental variable technique is used for analysis purposes. Our main finding is that migrant households and households without a short-term migrant have higher consumption expenditure, calorie and protein intake than their respective counterparts. Also migrant households in urban areas are found to be better off in terms of consumption and nutrient intake than those in rural areas.

This study investigates the role of unobserved frailty on the estimation of mortality differentials from age 50 on by education level. We used data of a 36 years follow up from the Turin Longitudinal Study containing 391,170 men and 456,216 women. We fitted survival analysis models with and without the unobserved heterogeneity component, controlling for mortality improvement from a cohort and a period perspective. We found that in the majority of the cases, the models without frailty estimated a smaller educational gradient then the models with frailty. During the post war industrialization Turin was the destination of many immigrants from the South of Italy. By adopting a period and cohort perspective and controlling for the individual region of birth we found that the migration flow is likely to have reduced male heterogeneity and the educational gradient.

This paper examines the deferential in Coverage of full immunization, dropout in BCG to measles and gender inequality through selected demographic and socioeconomic variables which effects on the chance of immunisation for children in Maharashtra and in its all five Geographical Region namely, Northern Maharashtra, Vidharbha, Marathwada, Konkan, and Pune. The analysis uses data from the third round of District Level Health Survey, 2006. Bivariate, multivariate and dropout rates are used to understand the differentials and changes in immunization coverage along with that concentration Index is used for measure the gender inequality in coverage of immunization. Results indicate that there is huge regional vitiation in child immunization in Maharashtra. Northern Maharashtra region has poor condition in child immunization than Vidharbha and Marathwada Konkan region has cross the boundary of middle performing criteria and progress is relatively better but slower and smaller. On the other hand Western Maharashtra region has better condition in child immunization. Finding further reveals that higher drop out in BCG to Measles are responsible for lower coverage of full immunization in regions of Maharashtra. Gender inequality in immunization is lower in Northern Maharashtra, vidharbha and Marathwada by richest wealth quintile children

The importance of early life conditions for health in later life has been known for many years. Recent developments in modelling techniques have given rise to a series of in-depth studies that focused on educational attainment, labour market outcomes, adult health, the incidence of particular diseases and old-age mortality. However, not many studies look at the impact on health during early adulthood and, in particular, the literature that analyses how early life conditions affect female reproductive health is scant and often inconclusive. Using data from the Scanian Economic Demographic Database for women born between 1813 and 1898, this work studies the impact of exposure to insufficient nutrition while in-utero or to epidemics in the first year of life on offspring sex ratios at birth. We find that women of low socioeconomic status who were exposed in infancy to whooping cough give birth to a lower proportion of boys, probably as a result of a higher incidence of spontaneous abortions. Infant mortality is also higher for offspring born to women exposed to epidemics, and because of gender specific fetal mortality, it is lower for males in comparison to females.