In Western industrialized countries, women report using health services, and certain medications, more often than do men. Often, analyses are based on data that exclude objective measures of morbidity and that come from cross-sectional surveys, which precludes the use of socioeconomic covariates that are endogenous to seeking care. Here, differences in objective cognitive and physical function, as well as differences in reporting on illness, propensity to seek care, and socioeconomic resources are expected to account for differences in care-seeking behaviour among women and men. This model is applied to the question of medication use in Ismailia, Egypt, using two waves of survey data and in-home tests of physical function from 896 adults aged 50 years and older. The results show that women use ‘modern’ medications more often than do men, and that differences between women and men in reported morbidity and disability, observed cognitive and physical function, and economic resources account for women’s greater use of medication. The findings underline a need for biosocial models to understand differences in women’s and men’s care-seeking behaviour in later life.

Using the matched wife–husband (763) sample from the data collected from Ogbomoso and Iseyin towns in Oyo State, Nigeria, this paper examines factors associated with couples’ fertility intention. The analysis used logistic regression models for predicting the effects of selected socioeconomic background characteristics on a couple’s fertility intention. Results indicate high levels of concurrence among husbands and wives on fertility intention. Where differences exist, husbands are more pronatalists than their wives. About 87% of pairs of partners reported similar fertility preferences. Of these couples, 59·5% wanted more children while only 27·8% reported otherwise. The logistic regression models indicated that a couple’s fertility intention was associated with age, education, place of residence, frequency of television-watching and number of living children. Therefore, programme interventions aimed at promoting fertility reduction in Nigeria should convey fertility regulation messages to both husbands and wives.

Malnutrition among children is prevalent in almost all the states in India. This study assesses the extent and causes of malnutrition in two eastern Indian states with similar climates, namely West Bengal and Assam, using data from the National Family Health Survey 1998–99 (NFHS-2). The three indices of malnutrition taken for analysis are weight-for-height (WHZ), height-for-age (HAZ) and weight-for-age (WAZ). These are assumed to depend on birth order, preceding birth interval, parent’s educational status, working status of the mother, mother’s age at delivery of the children, source of drinking water, toilet facilities and standard of living of the household. Logistic regression was carried out separately for each of the three indices on the explanatory variables for both the states. It was found that not all variables are equally important in determining whether a baby is underweight, or suffering from acute or chronic malnutrition. Also, the importance of variables is not the same in the two states. It was observed that the coefficients associated with the variables in determining weight-for-height are not significant compared with those for weight-for-age and height-for-age.

This study identified the influences of maternal socio-demographic and antenatal factors on stillbirths and neonatal deaths in New South Wales, Australia. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were used to explore the association of selected antenatal and maternal characteristics with stillbirths and neonatal deaths. The findings of this study showed that stillbirths and neonatal deaths significantly varied by infant sex, maternal age, Aboriginality, maternal country of birth, socioeconomic status, parity, maternal smoking behaviour during pregnancy, maternal diabetes mellitus, maternal hypertension, antenatal care, plurality of birth, low birth weight, place of birth, delivery type, maternal deaths and small gestational age. First-born infants, twins and infants born to teenage mothers, Aboriginal mothers, those who smoked during the pregnancy and those of lower socioeconomic status were at increased risk of stillbirths and neonatal deaths. The most common causes of stillbirths were conditions originating in the perinatal period: intrauterine hypoxia and asphyxia. Congenital malformations, including deformities and chromosomal abnormalities, and disorders related to slow fetal growth, short gestation and low birth weight were the most common causes of neonatal deaths. The findings indicate that very low birth weight (less than 2000 g) contributed 75·6% of the population-attributable risks to stillbirths and 59·4% to neonatal deaths. Low gestational age (less than 32 weeks) accounted for 77·7% of stillbirths and 87·9% of neonatal deaths. The findings of this study suggest that in order to reduce stillbirths and neonatal deaths, it is essential to include strategies to predict and prevent prematurity and low birth weight, and that there is a need to focus on anti-smoking campaigns during pregnancy, optimizing antenatal care and other healthcare programmes targeted at the socially disadvantaged populations identified in this study.

This paper elaborates the hypothesis that the unique demography and sociology of Ashkenazim in medieval Europe selected for intelligence. Ashkenazi literacy, economic specialization, and closure to inward gene flow led to a social environment in which there was high fitness payoff to intelligence, specifically verbal and mathematical intelligence but not spatial ability. As with any regime of strong directional selection on a quantitative trait, genetic variants that were otherwise fitness reducing rose in frequency. In particular we propose that the well-known clusters of Ashkenazi genetic diseases, the sphingolipid cluster and the DNA repair cluster in particular, increase intelligence in heterozygotes. Other Ashkenazi disorders are known to increase intelligence. Although these disorders have been attributed to a bottleneck in Ashkenazi history and consequent genetic drift, there is no evidence of any bottleneck. Gene frequencies at a large number of autosomal loci show that if there was a bottleneck then subsequent gene flow from Europeans must have been very large, obliterating the effects of any bottleneck. The clustering of the disorders in only a few pathways and the presence at elevated frequency of more than one deleterious allele at many of them could not have been produced by drift. Instead these are signatures of strong and recent natural selection.

Childhood overweight and obesity, especially among migrant children, are current health problems in several European countries. In the present study the prevalence of overweight and obesity among migrant children from Turkey and the former Yugoslavia was documented and compared with that of Austrian children in Vienna. Anthropometric data from 1786 children were collected at the ages of 6, 10 and 15 years. Body mass was estimated by means of the body mass index and percentile curves were used to determine weight status. The prevalence of overweight and obesity was found to be significantly higher among migrant children. Children and adolescents from the former Yugoslavia and Turkish girls exhibited especially high rates of overweight and obesity. Biosocial and cultural factors are discussed as causes of these observations.

Little is known about the biting nuisance of mosquitoes in the UK, despite the high numbers found in some locations. A telephone questionnaire survey was used to determine the perceived nuisance of biting insects on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, a place notorious for mosquitoes. Two hundred randomly selected individuals were interviewed and asked if they suffered from mosquito bites. If they answered yes, they were asked to describe where and when they were bitten, and what measures they took against mosquitoes. Forty-six per cent of respondents completed the questionnaire. Of those, 50% reported being bitten by mosquitoes, mostly outside during the summer. Seventy per cent said that most biting occurred during the evening and night. Of those respondents who protected themselves against biting (27), most used repellents (70%), with the remainder changing their behaviour to avoid mosquitoes, including closing or screening windows (33%), wearing thicker clothes (7%) and spraying insecticide (4%). One person slept under a bednet in summer (4%). This study provides evidence that on the Isle of Sheppey mosquitoes are considered a major nuisance by a sizeable proportion of the population. Since there is growing interest in the threat posed by new and emerging diseases in the UK, health authorities will need to make substantial efforts to inform and reassure the public about the threats posed by mosquitoes in areas where they are common.