In the developing world, little is known about the risk and precipitating factors for abortion, due to a dearth of community-based surveys. Most analyses of determinants of induced abortion consider only a small set of household and individual socio-demographic factors and treat abortion as an isolated outcome, which ignores its relationship with prior reproductive health behaviours and experiences. In this paper, data from a cross-sectional survey of abortion knowledge, attitudes and practices among 2571 currently married women of reproductive age in Rajasthan, India, were used to examine contextual-, household- and individual-level determinants of abortion. Bivariate probit models, which jointly determine the probability of pregnancy and the conditional probability of abortion, were used to reflect the probability of abortion as a result of interrelated and sequential events. Increased socioeconomic status and life-cycle factors were associated with both the probability of pregnancy and with the conditional likelihood of abortion. Women who reported personal networks were also more likely to terminate pregnancies, particularly if their network members purportedly had abortion experience. Community knowledge of sex-selective abortion also exerted a significant positive effect on the propensity to terminate a pregnancy. For rural women only, community beliefs regarding spousal consent requirements pre-abortion were also significantly associated with abortion.

In India, nearly one million women of childbearing age are infected with HIV. This study sought to examine the biological effect of HIV on the fertility of HIV-infected Indian women. This is relevant for the provision of pregnancy-related counselling and care to the infected women, and for estimating the HIV prevalence among women and children. The study used retrospectively collected data from the National Family Health Survey (2005–2006) and applied a matched case control study design to compare the effect of HIV on conception, pregnancy rates and pregnancy outcomes among HIV-infected (N=69) and HIV-non-infected (N=345) women, both unaware of their HIV status. Pregnancy rates and pregnancy outcomes were compared through non-parametric statistical tests, whereas the effect of HIV on fecundity was studied by analysing the interval between last two pregnancies using Cox regression. The pregnancy rate was observed to be lower among HIV-infected than HIV-non-infected women (RR=0.77). The difference, however, was not statistically significant (p=0.064). There was also no statistically significant difference in the interval between last two pregnancies (p=0.898). Significantly higher number of pregnancies among HIV-infected women resulted in termination because of miscarriage or stillbirths (p=0.004). Therefore, while providing clinical care and counselling to infected women, the possibility of adverse pregnancy outcomes should be considered. Due to the higher rate of adverse pregnancy outcomes, attendance of HIV-infected women at antenatal clinics might be greater, which could lead to overestimation of HIV prevalence derived from antenatal care surveillance sites.

Abortion is illegal in Uganda except to save the life of the woman. Nevertheless, the practice is quite common: about 300,000 induced abortions occur annually among Ugandan women aged 15–49 (Singh et al., 2005) and a large proportion of these women require treatment for post-abortion complications. In the male-dominant culture of Uganda, where men control most of the financial resources, men play a critical part in determining whether women receive a safe abortion, or appropriate treatment if they experience abortion complications. This study examines men's roles in determining women's access to a safer abortion and post-abortion care. It draws on in-depth interviews carried out in 2003 with 61 women aged 18–60 and 21 men aged 20–50 from Kampala and Mbarara, Uganda. Respondents' descriptions of men's involvement in women's abortion care agreed that men's stated attitudes about abortion often prevented women from involving them in either the abortion or post-abortion care. Most men believe that if a woman is having an abortion, it must be because she is pregnant with another man's child, although this does not correspond with women's reasons for having an abortion – a critical disjuncture revealed by the data between men's perceptions of, and women's realities regarding, reasons for seeking an abortion. If the woman does experience post-abortion complications, the prevailing attitude among men in the sample was that they cannot support a woman in such a situation seeking care because if it had been his child, she would not have had a covert abortion. Since money is critical to accessing appropriate care, without men's support, women seeking an abortion may not be able to access safer abortion options and if they experience complications, they may delay care-seeking or may not obtain care at all. Barriers to involving men in abortion decision-making endanger women's health and possibly their lives.

Consanguineous marriage – marriage between relatives – has received a great deal of attention as a potential risk factor for many adverse health outcomes. The present cross-sectional study was done in order to illustrate the prevalence and types of consanguineous marriages among Iranian Georgians living in Frydoonshahr (Isfahan province, central Iran). Data on consanguineous marriages were collected using a simple questionnaire. The total number of couples in this study was 646. Consanguineous marriage was classified by the degree of relationship between couples. First cousin marriages (14.2%) were the most common type of consanguineous marriages, followed by second cousin (7.0%), beyond second cousin (1.5%) and first cousin once removed (0.6%). The mean inbreeding coefficient (α) was calculated as 0.0104 for the population. The present study shows that the study population, as other Iranian populations, has a high level of consanguinity.

The purpose of this study was to investigate intergenerational transmission of reproductive behaviour in Botswana. The major source of data was the 2001 Botswana AIDS Impact Survey where a nationally representative random sample of men and women aged 10–64 years was selected using a stratified two-stage probability sample design. Covariates in the analysis include age, education, marital status, religion, age at first birth, residence, duration at residence and contraceptive use. The main analytical technique is linear regression. The results indicate that the reproductive behaviour of older generations has a significantly positive influence on the reproductive behaviour of the subsequent generation, but does not affect the subsequent generation homogenously. The effect appeared much stronger for women who initiated childbearing at an older age, for women who had never been to school, and for the cohort aged 50–59 years. These findings suggest that number of siblings, as a reproductive behaviour determinant, may very well have confounded previous reproductive behaviour analyses in Botswana. The study draws attention to the importance of the effect of origin family size in determining reproductive behaviour outcomes in Botswana.

Consanguinity has been shown to increase homozygosity and to reduce genetic variation in a group, which may protect against the expression of recessive genes that can lead to genetic disorders. Consanguineous marriages are practised widely in Kuwait. The major aim of this study is to delineate the association of consanguineous marriages with congenital disabilities in different Kuwaiti population subcultures. A total of 9104 married Kuwaiti females aged 15–79 years from different backgrounds were selected at ten primary health care centres from six governorates in Kuwait. Data were collected using a questionnaire and analysed with chi-squared tests. The data indicate significant differences in the occurrence of genetic diseases in consanguineous couples' offspring (4.88%) compared with those of non-consanguineous couples (4.13%) (p<0.002). The results also show significant differences in frequencies of genetic/environmental diseases in consanguineous couples' offspring (8.59%) compared with those of non-consanguineous couples (8.23%) (p<0.005). No significant differences between the two groups regarding environmental diseases were observed. A higher frequency of genetic diseases was found in first- (6.97%; p<0.001), second- (6.78%; p<0.001) and third-cousin (6.46%; p<0.022) couples' offspring compared with those of non-consanguineous couples. The frequency of congenital disabilities in the offspring of couples from consanguineous marriages (2.9%) is higher than that in the offspring of non-consanguineous marriages (2.3%). But this difference is not significant at the 0.05 level. First-cousin marriages have the highest frequency (3.5%) of congenital disabilities compared with other kinds of marriages (2.1–2.3%). Differences across groups are significant (p<0.036). Significant differences are found for first-cousin couples in both physical (2.37; p<0.042) and mental (0.74; p<0.037) disabilities compared with non-consanguineous couples. No significant differences were observed in deafness and blindness disabilities. The data show no significant differences between second- and third-cousin and non-consanguineous couples in physical, mental or deafness and blindness disabilities. There are no significant differences in the percentages of offspring with congenital disabilities in consanguineous and non-consanguineous marriages across sub-population groups for the total of four types of congenital disability.

The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of, and socio-demographic factors associated with, overweight and obesity in Botswana. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2007 using a multistage sampling method to select a representative sample of 4107 men and 4916 women aged 20–49 years. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify the socio-demographic factors associated with overweight and obesity. Mean BMI values for men and women were 21.7 kg/m2 and 24.4 kg/m2, respectively. Both overweight and obesity levels were higher among women than men. Overall, 23% of women were overweight compared with 13% of men. Obese women constituted about 15% compared with only 3% of men. However, 19% of men were underweight compared with 12% of women. The main socio-demographic factors associated with overweight and obesity were being older, living in a city/town, being married and having attained higher levels of education, and these relationships were statistically significant at the 5% level. Although over-nutrition is prevalent among adult female Batswana, underweight remains an important public health problem for males. Programmes and other interventions aimed at concurrently addressing both under-nutrition and overweight need to be developed.

Domestic violence and obesity are global public health problems. This study explores associations of domestic violence and obesity in 5015 ever-married, non-pregnant women aged 15–49 years who took part in the 2005 Egypt Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS). Women's mean body mass index (BMI) was 30.4 kg/m2, and 48% were obese. Thirty-seven per cent reported any prior psychological, physical or sexual domestic violence. Compared with their counterparts, the adjusted odds of being obese were marginally higher among women who reported any prior sexual (aOR=1.31), physical or sexual (aOR=1.18), or psychological, physical or sexual (aOR=1.17) domestic violence. Women who experienced severe or repeated domestic violence – as measured by reported exposure to three or more acts of physical (aOR=1.25), psychological or physical (aOR=1.18), physical or sexual (aOR=1.36), and psychological, physical or sexual (aOR=1.26) domestic violence – had higher adjusted odds of being obese. Marginally significant adjusted dose–response relationships remained between obesity and the number of specific acts of: (1) physical or sexual violence and (2) psychological, physical or sexual domestic violence. Obesity among women in poorer settings like Egypt may partly have its roots in gender subordination, as manifested in women's exposure to multiple acts of domestic violence.

This study is based on a population-based, descriptive questionnaire survey, the objective of which was to elicit the perceptions of women in south-eastern Nigeria on whether possession of economic/household assets by women enhanced their capacity to negotiate reproductive issues with their husbands. The findings show that the respondents believed that possession of economic/household assets by women in their communities might not necessarily increase their negotiation power in their reproductive decision-making. Other factors tend to attenuate the effects of women's possession of economic/household assets on their reproductive bargaining power. Notable among these may be social norms that implicitly arrogate control of the assets owned by the conjugal couple to the man, even when they are bought by the women. Planners of reproductive health intervention projects, policy-makers and researchers need to be aware of such sociocultural specific phenomena, which do not fit with widely held international beliefs.

In the early 1990s, psychologist Richard Lynn published papers documenting average reaction times and decision times in samples of nine-year-olds taken from across the world. After summarizing these data, Lynn interpreted his results as evidence of national and racial differences in decision time and general intelligence. Others have also interpreted Lynn's data as evidence of racial differences in decision time and intelligence. However, comparing Lynn's summaries with his original reports shows that Lynn misreported and omitted some of his own data. Once these errors are fixed the rankings of nations in Lynn's datasets are unstable across different decision time measures. This instability, as well as within-race heterogeneity and between-race overlap in decision times, implies that Lynn's reaction time data do not permit generalizations about the decision times and intelligence of people of different races.