This study is based on the 1983 Rural Health Survey of Ethiopia. Patterns and levels of child morbidity by age, sex, geographic region, and sanitary facilities are examined. Morbidity levels peak in the second year of life. Diarrhoeal diseases are of major importance, especially among infants and toddlers. Parasitic diseases, and respiratory diseases other than pneumonia, become increasingly important with age.

There are no significant sex differentials in morbidity except for higher rates of diarrhoeal diseases among female children. Geographic differentials are quite marked with particularly high morbidity levels from all disease types in the western mountainous regions of Ethiopia. Access to high quality drinking water, a latrine, and garbage disposal, are strongly related to reduced overall morbidity levels, though not necessarily to reduced diarrhoeal disease levels.

Surveys of low-income women in Los Angeles County in 1985 and 1986 were used to examine the relative impact of child-bearing motivations versus life circumstances on the intention to have a(nother) child. Future child-bearing intentions are strongly related to current parity level regardless of marital status, race/ethnicity or economic status. Psychological motivating factors predict child-bearing intentions of nulliparous women, but not those of parous women. Multivariate analyses showed that motivation for parenthood and life circumstances combined predicted women's child-bearing intentions 88·6% of the time for nulliparous women, but 73·7% for parous women. These findings suggest that, in a low-income population, the onset of parenthood reduces the relationship between specific motivations for child-bearing and actual child-bearing intentions, and diminishes the ability to predict child-bearing intentions based on both attitudinal and social/structural factors.

All 8th-form schoolgirls from the municipality of Odense in Denmark were asked at what age they reached menarche, and 886 girls (97·6%) gave this information. There is no evidence for seasonality in the time of birth but for far more girls than expected menarche occurred during winter or summer and fewer than expected during spring and autumn. This pattern appears primarily in girls living in the suburbs and was not seen in those living in central Odense. The seasonality appears to be brought about by differences in mean age at menarche according to time of the year at birth.

This study used path analysis to assess the chances of survival of babies in a neonatal intensive care unit in Lansing, Michigan, USA. Two paths to neonatal survival were identified and the variables accounted for 20% of the variance in gestational age. The first path showed that prior infant losses were negatively correlated with gestational age while in the second path, gestational age showed negative relationships with pre-pregnancy weight and household job worries.

Data from the 1982 Sri Lanka Contraceptive Prevalence Survey are used to identify women who wish to stop childbearing; they differ in socioeconomic status from their counterparts who want more children. Educated women are more likely to be motivated to cease childbearing than non-educated women; Christian or Sinhalese/Buddhist women are more willing to stop childbearing than Moor/Muslim or Tamil/Hindu women. The relationships between sex composition of existing children and women's fertility desires indicate that although moderate son preference exists it does not affect their contraceptive behaviour. Among those who want no more children, 15% are at risk of unwanted pregnancy because they do not practise contraception. Again better education and being Christian or Sinhalese/Buddhist reduced the risk of unwanted pregnancy. Women whose husbands disapproved of contraception had over four times higher risk of unwanted pregnancy than women whose husbands approved.

This paper develops a conceptual framework for examining the process of immunisation and explores the sociodemographic determinants of vaccination in Zambia. About 300 mothers with children under 3 years of age were interviewed in urban Lusaka. The analyses suggest that sociostructural, as well as cultural, processes influence the attrition process and immunisation programmes should focus on the uniqueness of each stage. In addition, programmes to improve women's education and to reduce male gender preferences are needed.

An experimental breast-feeding education programme conducted at the Philippine General Hospital in Manila demonstrated that women could be motivated to improve their breast-feeding practices and lengthen their period of lactational amenorrhoea in comparison to a control group. Mothers who participated in the programme breast-fed their babies more frequently, delayed the introduction of regular supplements, used fewer bottles and pacifiers and maintained night feeding longer than mothers who were not exposed to the positive breast-feeding messages. The programme was successful in lengthening the period of amenorrhoea among women with elementary, high school, or technical school education, but not among college-educated women. Different educational approaches may be necessary for women of different education levels.

Daily luteal progesterone levels were measured for 124 regularly menstruating women, aged 18–44, by radioimmunoassay of steroid levels in saliva. A consistent pattern of age variation in luteal function was found, with the lowest levels of progesterone in the 18–19-year-old and 40–44-year-old groups, the highest values in the 25–34 year olds, and intermediate values in the 20–24 and 35–39-year-old groups. The striking similarity of this pattern of age variation with empirically and theoretically generated curves of apparent fecundability, suggests that age-related changes in ovarian function may underlie observed age variation in fecundability.

This research examines determinants of infant and child mortality in rural Egypt, primarily the effects of household economic status and the availability of health services. Certain features of the health service environment affect survival in the neonatal period. In early childhood, survival chances improve markedly as income increases and if the household depends almost exclusively on employment income. In infancy and in early childhood, mortality is strongly associated with region of residence and maternal demographic characteristics, and is weakly associated with parental schooling.

A contraceptive study of rural Bangladeshi women indicated that the previous death of children, number of living children, desire for additional children and son preference were important determinants of contraceptive continuation. The importance of these factors varies to some extent with use of different contraceptive methods.

In a large sample of female students admitted to the University of Warwick in the period 1971–86, physique as measured by height, weight and ponderal index was examined in relation to family variables and socioeconomic class. Stature and weight both show a secular tendency to increase, and there is no indication of any slowing of rate. The different social classes do not participate equally in these trends, in a way that is difficult to reconcile with the attribution of the diachronic changes to simple improvement in environmental conditions. Maternal competence is suggested as a possible factor in the pattern of class difference.