Where do Women Give Birth in Rural Tanzania?

Skilled birth attendance is one of the key factors in improving maternal and neonatal health but coverage is frequently less than 50% in many African and Asian countries, especially in rural areas. This article reports the findings on skilled birth attendance in a remote area with a large nomadic population in northern Tanzania. In a secondary analysis of data from a retrospective study on immunisation rates, data were compiled on the rates of skilled birth attendance at 8 mobile reproductive and child health clinics run by a rural first-referral hospital in the Mbulu area, covering the years 1998, 1999, 2006 and 2007. These data were analysed according to tribal affiliation and distance from health institutions with obstetric services. Based on 3851 data sets, average rates of skilled birth attendance were 27%, 24%, 28% and 30% in 1998, 1999, 2006 and 2007, respectively (p = 0.02). At individual clinics, rates could be as low as 5-10%. Only at one clinic, significant improvement occurred over time (p< 0.01). In the univariate analysis, affiliation to the Iraqw tribe was a strong predictor of higher rates of skilled birth attendance in comparison with the nomadic Datoga tribe for all years combined (odds ratio [OR] 2.43 [95% confidence interval {CI} 1.92-3.07]), whereas distance showed only a minor influence (OR 1.02 [95% CI 1.01-1.02]). In the multivariate analysis, only tribal affiliation in 2007 (OR 2.69 [95% CI 1.12-6.46]) and for all years combined (OR 1.65 [95% CI 1.04-2.61]) was a significant factor. This study documented lower than the national average rates of skilled birth attendance in a rural area in Tanzania, especially among the nomadic Datoga tribe, over several years. The effect of distance was not consistent. To increase rates of women giving birth with skilled attendance in rural, remote settings and in populations with large proportions of nomadic people, a multi-facetted approach involving education in and sensitisation for pregnancy- and delivery-related issues, support for planned and emergency transportation, and improved quality of obstetric and neonatal services needs to be explored

Attending to the reasons for attribute non-attendance in Choice Experiments

This paper focuses on behavioural reasons underlying stated attribute non-attendance. In order to identify and incorporate procedures for dealing with heterogeneous attribute processing strategies, we ask respondents follow-up questions regarding their reasons for ignoring attributes. Based on these statements, we conclude that the standard way of assigning a zero impact of ignored attributes on the likelihood is inappropriate. We find that some respondents act in accordance with the passive bounded rationality assumption since they ignore an attribute simply because it does not affect their utility. Excluding these genuine zero preferences, as the standard approach essentially does, might bias results. Other respondents claim to have ignored attributes to simplify choices. However, we find that these respondents have actually not completely ignored attributes. We argue along the rationally adaptive behavioural model that preferences are indeed elicited in these cases, and we show how using a scaling approach can appropriately weight these observations in the econometric model. Finally, we find that some respondents ignore attributes for protest-like reasons which essentially convey no information about preferences. We suggest that using the standard approach combined with weighting procedures and recoding of non-attendance statements conditional on the specific reasons for non-attendance could be more appropriate than the current standard way of taking stated non-attendance into account.choice experiment, attribute non-attendance, passive bounded rationality, rationally adaptive behaviour, error component logit model

Can we trust the data? : methodological experiences with forest product valuation in lowland Bolivia

Forest products are important to rural households across virtually all forest types in developing countries. There are, however, only few comprehensive and systematic efforts at valuing these products and determining their absolute and relative economic importance to rural households. Having used the novel income survey approach developed by the global Poverty and Environment Network (PEN), this paper presents methodological experiences with forest product valuation in lowland Bolivia. Household (n = 118) data was collected in six communities in the Tropics of Cochabamba from February 2006 to January 2007. Households used a large number of products, including 151 forest and non-forest environmental products. Valuing all these products was time consuming but possible using the households’ own-reported values. Even for non-traded products useful values can be estimated. Generally, using households' own reported estimates result in aggregate unit values with satisfactory properties

Attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder in the offspring following prenatal maternal bereavement: a nationwide follow-up study in Denmark

Severe prenatal stress exposure has been found to increase the risk of neuropsychiatric conditions like schizophrenia. We examined the risk of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the offspring following prenatal maternal bereavement, as a potential source of stress exposure. We conducted a nationwide population-based cohort study including all 1,015,912 singletons born in Denmark from 1987 to 2001. A total of 29,094 children were born to women who lost a close relative during pregnancy or up to 1 year before pregnancy. These children were included in the exposed cohort and other children were in the unexposed cohort. We used Cox regression to estimate hazard ratios for ADHD, defined as the first-time ADHD hospitalization or first-time ADHD medication after 3 years of age. Boys born to mothers who were bereaved by unexpected death of a child or a spouse, had a 72% increased risk of ADHD [hazard ratio (HR) 1.72, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.09–2.73]. Boys born to mothers who lost a child or a spouse during 0–6 months before pregnancy and during pregnancy had a HR of 1.47 (95% CI 1.00–2.16) and 2.10 (95% CI 1.16–3.80), respectively. Our findings suggest that prenatal maternal exposure to severe stress may increase the risk of ADHD in the offspring

Impact and Consequences

This dissertation explores how financial reporting enforcement differs in Europe and how these differences influence the materiality assessment and disclosure decisions made by the preparers of the financial statement. Furthermore, it analyses how financial reporting enforcement influences the auditors’ auditing efforts, which are made in conjunction with the impact of the enforcement of auditors and limitations on the auditors’ liability. However, research indicates that strict enforcement is a prerequisite for ensuring compliance with accounting regulations (Hail and Leuz 2006, Daske et al. 2008, 2013, Ernstberger et al. 2012, Christensen et al. 2013, Leuz and Wysocki 2016). Nevertheless, enforcement remains at the discretion of the individual member states, which has led to heterogeneous enforcement despite recent attempts to strengthen and harmonise it (Hirtz et al. 2012, Christensen et al. 2013, Brown et al. 2014). This heterogeneous enforcement has created a particular need to understand how enforcement influences financial reporting if the primary users must be able to use it as a reliable source of information. This issue is investigated in the following three papers that compose this dissertation

Hvordan bliver studerende aktive i fjernundervisning?

F&oslash;rste gang publiceret i UNEV nr. 8: Tilrettel&aelig;ggelse af efter- og videreuddannelse p&aring; universitetet, nov. 2006, red. Sanne Almeborg og Tom Nyvang.ISSN 1603-5518. Den Kongelige Veterin&aelig;r- og Landboh&oslash;jskole (KVL) har siden 2002 arbejdet strategisk og m&aring;lrettet med at udvikle og udbyde undervisning som ren fjernundervisning p&aring; nettet. Erfaringerne fra de f&oslash;rste &aring;r viste, at den st&oslash;rste udfordring var at skabe engageret dialog p&aring; et h&oslash;jt fagligt niveau - en udfordring er s&oslash;gt l&oslash;st ved at bruge Gilly Salmons five-stage model, som er en trinvis, struktureret model der l&aelig;gger v&aelig;gt p&aring; at fremme interaktion mellem deltagere i l&aelig;reprocessen. Denne artikel beskriver kort modellen, og de erfaringer, der er opn&aring;et med at bringe den i anvendelse p&aring; KVL. Desuden ber&oslash;res underviserens nye rolle i forhold til de studerende. Artiklen afsluttes med betragtninger om, hvorledes modellen kan videreudvikles