Mortality Burden and Socioeconomic Status in India

Background: The dimensions along which mortality is patterned in India remains unclear. We examined the specific contribution of social castes, household income, assets, and monthly per capita consumption to mortality differentials in India. Methods and Findings: Cross-sectional data on 217 363 individuals from 41 554 households from the 2004–2005 India Human Development Survey was analyzed using multiple logistic regressions. Mortality differentials across social castes were attenuated after adjusting for household economic factors such as income and assets. Individuals living in the lowest income and assets quintiles had an increased risk of mortality with odds ratio (OR) of 1.66 (95 % CI = 1.23–2.24) in the bottom income quintile and OR of 2.94 (95 % CI = 1.66–5.22) in the bottom asset quintile. Counter-intuitively, individuals living in households with lowest monthly consumption per capita had significantly lower probability of death (OR = 0.27, 95 % CI = 0.20–0.38). Conclusions: Mortality burden in India is largely patterned on economic dimensions as opposed to caste dimensions, though caste may play an important role in predicting economic opportunities

Local institutions and smallholder women’s access to land resources in semi-arid Kenya

Land is a critical resource in smallholder farming systems, access to which is guided by complex interpretations of local norms, customary values, and statutory laws. This study explores how smallholder women access land resources under local institutions in semi-arid Kenya following a major constitutional reform on land succession passed in 2010. We draw on social relations approach, access theory, and social-ecological resilience thinking to examine Kamba women’s access to land resources using qualitative data collected through in-depth key informant interviews (n = 77), twelve focus group discussions (n = 134), and eight community meetings (n = 363). Results show that although some women were aware of their rights to inherit and own land, Kamba women were generally reluctant to claim land resources through local customary institutions and/or land registration processes. This stemmed from a desire to maintain gender dynamics within the household and to maintain their current relational access to land and other livelihood resources. Women, as daughters, sisters, wives, mothers, grandmothers, divorcée and widows, were found to face vastly different pressures in land resource access. They reported using relational access mechanisms to cope with, and adapt to, land resource constraints. When combined with rights-based mechanisms of access, women could better secure future generations’ land resource access, especially in cases of skipped-generational households

Cross-scale relationships between social capital and women’s participation in decision-making on the farm: a multilevel study in semi-arid Kenya

Social capital develops through relations between people and groups within community social networks. Women in smallholder agrarian communities often draw on social capital to influence their intra-household bargaining positions, with significant implications for their resource access. However, the extent to which women use different types of social capital to increase their participation in agricultural decision-making remain understudied. This research examines the relationships between women’s participation in agricultural decision-making and bonding, bridging, and linking social capital and how broader contextual factors can interact with the pathways through which social capital functions in rural semi-arid Kenya. In 2014, we collected and analyzed quantitative and qualitative data: household (N = 206) and community (n = 127) surveys, key informant interviews (n = 77), twelve focus group discussions, and eight community meetings. Results indicate that women draw on bridging social capital to increase the diversity of their information and training sources. We found that women’s participation in decision-making has a positive association with bonding social capital and a negative association with linking social capital. Multilevel analysis reveals cross-scale interactions between poverty prevalence and social capital on women’s decision-making participation. Findings suggest that advances in regional development have the potential to amplify the stock and usage of social capital for women’s empowerment in smallholder agrarian systems

Retrospective evaluation of whole exome and genome mutation calls in 746 cancer samples

Funder: NCI U24CA211006Abstract: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) curated consensus somatic mutation calls using whole exome sequencing (WES) and whole genome sequencing (WGS), respectively. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, which aggregated whole genome sequencing data from 2,658 cancers across 38 tumour types, we compare WES and WGS side-by-side from 746 TCGA samples, finding that ~80% of mutations overlap in covered exonic regions. We estimate that low variant allele fraction (VAF < 15%) and clonal heterogeneity contribute up to 68% of private WGS mutations and 71% of private WES mutations. We observe that ~30% of private WGS mutations trace to mutations identified by a single variant caller in WES consensus efforts. WGS captures both ~50% more variation in exonic regions and un-observed mutations in loci with variable GC-content. Together, our analysis highlights technological divergences between two reproducible somatic variant detection efforts

Land to feed my grandchildren: grandmothers’ challenges in accessing land resources in semi-arid Kenya

This chapter reviews rural sources of credit and credits relative importance in the smallholder farming system. It demonstrates how formal and informal credit is a valuable component of the smallholder farming system, especially insofar as it has the capacity to contribute to a household's food security resilience. Credit is a livelihood resource. The chapter examines issues of gendered access and entitlement to this resource, whether from sources formal or informal. Men in Makueni County generally reported that the money they received from petty trading and the selling of agricultural products first came to them, and then they would give it to their wives in the form of petty cash or allowances for grocery items. If credit plays a productive role in making the smallholder farming system more socially and ecologically resilient, then the system can only get increasingly more stable when sources of credit are couched in social terms

Mortality Burden and Socioeconomic Status in India

BACKGROUND: The dimensions along which mortality is patterned in India remains unclear. We examined the specific contribution of social castes, household income, assets, and monthly per capita consumption to mortality differentials in India. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Cross-sectional data on 217,363 individuals from 41,554 households from the 2004-2005 India Human Development Survey was analyzed using multiple logistic regressions. Mortality differentials across social castes were attenuated after adjusting for household economic factors such as income and assets. Individuals living in the lowest income and assets quintiles had an increased risk of mortality with odds ratio (OR) of 1.66 (95% CI  =  1.23-2.24) in the bottom income quintile and OR of 2.94 (95% CI  =  1.66-5.22) in the bottom asset quintile. Counter-intuitively, individuals living in households with lowest monthly consumption per capita had significantly lower probability of death (OR  =  0.27, 95% CI  =  0.20-0.38). CONCLUSIONS: Mortality burden in India is largely patterned on economic dimensions as opposed to caste dimensions, though caste may play an important role in predicting economic opportunities

Respiratory disease associated with solid biomass fuel exposure in rural women and children: systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: Numerous studies with varying associations between domestic use of solid biomass fuels (wood, dung, crop residue, charcoal) and respiratory diseases have been reported. Objective: To present the current data systematically associating use of biomass fuels with respiratory outcomes in rural women and children. Methods: Systematic searches were conducted in 13 electronic databases. Data were abstracted from original articles that satisfied selection criteria for meta-analyses. Publication bias and heterogeneity of samples were tested. Studies with common diagnoses were analysed using random-effect models. Results: A total of 2717 studies were identified. Fifty-one studies were selected for data extraction and 25 studies were suitable for meta-analysis. The overall pooled ORs indicate significant associations with acute respiratory infection in children (OR 3.53, 95% CI 1.94 to 6.43), chronic bronchitis in women (OR 2.52, 95% CI 1.88 to 3.38) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in women (OR 2.40, 95% CI 1.47 to 3.93). In contrast, no significant association with asthma in children or women was noted. Conclusion: Biomass fuel exposure is associated with diverse respiratory diseases in rural populations. Concerted efforts in improving stove design and lowering exposure to smoke emission may reduce respiratory disease associated with biomass fuel exposure

Reproductive Health Laws Around the World

We develop an index of reproductive health laws around the world. Laws regarding abortion, contraceptive pill, condom, intrauterine device, and sterilization are detailed for 186 countries from 1960 through to 2009. Using qualitative information dating from the 1960s, we code information on reproductive health laws around the world into panel data. In this paper we summarize the indexation of the laws, detailing the sources and methodologies we used to create the index. We show changes in the laws over time, and compare laws across countries. In addition, we demonstrate the potential use of the panel data by exploring the differential liberalization of reproductive health laws across country-level socioeconomic factors. We show that countries with more liberal abortion laws associated with higher income per capita, higher levels of female education, and lower fertility rates

Estimating Household Permanent Income from Ownership of Physical Assets

Estimation of permanent income from household surveys has been used for poverty surveillance and the examination of causal processes at the household-level in low- and middle- income countries. While previous approaches are appropriate for within-country comparisons, we estimate internationally and temporally comparable household permanent income. We develop a strategy for estimating a household wealth index that is comparable across multiple countries and multiple time periods. We use a latent variable approach to estimate an absolute measure of wealth from survey data detailing asset ownership. We validate the approach using survey data from three countries in the Living Standards Measure Study that has both expenditure and asset information. The wealth estimates have correlations of 0.75, 0.70 and 0.68 with household expenditure reported in LSMS South Africa 1994, Tanzania 2004 and Peru 1994, respectively. Egypt 1988 and 2005 Demographic and Health Surveys were used to demonstrate trends in household wealth across time