Reductions in abortion-related mortality following policy reform: evidence from Romania, South Africa and Bangladesh

Unsafe abortion is a significant contributor to worldwide maternal mortality; however, abortion law and policy liberalization could lead to drops in unsafe abortion and related deaths. This review provides an analysis of changes in abortion mortality in three countries where significant policy reform and related service delivery occurred. Drawing on peer-reviewed literature, population data and grey literature on programs and policies, this paper demonstrates the policy and program changes that led to declines in abortion-related mortality in Romania, South Africa and Bangladesh. In all three countries, abortion policy liberalization was followed by implementation of safe abortion services and other reproductive health interventions. South Africa and Bangladesh trained mid-level providers to offer safe abortion and menstrual regulation services, respectively, Romania improved contraceptive policies and services, and Bangladesh made advances in emergency obstetric care and family planning. The findings point to the importance of multi-faceted and complementary reproductive health reforms in successful implementation of abortion policy reform

The F test for comparing two normal variances: correct and incorrect calculation of the two-sided p-value?

This article illustrates that not all statistical software packages are correctly calculating a p-value for the classical F test comparison of two independent Normal variances. This is illustrated with a simple example, and the reasons why are discussed. Eight different software packages are considered

Changes in the provision of long-stay care, 1970-1990

The objective of this paper is to map out the changes in the public, private and voluntary provision of long-stay care for elderly people and younger people with a physical handicap, people with a mental handicap and people with a mental illness in Britain over the period 1970–1990. It is also designed to bring together in a convenient form all the relevant data which are not readily available because they are published in several disparate sources. The effects on the social security budget of the expansion of private residential and nursing homes are described. National trends in provision show a marked increase in private residential and nursing homes and indicate how private provision has taken up an increasing number of people aged 65 years or over and has substituted for public provision with the closure of the hospitals for people with a mental illness or a mental handicap. The income support payments to people in independent homes increased, at 1990 prices, from $33 million in 1980 to$1390 million in 1990. The implications of this changing balance of care in terms of choice, efficiency and equity are examined in the concluding section. There is some evidence that the growth of the independent sector has increased consumer choice and improved efficiency in the provision of long-stay care but at some cost to those people who would have been provided with free NHS facilities but now have to contribute to the costs of their care

Dataset for "Analysing experiences and issues in self-built shelters in Bangladesh using transdisciplinary approach"

This dataset includes the data resulting from a household level assessment (HLA) survey of 1594 households in the Kutupalong refugee camp, Bangladesh, along with air temperature readings from 9 shelters within the camp over a period of 11 days. The team conducting the study included general humanitarian staff, agency engineering staff, building physicists and an anthropologist. The findings of this study have resulted in new shelter interventions by the aid sector that were rolled out in over 70,000 shelters

The resource boom's underbelly: Criminological impacts of mining development

Australia is currently in the midst of a major resources boom. Resultant growing demands for labour in regional and remote areas have accelerated the recruitment of non resident workers, mostly contractors, who work extended block rosters of 12-hour shifts and are accommodated in work camps, often adjacent to established mining towns. Serious social impacts of these practices, including violence and crime, have generally escaped industry, government and academic scrutiny. This paper highlights some of these impacts on affected regional communities and workers and argues that post-industrial mining regimes serve to mask and privatize these harms and risks, shifting them on to workers, families and communities

Evidence for long-term regional changes in precipitation on the East Coast Mountains in Mauritius

Global climate change and its impacts are being increasingly studied and precipitation trends are one of the measures of quantifying climate change especially in the tropics. This study uses daily rainfall data to determine if there are changes in the long-term trends in rainfall variability in the East Coast Mountains of Mauritius during the last few decades, and to investigate the factors influencing the trends in the inter-annual to inter-decadal rainfall variability. Statistical modelling has been used to investigate the trends in total seasonal rainfall, the number of rain days and the mean amount of rain per rainy days and the local, regional and large-scale factors that affect them on inter-annual to inter-decadal time scales. The strongest inter-decadal trend was found in the number of rain days for both rainfall seasons, and the other variables were found to have weak or insignificant trends. Both local factors, such as the surrounding sea surface temperatures and large-scale phenomena such as Indian Monsoon and the El Niño Southern Oscillation were found to influence rainfall patterns