BACKGROUND In developing countries, deficiencies in essential micronutrients are common, particularly in pregnant women. Although, biochemical indicators of diet and nutrition are useful to assess nutritional status, few studies have examined such indicators throughout pregnancy in women in developing countries. METHODS The primary objective of this study was to assess the nutritional status ...

BACKGROUND The dearth of health and demographic data in sub-Saharan Africa from vital registration systems and its impact on effective planning for health and socio-economic development is widely documented. Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems have the capacity to address the dearth of quality data for policy making in resource-poor settings. OBJECTIVE This article demonstrates the ut...

Surveys conducted in the context of the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) programme are an important source of data on health of families in developing countries. Both at the national and international level, DHS surveys provide much-needed data on fertility and family planning, on mortality and nutrition, and on health services utilization. The use of uniform survey instruments allows detai...

Turkey has been experiencing significant fertility decline since the 1950s. Increasing mean ages at childbearing have accompanied this decline, thus studies regarding tempo effects are necessary for Turkey. The main aim of this study is to reveal the tempo distortions in recent period fertility in Turkey as a whole and for different sub-groups by using an adjustment procedure. A procedure by Bo...

In Nigeria, decades of protracted military rule deepened poverty and created a situation in which many children are undernourished. According to the last National Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS, 2003), 29% of Nigerian children under five years are considered underweight. Today Nigeria is among the ten countries in the world with the largest number of underweight children, with an estimated...

BACKGROUND The fairness of quality assessment methods is under debate. Quality indicators incorporating the longitudinal nature of care have been advocated but their usefulness in comparison to more commonly used cross-sectional measures is not clear. AIMS To compare cross-sectional and sequential quality indicators for risk factor management in patients with type 2 diabetes. METHODS The st...

In the course of demographic transitions (DTs), two large-scale trends become apparent: (i) the broadly positive association between wealth, status and fertility tends to reverse, and (ii) wealth inequalities increase and then temporarily decrease. We argue that these two broad patterns are linked, through a diversification of reproductive strategies that subsequently converge as populations co...

This is an introduction to a special issue on aspects of demographic aging in Asia. It provides "an overview of the issues related to the rapid increase in the number of elderly in some Asian countries. It describes how the articles contained in this special issue...demonstrate that the familial system of support for the elderly has persisted despite major social and economic change. It also...