We determined the secular trend in blood lead levels in a cohort of 321 children born in Mexico City between 1987 and 1992. Blood lead level was measured every 6 months during a 10-year period. We modeled the effect of yearly air lead concentration nested within the calendar year in which the child was born, family use of lead-glazed pottery, socioeconomic status, year in which the child was bo...

OBJECTIVE To examine trends in height among 5- to 17-year-old children between 1973 and 1992. DESIGN A panel design consisting of 7 cross-sectional surveys. PARTICIPANTS All schoolchildren residing in Bogalusa, La, were eligible. A total of 24 070 examinations were performed. RESULTS During the study period, the mean height of schoolchildren increased by 0.70 cm per decade independently o...

OBJECTIVE To examine the trend in prevalence of overweight and obesity in schoolchildren from south-eastern Poland over a 10-year period. MATERIALS AND METHOD A cross-sectional study was conducted in randomly selected primary schools. In total, 4,248 children (2,182 boys and 2,066 girls), mean age 10.5±2.4 years, were examined in 1998, and 2,412 children (1,184 boys and 1,228 girls), mean age...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Pathological patterns of stroke are different in various races, with the predominant stroke type in the Chinese being intracerebral hemorrhage. A total of 31,078 deaths from cerebral infarction and 77,773 deaths from cerebral hemorrhage in Taiwan were reported for groups of subjects aged 40-79 years during the period 1974-1988 to elucidate their secular trends. METHODS ...

This study investigates the role of wealth in infant mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa, hereafter (SSA). Using recent data from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), we document the differences that exit within urban and between urban and rural residents in Sub-Saharan Africa based on wealth. Our findings lead us to conclude that there is a statistical significant difference both within urban res...

Aims. We show a possible explanation for the recently reported secular increase of the Astronomical Unit (AU) by Krasinsky and Brumberg (2004). Methods. The mechanism proposed is analogous to the tidal acceleration in the Earth-Moon system, which is based on the conservation of the total angular momentum and we apply this scenario to the Sun-planets system. Results. Assuming the existence of so...

OBJECTIVE To study the infant mortality rate (IMR) trend during wars and sanction periods in Western Iraq. METHODS Data collected from the birth and death certificates of Haditha Health Vital Statistics Center, Haditha city (80,000 population), Western Iraq, included name, age, gender, residence, and infant's place and date of births and deaths, in 5 different sanction and war stages of the c...

BACKGROUND Assessment of pubertal stages should be related to updated and reliable referance data from the same background population. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to provide normative data for the onset and tempo of puberty in Turkish girls and analyze the growth parameters in puberty. METHODS The analyses are based on data that were collected and evaluated biannually on 1020 Turkis...

Background: Iran, a lowto middle-income country, has experienced considerable socioeconomic changes in 20 century, which their impacts on the adult heights has not been assessed deeply by now. This article aims to quantify the temporal variations of height (with respect to shrinkage of height due to aging) and its deterministic factors in Iranian population born between 1940 and 1984. Methods: ...

OBJECTIVE This study aimed to assess the trend of human fecundity over time in China. METHODS This retrospective study was conducted in Tongliao, China. Couples who were married during the time period between January 1, 1981 and December 31, 2003 were considered eligible for this study. A total of 27,413 individuals provided valid information via house-to-house interviews. The 12-month cumula...