The term "rural" suggests many things to many people, such as agricultural landscapes, isolation, small towns, and low population density.However, defining "rural" for health policy and research purposes requires researchers and policy analysts to specify which aspects of rurality are most relevant to the topic at hand and then select an appropriate definition. Rural and urban taxonomies often ...

The People’s Republic of China, during the second half of the twentieth century,has been repeatedly affected by social and political upheavals associated with government policies. These have produced strong but unexpected impacts on Chinese demographic patterns. Many of these policies are of the sorts that alter reproductive costs and benefits. This study examines patterns in Hebei, Shaanxi, an...

Political realities and institutional structures are often ignored when gathering evidence to influence population health policies. If these policies are to be successful, social science literature on policy change should be integrated into the population health approach. In this contribution, drawing on the work of John W. Kingdon and related scholarship, we set out to examine how key componen...

BACKGROUND Suicide rates vary markedly between areas but it is unclear whether this is due to differences in population composition or to contextual factors operating at an area level. AIMS To determine if area factors are independently related to suicide risk after adjustment for individual and family characteristics. METHOD A 5-year record linkage study was conducted of 1,116,748 non-inst...

Demography's contribution to health policy debates comes from the study of population dynamics relating to fertility, mortality and migration. The aim of this article is to stress how vital a correct understanding of population dynamics is for health policy and planning. The article first highlights some of the major contributions demographers have made to debates about health, particularly whe...