The Medieval Demographic System of the Nordic Countries

It is generally agreed that the marital instability and casual mating characteristic of West Indian family structure depress fertility. These conditions are traced to the mating organization of the slaves. The stresses placed on the Mrican family systems of the slaves are obvious: the continued importation of slaves, most of them young adult males; the ruthless separation of kin through sale or removal; the overwhelming authority of the master, reducing the dependence of children on their parents and the economic role of the male household head. Yet, in spite of these stresses, there is evidence of strong bonds of kinship and sense of family among the slaves.     

Fertility trends in Australia

Using published data from the Australian vital registration and census systems, several time series are compiled: crude birth rates from the 1860s; fertility rates from the 1880s; age-specific and parity-specific measures from the 191Os; cumulative fertility measures by birth year of parent beginning with the 1890s; and cumulative fertility measures for marriages by year contracted from the 1910s.The decline in fertility to the 1930s, the upswing to 1961, and declines thereafter revealed by annual fertility measures show far more variation than do measures of total generation fertility—2.7 children per woman born in 1893–95, 2.3 1906–10, 2.8 1921–25, and perhaps 3.0 for women born in the 1930s. Both annual and generation measures show a younger age at parenthood, a decrease in childlessness, and progressively fewer large families. In the light of present experience, it seems not unreasonable to project generation fertility of 2.5 children, implying a crude birth rate of about 20 per thousand for the next fifteen years or so.     

Healthy children in families affected by AIDS: Epidemiological and psychosocial considerations

Traditional means of conceptualizing the psychosocial impact of AIDS have emphasized infected individuals out of their natural context AIDS occurs not simply within hospitals but within families. A secondary morbidity occurs within a family system when one of its members is infected. Clinical experience suggests that non-infected children within families with AIDS are at significant risk for poor developmental outcomes as a consequence of the skewing of familial resources. Children living in families who have a member infected by HIV are impacted by isues such as stigma, isolation, abandonment, and death. This article explores the epidemiology of this child population and risk factors that render them vulnerable. Social workers are in a unique position to identify and serve these children in such diverse settings as schools, welfare agencies, and hospitals. Suggested interventions based on the developmental stage of the child are discussed as are implications for policy formation and program development.     

Appraising Cultural Identity in Career-Development Assessment and Counseling

Career-Development Assessment and Counseling (C-DAC) systematically bridges career theory and practice. Integrating differential, developmental, and phenomenological methods, the C-DAC model uses a comprehensive career assessment battery to help clients explore their roles, developmental stages and tasks, career attitudes and knowledge, values, and interests within their unique life contexts. The authors recommend elaborating the C-DAC model to formally appraise cultural identity in step one of the model and to consider cultural identity concerns throughout the C-DAC process. This should help counselors more clearly understand how cultural factors influence people's career development and vocational behavior.     

Total error in PES estimates of population

"We describe a methodology for estimating the accuracy of dual systems estimates (DSE's) of population, census estimates of population, and estimates of undercount in the census. The DSE's are based on the census and a post-enumeration survey (PES). We apply the methodology to the 1988 dress rehearsal census of St. Louis and east-central Missouri and we discuss its applicability to the 1990 [U.S.] census and PES. The methodology is based on decompositions of the total (or net) error into components, such as sampling error, matching error, and other nonsampling errors. Limited information about the accuracy of certain components of error, notably failure of assumptions in the 'capture-recapture' model, but others as well, lead us to offer tentative estimates of the errors of the census, DSE, and undercount estimates for 1988. Improved estimates are anticipated for 1990." Comments are included by Eugene P. Ericksen and Joseph B. Kadane (pp. 855-7) and Kenneth W. Wachter and Terence P. Speed (pp. 858-61), as well as a rejoinder by Mulry and Spencer (pp. 861-3).     

Error models for official mortality forecasts

"The Office of the Actuary, U.S. Social Security Administration, produces alternative forecasts of mortality to reflect uncertainty about the future.... In this article we identify the components and assumptions of the official forecasts and approximate them by stochastic parametric models. We estimate parameters of the models from past data, derive statistical intervals for the forecasts, and compare them with the official high-low intervals. We use the models to evaluate the forecasts rather than to develop different predictions of the future. Analysis of data from 1972 to 1985 shows that the official intervals for mortality forecasts for males or females aged 45-70 have approximately a 95% chance of including the true mortality rate in any year. For other ages the chances are much less than 95%."     

Source Attribution of Food-Borne Zoonoses in New Zealand: A Modified Hald Model

A Bayesian approach was developed by Hald et al .^{( 1 )} to estimate the contribution of different food sources to the burden of human salmonellosis in Denmark. This article describes the development of several modifications that can be used to adapt the model to different countries and pathogens. Our modified Hald model has several advantages over the original approach, which include the introduction of uncertainty in the estimates of source prevalence and an improved strategy for identifiability. We have applied our modified model to the two major food-borne zoonoses in New Zealand, namely, campylobacteriosis and salmonellosis. Major challenges were the data quality for salmonellosis and the inclusion of environmental sources of campylobacteriosis. We conclude that by modifying the Hald model we have improved its identifiability, made it more applicable to countries with less intensive surveillance, and feasible for other pathogens, in particular with respect to the inclusion of nonfood sources. The wider application and better understanding of this approach is of particular importance due to the value of the model for decision making and risk management.     

The Scottish spoiled ballot: where was statistics?

In May 2007, Scotland went to the polls to elect both local constituency and regional members to the Scottish Parliament. Astonishingly, 100000 votes were rejected as "spoiled". Voters had misunderstood the new form of ballot paper—3% had marked a single cross despite having two votes. Parties contesting the election described it as "a debacle", "a shambles", "totally unsatisfactory". One American called it more flawed than Florida's notorious "hanging chad" ballot that gave the 2000 Presidential election to George Bush. What went wrong? Sheila Bird looks into the Scottish ballot paper.     

Understanding Consumer Attitudes Toward Food Technologies in Canada

This article reports a study on consumer attitudes to 21 food and nonfood technologies in Canada. The study involves repertory grid interviews with 36 food consumers, the data from which are analyzed using generalized Procrustes analysis. Results highlight the role of perceived risk and perceived benefit in determining the acceptability of the technologies, with individual technologies lying along a continuum between the two. For technology as a whole and the 21 specific technologies, the perceived risk and perceived benefit constructs were the dominant determinants of consumer acceptability. While perceptions of perceived risk and perceived benefit differed between individual respondents, there were very limited consistent relations with a range of sociodemographic variables.