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Biomedical subjects

G Santow

Publications and source records attributed to G Santow.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1999

Explaining trends in teenage childbearing in Sweden.

The teenage fertility rate fell precipitately in Sweden after 1966 and is now one of the lowest in Europe. This decline can be seen in the context of major reforms enacted in 1975 whereby the school sex-education curriculum was revised, contraceptive services were improved, and abortion was provided free and on demand. By means of microsimulation, the possible roles of contraception and induced abortion in causing teenage fertility to fall are examined. Before 1975, the decline appears to have been caused primarily by an increase in the number of induced abortions. After that date, however, an increase in the use of highly efficient methods of contraception led to a decline in the pregnancy rate in such a way that, even though the proportion of teenagers who sought abortion increased, the abortion rate declined. Parallels are drawn with the experience of other European countries, and contrasts with that of the United States, where no such developments have occurred, are noted.

Abortion, Induced↗
PubMed1996

Consequences of current patterns of Pap smear and colposcopy use.

OBJECTIVES - To describe age specific frequencies of Pap smear and colposcopy use in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and to estimate the cumulative effects of current patterns of use. SETTING - Frequencies of Pap smear and colposcopy use were estimated for the financial year from 1 July 1989 to 30 June 1990. Eligible women were between the ages of 15 and 74, living in the ACT. METHODS - Data collected from a 10% sample of subjects enrolled with Medicare and from the only public pathology laboratory in the ACT were used to estimate age specific frequencies. The expected number of deaths from cervical cancer in the ACT in the absence of a screening programme was estimated by applying Australian age specific mortality rates for cervical cancer between 1960 and 1964 to the 1989 ACT population. A life table approach was used to simulate the cumulative risk of colposcopy - given current age specific rates - on a hypothetical cohort of 1000, 15 year old women. RESULTS - Forty four per cent (95% confidence interval (CI) 42.9 to 44.9) of women had a Pap smear and 2.5% had colposcopy (95% CI 2.4 to 2.6). Two and a half percent of 15 to 24 year old women had colposcopy (95% CI 1.9 to 3.1). The ratio of women having Pap smears to women having colposcopy was 17-8:1 (95% CI 17.7 to 17.9). An estimated 247 women had colposcopy for every cervical cancer death; in the 15 to 24 year old age group this ratio was 47900:1. A 15 year old woman exposed to current rates of colposcopy (adjusted for hysterectomy) has a 76.8% chance of having a colposcopy during her life time. CONCLUSIONS - Many more women will have colposcopy than will develop cervical cancer, which undermines the cost effectiveness of Australia's cervical cancer screening programme.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Social roles and physical health: the case of female disadvantage in poor countries.

Women's culturally and socially determined roles greatly impair their health and that of their children through a complex web of physiological and behavioural interrelationships and synergies that pervade every aspect of their lives. Women's roles also affect their use of health services since modern health care has been absorbed so successfully into traditional structures that families tend to allocate it, like food, according to characteristics such as sex and age. Change may be occurring through the agency of female education and a redefinition of familial relationships, both of which operate to improve women's position, and hence their health. Health services could perhaps accelerate the process by revising their view of women as the natural guardians of their family's health, and by drawing other family members, and particularly husbands, into their orbit.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

Education and hysterectomy.

A small Canberra survey provided the opportunity to investigate the observation that tertiary education is associated with lower hysterectomy rates. Despite the sample's being small and unrepresentative of either the Australian or even the Canberra population, it was possible to replicate a simple version of a national model of hysterectomy. Tertiary education remained strongly predictive of a low rate of hysterectomy. Additionally, the study showed, first, the tertiary-educated women were less likely than others to be told that they needed a hysterectomy in the first place. Secondly, they were less likely to accept such advice: hysterectomy was undergone by only 1 of 5 of the better educated women to whom it had been suggested, but by 4 of 5 of the less educated.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Health of populations in northern Queensland aboriginal communities: change and continuity.

We show that Australian Aborigines living in North Queensland have had an impressive decline in infant mortality over the past 50 years. Since the early 1970s, much of the decline can be attributed to preventive and curative medical services. On the other hand, the growth trajectory of infants and children has improved only slightly since the early 1970s, and mean and median weights are still well below international standards. In addition, there is no evidence that life expectancy at birth has improved significantly since the early 1970s. The pattern of declining infant mortality and stagnant life expectancy is accounted for by unchanging mortality at older ages. The major contributing causes are heart disease and accidents and violence. We suggest that the decline of infant mortality is the result of specific policy decisions made by the providers of preventive health services that infant health would be the focus of their efforts. The result was that many other aspects of health were not dealt with and adult mortality stagnated. We also suggest tentatively that the reduction in infant mortality coupled with persistent high rates of low birth weight and low weight for age at 1 year may be related to the high rates of young adult deaths from ischemic heart disease observed in Aboriginal populations.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1992

Correlates of hysterectomy in Australia.

With around one in five women undergoing hysterectomy by the age of 50, the prevalence of hysterectomy in Australia is greater than in Europe but less than in the United States. In this paper, data from a nationally representative sample survey of 2547 Australian women aged 20-59 years are employed to identify correlates of hysterectomy and tubal sterilization over the last 30 years. Physiological, socio-economic and supply-side factors all influence the propensity to undergo hysterectomy, and a comparison with the correlates of tubal sterilization reveals parallels and contrasts between the determinants of the two operations. Age and parity are important predictors of hysterectomy. In addition, use of oral contraceptives for at least five years reduces the risk of hysterectomy, as do tubal sterilization, tertiary education and birthplace in Southern Europe. Conversely, risk increases after experiencing side effects with the IUD or repeated foetal losses, or after bearing a third child before the age of 25.

Abortion, Spontaneous↗
PubMed1991

Trends in contraception and sterilization in Australia.

Life-history data collected in a national survey of women in 1986 are used to derive the first national estimates of trends in contraception and sterilization in Australia over the last 30 years. The pill rapidly became the method of choice after its release in 1961. The intrauterine device, the other truly modern method, has never attained the same popularity. The move toward sterilization dates from the early 1970s and has been so complete that women of 35 or older are now more likely to be protected by a ligation or laparoscopic sterilization than by the pill or, indeed, by all other methods combined. Unmarried women are now indistinguishable from married women on the basis of their use of contraception, and childless married women are now more likely to be using a reversible method than married women with children.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

The family histories of Australian women.

"This paper exploits retrospective life-history data to examine changing age-specific patterns of co-residence of Australian women between the ages of 20 and 59 years at interview in 1986. Overlaying histories of leaving home, marital unions and childbearing, we identify cohort changes in the time spent before leaving the parental home, in transition between leaving home and forming a conjugal union, in times spent in union and times spent with children. Our analyses show that, despite massive recent declines in fertility and nuptiality, and a greater diversity in living arrangements, the nuclear family of couple and children remains the most common household unit and is unlikely to lose its pre-eminence in the near future." (SUMMARY IN FRE)

Age Factors↗
PubMed1989

Mortality of wild and captive chimpanzees.

Mortality of chimpanzees in the wild (Gombe National Park) and in captivity (Taronga Zoo, Sydney and Melbourne Zoo) was compared using standard cohort life table techniques. Overall mortality probabilities up to age 30 were compared using a logrank test. No significant difference in overall mortality was revealed, and the mortality curves did appear to be surprisingly similar, but there were nevertheless some differences in the distribution of mortality. Perinatal mortality was higher in the zoo, while post-perinatal and infant mortality were higher in the wild. Survivorship in the older zoo animals (over age 27) was better than the wild. These differences were attributed to the more sheltered zoo environment, including the availability of veterinary care, which could be expected to improve survival in infants and older adults. The higher perinatal mortality experienced by zoo infants could be reflecting higher levels of inbreeding among the zoo animals.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Do gravidity and age affect pregnancy outcome?

Fetal loss has generally been found to vary with gravidity, previous experience of fetal loss, and maternal age, but the literature is divided on the reasons for these associations. In this paper we examine pregnancy histories obtained retrospectively from a nationally representative one-in-one-thousand sample of women in Australia aged 20 to 59 years. The relations of fetal loss ratios with both gravidity and previous outcome are consistent with heterogeneity of risk over the study population and a stopping rule, whereby high-risk women undertake more pregnancies than low-risk women to achieve the same number of live births. Evidence is presented that elevated loss ratios in the teens indicate not higher risk but a selection for short gestation intervals, while loss ratios beyond the mid-thirties do not point unequivocally to a substantial increase in risk at the older reproductive ages.

Adult↗