Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Z Stein.
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease was studied among Libyan-born Israelis, in whom the disease appears with unusual frequency. Interviews with relatives of deceased victims revealed statistically significant clustering within families. The results suggest either a common source of exposure or a genetic influence on susceptibility to the virus.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
The effect on intellectual ability of the spacing of the birth of siblings was studied in two series of young men from two-child families: (i) 535 pairs of brothers and (ii) 1511 unrelated firstborn and secondborn. Birth-order effect and level of ability were not influenced by length of interval between firstborn and secondborn.
The city of Warsaw was razed at the end of World War II and rebuilt under a socialist government whose policy was to allocate dwellings, schools, and health facilities without regard to social class. Of the 14,238 children born in 1963 and living in Warsaw, 96 percent were given the Raven's Progressive Matrices Test and an arithmetic and a vocabulary test in March to June of 1974. Information was collected on the families of the children, and on characteristics of schools and city districts. Parental occupation and education were used to form a family factor, and the district data were collapsed into two factors, one relating to social marginality, and the other to distance from city center. Analysis showed that the initial assumption of even distribution of family, school, and district attributes was reasonable. Mental performance was unrelated either to school or district factors; it was related to parental occupation and education in a strong and regular gradient. It is concluded that an egalitarian social policy executed over a generation failed to override the association of social and family factors with cognitive development that is characteristic of more traditional industrial societies.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
The hypothesis that spontaneous abortion is associated with prior induced abortion is tested in an epidemiologic study. The reproductive histories of a consecutive series of women admitted to hospital with spontaneous abortions were compared with those of a control series of women who delivered after 28 weeks gestation. There is no association between spontaneous abortion and prior induced abortion. The power of the analysis to detect a 30% excess in the frequency of induced abortion in cases as compared to controls is 82% at alpha = .05. The design and analysis effectually controlled for all potentially confounding factors.
Associations of maternal age at birth and subsequent intelligence test scores of children were examined in a series of over 1500 young men from the Netherlands. All subjects were members of 2-child families and were resident in Amsterdam at age 19 yr. Possible confounding by birth order, spacing interval, social class and sex of sibling were considered. Significant correlations between maternal age and child's ability remained in three of the four possible birth order/social class combinations.
In a consecutive series of 592 karyotyped spontaneous abortions, ten of 103 autosomal trisomies were mosaic, with a normal cell line also present. The frequency of mosaicism (10%) is much higher than that reported in Down syndrome, but similar to that reported in amniotic fluid cultures and in induced abortions. The most likely explanations for this discrepancy are (1) previous underestimation of mosaicism in live births or (2) mosaicism which is often restricted to extraembryonic fetal tissue.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Findings are reported on birth-order and family-size effects for five psychological functions measured by the military preinduction test battery which was administered to a total population of 19-yr.-old Dutch men. These men were born between 1944 and 1946, were members of 1- to 6-child families and were from the two major social classes. A clear birth-order gradient was present on all test measures for both social classes. Family-size effects, however, differed by social class. The results extend to a range of psychological functions the findings previously reported for a single test of non-verbal intelligence, suggesting that family-structure variables play a role in understanding intellectual development.
The prevalence of severe mental retardation, derived from military records, is analyzed in terms of time trend, region, religious affiliation and urbanization of birth place. The data are singular in that they are national and virtually complete for a total population of young men, 19-year-old survivors of male births in the Netherlands over the years 1944 through 1947, and they include variables not previously studied. Previous local studies are shown to agree well with the national prevalence of 3.7 per 1,000. Prevalence rose through the four birth years for all forms of severe mental retardation, but most markedly for Down's syndrome. In this condition agency surveys usually yeild equivalent rates to population surveys, and are an economical means of monitoring prevalence. Differences in rates are quite likely to indicate substantive differences. The remarkable similarities in rates from past surveys may reflect a high proportion of chromosomal and genetic abnormalities. The divergence between urban and rural rates over time demonstrated in this paper for four annual cohorts is attributed by inference to disparate increases in survival in different ecologic settings.
The prevalence of mild mental retardation in 19-year-old survivors of male births during 1944-1947 is derived from military records. The data are singular in that they are national, virtually complete for a total population of more than 400,000 men and include attributes not previously examined. They allow for the simultaneous use of three criteria: education (history of special schooling), psychometric (Raven intelligence test score), and clinical diagnosis (ICD (1948) 325.2, 325.3), which yielded rates per 1000 of 30,58 and 61, respectively. Rates by all three criteria varied in similar fashion with father's occupation and with religious affiliation. Rates by the psychometric and diagnostic criteria were higher for rural- and urban-born, while rates by the special schooling criterion were lower for rural-born. These variations are presumed to indicate deficiencies in rural provisions of special schooling on the one hand, and a substantive increment in "true" prevalence on the other. Marked variations in rates by province are not accounted for by social class and urban/rural birthplace. A rise in rates in the 1947 birth cohort on the psychometric and diagnostic criteria but not on the schooling criterion is attributable to a scoring change in the IQ criterion. Relative risks are estimated for the psychometric criterion of low Raven test score according to father's occupation, urban-rural origin, and religious affiliation. The overlap of identification among individuals designated by one, two, or three of the criteria is examined, and the issue of labeling is explored.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
To make sound inferences about the distribution, causes and risks of congenital anomalies requires an understanding of selective survival among fetuses. Studies of spontaneous abortions are therefore advocated. A simple model is proposed of the distribution, among spontaneous abortions and births, of conceptuses with and without anomalies. The resulting equation accomodates both maternal and fetal factors. Interaction between maternal and fetal factors is hypothesized, in the form of a maternal device for screening out anomalous conceptuses. A number of the known facts about congenital anomalies are shown to be plausibly interpreted in terms of the proposed model. Finally, some clinical and epidemiologic implications of the model for the study of spontaneous abortions are pointed out.
Prenatal exposure to the Dutch famine of 1944-1945 reduced postpartum maternal weight, birth weight, placental weight, length at birth, and head circumference at birth. These conclusions are based on maternities occurring in the famine area and exposed to famine during some part of gestation as compared both with maternities in nonfamine areas, and with maternities before and after the famine. Third trimester exposure accounted for the whole of the famine effects. Length of gestation was not affected by third trimester exposure, and did not mediate the effects on infant exposure, and did not mediate the effects on infant dimensions at birth. Effects were apparent only below a threshold value of official food rations of 1,500 cal daily average during the third trimester. (Calorie value for official food rations can be assumed to be lower than actual food intake.) Maternal weight declined 4.3% during the famine and rose 10.5% after the famine. Birth weight declined 9% during the famine, and rose 9% after the famine. Placental weight declined 15% during the famine, and rose 14% after the famine. Length at birth declined 2.5% during the famine, and rose 1.5% after the famine. Head circumference declined 2.7% during the famine, and rose 2.4% afterward.