Thursday 11 September 2003, 2pm, Quiet Room
Migration and reproductive health: a case study of Bangladeshi women
A Nuñez-de la Mora, University College London; RT Chatterton, Northwestern University; O Choudhury, Sylhet Osmani Medical College, Bangladesh; D Napolitano, J Hochman and GR Bentley, University College London
Inherent to the experience of migration is the modification of lifestyle, dietary habits and behaviour in response to a new social, economic and physical environment. The impact of such changes on migrant health has been documented in numerous epidemiological studies. An increase in the incidence of reproductive cancers is often seen among second and third generation migrant groups from developing countries; this is related to changes in levels of reproductive hormones among other factors.
Understanding how reproductive hormone levels change with time among migrant groups can contribute to the development of causational models for the observed epidemiological trends. This study thus evaluates changes in levels of salivary progesterone and oestradiol among different groups of migrant Bangladeshi women in the UK, and compares them to reference groups in Bangladesh and the UK.
The five groups studied are:
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50 women born, raised and resident in Sylhet, northeast Bangladesh;
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50 Sylheti migrants who moved to the UK as adults;
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50 Sylheti migrants who moved to the UK as children;
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50 second-generation Bangladeshi women; and
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50 white UK women, born, raised and resident in London.
All the women provided anthropometric data and daily saliva samples for one menstrual cycle, and answered questionnaires about diet, lifestyle, and reproductive histories. We report preliminary results from analyses of these data and discuss their significance for issues of public health.
Supported by Bogue Research Fellowship (UK), Central Fund University of London (UK), Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia (CONACyT) (Mexico), the Parkes Foundation (UK), The Robert Lurie Cancer Center, Northwestern Medical School, Chicago (USA) and The Royal Society (UK).
Department of Anthropology
University College London
Gower St
London WC1E 6BT
Tel: +44 (0) 207 679 2869
Fax: +44 (0)207 679 7728
Email: a.nunez@ucl.ac.uk
The impact of a labour-saving technology on birth interval length in southern Ethiopia
MA Gibson and R Mace, University College London
Across the developing world, labour-saving technologies introduce considerable savings in time and energy that women allocate to work. Clinical hormonal studies on natural fertility populations predict that such a reduction in energetic expenditure can lead to improved energy balance and higher reproductive function. This bio-demographic study investigates whether these physiological changes affect fertility at a population level, specifically through variation in birth interval lengths. The focus is a water development scheme in southern Ethiopia and the demographic consequences of a reduction in women's workload following the installation of water points.
Using life tables and multivariate hazard modelling techniques, correlates of the length of first and later birth intervals are identified. Co-variates including age at marriage, season of marriage, village ecology, and access to improved water supply influence the timing of births.
The analyses indicate that fertility may be increasing in response to a new development technology, despite infrastructural and social developments which are driving the secular trend towards increasing age at marriage. This may have a number of deleterious health consequences for both women and children.
Department of Anthropology
University College London
Gower Street
London WC1E 6BT
Tel: + 44(0) 207 6797842
Fax: + 44(0)207 6797728
Email: mhairi.gibson@ucl.ac.uk
Sex ratio variation as a response to maternal body condition: evidence from Ethiopia
Ruth Mace, Mhairi Gibson and Jennifer Eardley, University College London
Evolutionary theorists have predicted that sex ratio at birth should be adjusted facultatively to produce more of the least costly/ more beneficial sex according to maternal body condition. There is considerable data from animal studies that females in good condition are more likely to give birth to males, who may benefit disproportionately from good maternal condition - but evidence from human populations is mixed.
Here we present data on height, weight and sex of last birth that has been analysed from two sources of data from Ethiopia - the Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) 2000, and a village-level study undertaken in the same year. Both show some evidence that malnourished women are more likely to give birth to girls. We suggest that such relationships are only seen in food-stressed populations, and when the confounding effects of environmental pollution, smoking, obesity etc are minimised.
Department of Anthropology
University College London
Gower St
London WC1E 6BT
Tel: +44 (0)20 7679 2463
Email: r.mace@ucl.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)20 7679 7842
Email: mhairi.gibson@ucl.ac.uk