Evaluation of take-home exposure to asbestos from handling asbestos-contaminated worker clothing following the abrasive sawing of cement pipe.

Although industrial uses of asbestos have declined since the 1970s, in recent years there has been a renewed interest in para-occupational ("take-home") exposure to these fibers. The aim of this study was to quantify the release of asbestos fibers, if any, during the shaking out of crocidolite- and chrysotile-contaminated clothing in a simulated at-home setting. An exposure study was conducted in which personal and area air samples were collected during the handling (i.

The United Nations Probabilistic Population Projections: An Introduction to Demographic Forecasting with Uncertainty.

The United Nations publishes projections of populations around the world and breaks these down by age and sex. Traditionally, they are produced with standard demographic methods based on assumptions about future fertility rates, survival probabilities, and migration counts. Such projections, however, were not accompanied by formal statements of uncertainty expressed in probabilistic terms.

Are well functioning civil registration and vital statistics systems associated with better health outcomes?

In this Series paper, we examine whether well functioning civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems are associated with improved population health outcomes. We present a conceptual model connecting CRVS to wellbeing, and describe an ecological association between CRVS and health outcomes. The conceptual model posits that the legal identity that civil registration provides to individuals is key to access entitlements and services.

Understanding global trends in maternal mortality.

Context: Despite the fact that most maternal deaths are preventable, maternal mortality remains high in many developing countries. Target A of Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 5 calls for a three-quarters reduction in the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) between 1990 and 2015.

Methods: We derived estimates of maternal mortality for 172 countries over the period 1990-2008.

A New Method for Deriving Global Estimates of Maternal Mortality.

Maternal mortality is widely regarded as a key indicator of population health and of social and economic development. Its levels and trends are monitored closely by the United Nations and others, inspired in part by the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which call for a three-fourths reduction in the maternal mortality ratio between 1990 and 2015. Unfortunately, the empirical basis for such monitoring remains quite weak, requiring the use of statistical models to obtain estimates for most countries.

A flexible two-dimensional mortality model for use in indirect estimation.

Mortality estimates for many populations are derived using model life tables, which describe typical age patterns of human mortality. We propose a new system of model life tables as a means of improving the quality and transparency of such estimates. A flexible two-dimensional model was fitted to a collection of life tables from the Human Mortality Database.

Estimating the effect of smoking on slowdowns in mortality declines in developed countries.

Declines in mortality rates for females at older ages in some developed countries, including the United States, have slowed in recent decades even as decreases have steadily continued in some other countries. This study presents a modified version of the indirect Peto-Lopez method, which uses lung cancer mortality rates as a proxy for smoking exposure, to analyze this trend. The modified method estimates smoking-attributable mortality for more-specific age groups than does the Peto-Lopez method.

A new method for estimating smoking-attributable mortality in high-income countries.

Background: Cigarette smoking is responsible for a massive loss of life in both developed and developing countries. This article develops an alternative to the Peto-Lopez method for estimating the number or fraction of smoking-attributable deaths in high-income countries.

Methods: We use lung cancer death rates as an indicator of the damage caused by smoking.

The lifetime risk of maternal mortality: concept and measurement.

Objective: The lifetime risk of maternal mortality, which describes the cumulative loss of life due to maternal deaths over the female life course, is an important summary measure of population health. However, despite its interpretive appeal, the lifetime risk of dying from maternal causes can be defined and calculated in various ways. A clear and concise discussion of both its underlying concept and methods of measurement is badly needed.

A decomposition method based on a model of continuous change.

A demographic measure is often expressed as a deterministic or stochastic function of multiple variables (covariates), and a general problem (the decomposition problem) is to assess contributions of individual covariates to a difference in the demographic measure (dependent variable) between two populations. We propose a method of decomposition analysis based on an assumption that covariates change continuously along an actual or hypothetical dimension. This assumption leads to a general model that logically justifies the additivity of covariate effects and the elimination of interaction terms, even if the dependent variable itself is a nonadditive function.

Life-long sustained mortality advantage of siblings of centenarians.

Although survival to old age is known to have strong environmental and behavioral components, mortality differences between social groups tend to diminish or even disappear at older ages. Hypothesizing that surviving to extreme old age entails a substantial familial predisposition for longevity, we analyzed the pedigrees of 444 centenarian families in the United States. These pedigrees included 2,092 siblings of centenarians, whose survival was compared with 1900 birth cohort survival data from the U.