Behavioural and environmental risk factors associated with primary schoolchildren's overweight and obesity in urban Indonesia.

Objectives: To aid the design of nutrition interventions in low- and middle-income countries undergoing a nutrition transition, this study examined behavioural and environmental risk factors associated with childhood overweight and obesity in urban Indonesia.

Design: Body height and weight of children were measured to determine BMI-for-age Z-scores and childhood overweight and obesity status. A self-administered parental survey measured socio-economic background, children's diet, physical activity, screen time and parental practices.

Projecting cardiovascular deaths averted due to trans fat policies in the Eurasian Economic Union.

Objective: To demonstrate the potential impact on population health if policies designed to reduce population trans fatty acid (TFA) intake are successfully implemented in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in line with the WHO's guidelines to lower intake of TFA as a percentage of total energy intake to less than 1 %.

Design: A projection exercise was conducted to estimate reductions in CVD-related deaths in countries of the EAEU if TFA policies are implemented in the EAEU. Plausibly causal, annual effects (in %) of Denmark's TFA policy on the evolution of CVD mortality rates were applied to project the potential effects of recently announced TFA policies in Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and the Russian Federation under three TFA exposure scenarios.

Willingness to take COVID-19 vaccination in low-income countries: Evidence from Ethiopia.

Background: In low-income countries, vaccination campaigns are lagging, and evidence on vaccine acceptance, a crucial public health planning input, remains scant. This is the first study that reports willingness to take COVID-19 vaccines and its socio-demographic correlates in Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous country.

Methods: The analysis is based on a nationally representative survey data of 2,317 households conducted in the informal economy in November 2020.

Use of healthcare services during the COVID-19 pandemic in urban Ethiopia: evidence from retrospective health facility survey data.

Objectives: In recent years, Ethiopia has made enormous strides in enhancing access to healthcare, especially, maternal and child healthcare. With the onset and spread of COVID-19, the attention of the healthcare system has pivoted to handling the disease, potentially at the cost of other healthcare needs. This paper explores whether this shift has come at the cost of non-Covid related healthcare, especially the use of maternal and child health (MCH) services.

Who is more likely to return for TB test results? A survey at three high-burden primary healthcare facilities in Cape Town, South Africa.

Background: In low- and middle-income countries with a high burden of tuberculosis (TB), a large proportion of people who are tested for TB do not return to the health facility to collect their test results and initiate treatment, thus putting themselves at increased risk of adverse outcomes.

Methods: This prospective study aimed to identify predictors of returning to the primary health care (PHC) facility to collect TB test results. From 15 August to 15 December 2017, 1105 people who tested for pulmonary TB at three Cape Town PHC facilities were surveyed.

Snacks, nudges and asymmetric peer influence: Evidence from food choice experiments with children in Indonesia.

Many children in low- and middle-income countries are growing up during a rapid nutrition transition. Experimental evidence on food choice in developing countries is scarce, while it is unclear to what extent evidence from high-income countries can be generalized. Children participated in a snack choice experiment.

Adolescent Nutrition-Developing a Research Agenda for the Second Window of Opportunity in Indonesia.

Background: Recently, adolescence has been identified as a second window of opportunity for the correction of nutritional inadequacies. However, there is a lack of knowledge on evidence-based integrated nutrition strategies for adolescents in Indonesia.

Objective: To provide a research agenda and the prioritization of research actions to tackle outstanding knowledge gaps on adolescent nutrition in Indonesia.

The impact of the Ethiopian health extension program and health development army on maternal mortality: A synthetic control approach.

The Ethiopian government has implemented nationwide strategies to improve access to basic health services and enhance health outcomes. The Health Extension Program (HEP) launched in 2003, expanded basic health infrastructure and local human resources. In 2011, the government introduced the Health Development Army (HDA).

Temporal stability of child growth associations in Demographic and Health Surveys in 25 countries.

Background: Socio-economic and demographic determinants of child growth at ages 0-5 years in developing countries are well documented. However, Precision Public Health interventions and population targeting require more finely grained knowledge about the existence and character of temporal changes in child growth associations.

Methods: We evaluated the temporal stability of associations between height-for-age z-score (HAZ) of children aged 0-59 months and child, parental, household, and community and infrastructure factors by following 25 countries over time (1991-2014) in repeated cross-sections of 91 Demographic and Health Surveys using random effect models and Wald tests.

Universal health coverage at the macro level: Synthetic control evidence from Thailand.

As more and more countries are moving towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC), it is important to understand the macro level or aggregate impacts of such a policy. We use synthetic control methods to study the impact of UHC, introduced in Thailand in 2001, on various macroeconomic and health outcomes. Thailand is compared to a weighted average of control countries in terms of aggregate health financing indicators, aggregate health outcomes and economic performance, over the period 1995 to 2012.

Age-Specific Correlates of Child Growth.

Growth faltering describes a widespread phenomenon that height- and weight-for-age of children in developing countries collapse rapidly in the first two years of life. We study age-specific correlates of child nutrition using Demographic and Health Surveys from 56 developing countries to shed light on the potential drivers of growth faltering. Applying nonparametric techniques and exploiting within-mother variation, we find that maternal and household factors predict best the observed shifts and bends in child nutrition age curves.

Trans fat and cardiovascular disease mortality: Evidence from bans in restaurants in New York.

This paper analyzes the impact of trans fat bans on cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality rates. Several New York State jurisdictions have restricted the use of ingredients containing artificial trans fat in food service establishments. The resulting within-county variation over time and the differential timing of the policy's rollout is used in estimation.

Trust and trustworthiness in young and older adults.

In a series of 1-shot economic trust games in which participants could make real monetary profits, but also risked losing money, 2 studies compared young and older adults' trust (amount invested with trustees) and trustworthiness (amount returned to investors by trustees). In Study 1, young (n = 35) and older (n = 32) participants acted as investors, and the age of simulated trustees (young, older) was manipulated. In Study 2, young (n = 61) and older (n = 67) participants acted in real life as both investors and trustees.

Denmark's Policy on Artificial Trans Fat and Cardiovascular Disease.

Introduction: The consumption of trans fat is associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD). In January 2004, Denmark became the first country in the world to regulate the content of artificial trans fat in certain ingredients in food products, which nearly eliminated artificial trans fat from the Danish food supply. The goal of this study was to assess whether Denmark's trans fat policy reduced deaths caused by CVD.

Risk aversion, time preference and health production: theory and empirical evidence from Cambodia.

This paper quantifies the relationship between risk aversion and discount rates on the one hand and height and weight on the other. It studies this link in the context of poor households in Cambodia. Evidence is based on an original dataset that contains both experimental measures of risk taking and impatience along with anthropometric measurements of children and adults.

Child health, its dynamic interaction with nutrition and health memory--evidence from Senegal.

Child malnutrition is pervasive in developing countries and anthropometric measures such as weight-for-height and height-for-age have proven reliable indicators of short term malnutrition and stunting. Rather than studying these indicators separately, we look at their interaction and carve out child health dynamics. Considering height-for-age a child's health stock and weight-for-lagged height a proxy for nutritional inputs, we develop a child health production function that features self-productivity of past health stocks and contemporaneous nutritional inputs.

On the generality of age differences in social and nonsocial decision making.

Objectives: Empirical work with western populations suggests that aging is associated with changes in economic decision making, including, for example, increased prosocial tendencies. We investigated the generality of age effects in social and nonsocial domains by assessing various measures of economic decision making in a rural population from Morocco.

Method: We measured age/cohort differences using a number of economic games (risk game, time preferences game, dictator game, trust game, and public goods game) in over 700 participants ranging from 17 to 92 years of age.

AIDS and Conflict: Micro Evidence from Burundi1).

This paper studies the relationship between civil war and HIV/AIDS in Burundi at the micro level. The case of Burundi provides interesting grounds of analysis, as seroprevalence rates are heterogeneous across the country, the serological and conflict data for Burundi are of good quality and conclusions can inform HIV/AIDS policies in Burundi and other fragile states. Ordinary least squares and instrumental variable results indicate that there is no empirical relationship between seroprevalence at the general population level and three measures of local conflict intensity within provinces.

[Differentiation and synthesis. Forms of reception of acoustical research in the musical literature of the nineteenth century].

In the nineteenth century, both musical scholars and natural scientists discussed the relevance of acoustical research for the theory and practice of music. Whereas some musical theorists and acousticians plead together for an acoustical foundation of musical theory, other scholars questioned the significance of physical and physiological knowledge for a deeper understanding of music. Based on an analysis of musical journals, popular scientific writings, theoretical treatises and musical dictionaries this article demonstrates how musical scholars and natural scientists argued about the question which discipline should have the final say about musical concepts and terminologies.