Death trends for 2010 - 2022 for members of a large private medical scheme in South Africa.

Background: In the absence of more recent national data on underlying causes of death in South Africa (SA), we examined mortality trends from 2010 to 2022 among members of a large private medical scheme. This analysis sheds light on the health profile of this specific demographic.

Objective: To investigate trends in Discovery Health Medical Scheme (DHMS) members' death rates and underlying cause of death patterns between 2010 and 2022.

The role of wastewater-based epidemiology for SARS-CoV-2 in developing countries: Cumulative evidence from South Africa supports sentinel site surveillance to guide public health decision-making.

The uptake of wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) for SARS-CoV-2 as a complementary tool for monitoring population-level epidemiological features of the COVID-19 pandemic in low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs) is low. We report on the findings from the South African SARS-CoV-2 WBE surveillance network and make recommendations regarding the implementation of WBE in LMICs. Eight laboratories quantified influent wastewater collected from 87 wastewater treatment plants in all nine South African provinces from 01 June 2021 to 31 May 2022 inclusive, during the 3rd and 4th waves of COVID-19.

Tracking mortality in near to real time provides essential information about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa in 2020.

Producing timely and accurate estimates of the impact of COVID-19 on mortality is challenging for most countries, but impossible for South Africa (SA) from cause-of-death statistics. Objectives. To quantify the excess deaths and likely magnitude of COVID-19 in SA in 2020 and draw conclusions on monitoring the epidemic in 2021.

Unnatural deaths, alcohol bans and curfews: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment during COVID-19.

Coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) restrictions, particularly relating to the sale of alcohol and hours of curfew, have had a marked effect on the temporal pattern of unnatural deaths in South Africa. Methods. Death data were collected over 68 weeks from January 2020 to April 2021, together with information on the nature of restrictions (if any) on the sale of alcohol, and hours of curfew.

Rapid mortality surveillance using a national population register to monitor excess deaths during SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in South Africa.

This paper describes how an up-to-date national population register recording deaths by age and sex, whether deaths were due to natural or unnatural causes, and the offices at which the deaths were recorded can be used to monitor excess death during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, both nationally, and sub-nationally, in a country with a vital registration system that is neither up to date nor complete. Apart from suggesting an approach for estimating completeness of reporting at a sub-national level, the application produces estimates of the number of deaths in excess of those expected in the absence of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic that are highly correlated with the confirmed number of COVID-19 deaths over time, but at a level 2.5 to 3 times higher than the official numbers of COVID-19 deaths.

Pathways to Low Fertility: 50 Years of Limitation, Curtailment, and Postponement of Childbearing.

This study applies survival analysis to the birth histories from 317 national surveys to model pathways to low fertility in 83 less-developed countries between 1965 and 2014. It presents period measures of parity progression, the length of birth intervals and total fertility that have been standardized fully for age, parity, and interval duration. It also examines parity-specific trends in the proportion of women who want no more children.

What was the population of Great Zimbabwe (CE1000 - 1800)?

The World Heritage Site of Great Zimbabwe is one of the most iconic and largest archaeological settlements in Africa. It was the hub of direct and indirect trade which internally connected various areas of southern Africa, and externally linked them with East Africa and the Near and Far East. Archaeologists believe that at its peak, Great Zimbabwe had a fully urban population of 20,000 people concentrated in approximately 2.

Teenage Childbearing and Educational Attainment in South Africa.

The relationship between teenage childbearing and school attainment is investigated using nationally representative longitudinal data drawn from South Africa's National Income Dynamics Study. The analysis focuses on the outcomes by 2010 of a panel of 673 young women who were aged 15-18 and childless in 2008. Controlling for other factors, girls who went on to give birth had twice the odds of dropping out of school by 2010 and nearly five times the odds of failing to matriculate.

Short preceding birth intervals and child mortality in Mozambique.

This paper examines the risk of child mortality associated with short preceding birth intervals in Mozambique. We apply a piecewise log-rate model to a pooled dataset comprising 36,305 live births from the 1997 and 2003 Mozambique Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). Our results show that the effects of short preceding intervals are strongest during the first month of life, particularly the first week, indicating prenatal maternal depletion as the dominant pathway.

Distinguishing the impact of postponement, spacing and stopping on birth intervals: evidence from a model with heterogeneous fecundity.

This paper investigates the impact on birth intervals of three distinct birth control strategies: stopping childbearing, spacing births and the postponement of further childbearing for reasons unrelated to women's family-building histories. A macro-simulation model of the family-building process is described that incorporates heterogeneity in fecundability. This model is used to demonstrate that the postponement of further childbearing has a distinctive impact on schedules of duration-specific fertility rates that differs from that of both family-size limitation and birth spacing.

Birth intervals, postponement, and fertility decline in Africa: a new type of transition?

We investigated birth-interval dynamics in 24 African countries using data from 76 Demographic and Health Surveys conducted since 1986. Controlling for selection bias in the birth-history data using the Brass-Juárez method and regression models produced almost identical results. Birth intervals have lengthened in every country examined.

Dispensing with marriage: Marital and partnership trends in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa 2000-2006.

This paper describes marriage and partnership patterns and trends in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa from 2000-2006. The study is based on longitudinal, population-based data collected by the Africa Centre demographic surveillance system. We consider whether the high rates of non-marriage among Africans in South Africa reported in the 1980s were reversed following the political transformation underway by the 1990s.

A careful look at "A re-look at recent statistics on mortality in the context of HIV/AIDS with particular reference to South Africa".

An article recently published in this journal argues that the life expectancies (and other mortality statistics) produced by models of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Southern Africa are inconsistent, and questions their reliability. To demonstrate the argument, the author of that paper derived empirical estimates of several mortality statistics from three different sources of data and, on the grounds that the estimates of life expectancy for 2001 and 2006 are somewhat higher than is typically estimated by projection models, concludes that the empirical evidence supports the theoretical view outlined in that paper. If correct, the reasoning (and its empirical demonstration) could be construed as a strong challenge to a dominant orthodoxy surrounding the estimation of mortality statistics in an era of HIV/AIDS and offering some comfort to governments with low Human Development Indices because of the index's dependence, inter alia, on estimates of life expectancy at birth derived from such models.

Refining the criteria for stalled fertility declines: an application to rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, 1990-2005.

Stalled fertility declines have been identified in several regions across the developing world, but the current conceptualization of a stalled fertility decline is poorly theorized and does not lend itself to objective measurement. We propose a more rigorous and statistically testable definition of stalled fertility decline that can be applied to time-series data. We then illustrate the utility of our definition through its application to data from rural South Africa for the period 1990-2005 collected from a demographic surveillance site.

Fertility trend and pattern in a rural area of South Africa in the context of HIV/AIDS.

Little is known about the dynamics of fertility transition in South Africa, though recent studies have begun to shed light on demographic changes in the country. This study presents trends and patterns of fertility observed in a rural South African population. Various demographic and statistical techniques were used to examine fertility patterns in a population of 21,847 women in a rural KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) demographic surveillance area.

The South African fertility decline: Evidence from two censuses and a Demographic and Health Survey.

Inadequate data and apartheid policies have meant that, until recently, most demographers have not had the opportunity to investigate the level of, and trend in, the fertility of South African women. The 1996 South Africa Census and the 1998 Demographic and Health Survey provide the first widely available and nationally representative demographic data on South Africa since 1970. Using these data, this paper describes the South African fertility decline from 1955 to 1996.