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Country Level (country + level)
Selected AbstractsAssociation between tobacco control policies and smoking behaviour among adolescents in 29 European countriesADDICTION, Issue 11 2009Anne Hublet ABSTRACT Aims To investigate the associations between well-known, cost-effective tobacco control policies at country level and smoking prevalence among 15-year-old adolescents. Design Multi-level modelling based on the 2005,06 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Study, a cross-national study at individual level, and with country-level variables from the Tobacco Control Scale and published country-level databases. Setting Twenty-nine European countries. Participants A total of 25 599 boys and 26 509 girls. Main outcome measures Self-reported regular smoking defined as at least weekly smoking, including daily smoking (dichotomous). Findings Interaction effects between gender and smoking policies were identified, therefore boys and girls were analysed separately. Large cross-national differences in smoking prevalence were documented. Intraclass correlations (ICC) of 0.038 (boys) and 0.035 (girls) were found. In the final multi-level model for boys, besides the significance of the individual variables such as family affluence, country-level affluence and the legality of vending machines were related significantly to regular smoking [b(country affluence) = ,0.010; b(partial restriction vending machines) = ,0.366, P < 0.05]. Price policy was of borderline significance [b(price policy) = ,0.026, P = 0.050]. All relationships were in the expected direction. The model fit is not as good for girls; only the legality of vending machines had a borderline significance in the final model [b(total ban vending machines) = ,0.372, P = 0.06]. Conclusions For boys, some of the currently recommended tobacco control policies may help to reduce smoking prevalence. However, the model is less suitable for girls, indicating gender differences in the potential efficacy of smoking policies. Future research should address this issue. [source] Pan-European regional-scale modelling of water and N efficiencies of rapeseed cultivation for biodiesel productionGLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY, Issue 1 2009MARIJN VAN DER VELDE Abstract The energy produced from the investment in biofuel crops needs to account for the environmental impacts on soil, water, climate change and ecosystem services. A regionalized approach is needed to evaluate the environmental costs of large-scale biofuel production. We present a regional pan-European simulation of rapeseed (Brassica napus) cultivation. Rapeseed is the European Union's dominant biofuel crop with a share of about 80% of the feedstock. To improve the assessment of the environmental impact of this biodiesel production, we performed a pan-European simulation of rapeseed cultivation at a 10 × 10 km scale with Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC). The model runs with a daily time step and model input consists of spatialized meteorological measurements, and topographic, soil, land use, and farm management practices data and information. Default EPIC model parameters were calibrated based on literature. Modelled rapeseed yields were satisfactory compared with yields at regional level reported for 151 regions obtained for the period from 1995 to 2003 for 27 European Union member countries, along with consistent modelled and reported yield responses to precipitation, radiation and vapour pressure deficit at regional level. The model is currently set up so that plant nutrient stress is not occurring. Total fertilizer consumption at country level was compared with IFA/FAO data. This approach allows us to evaluate environmental pressures and efficiencies arising from and associated with rapeseed cultivation to further complete the environmental balance of biofuel production and consumption. [source] Measuring Progress in Transition and Towards EU Accession: A Comparison of Manufacturing Firms in Poland, Romania and SpainJCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 5 2000Wendy Carlin This article provides new evidence on progress in transition and the ,readiness' for accession of enterprises in two EU applicant countries. A major innovation is to benchmark them against Spain. Approximately 200 manufacturing firms were surveyed in each of Poland, Romania and Spain. Newly-established private firms in both Poland and Romania are found to be growing the fastest, but on measures of integration and investment, it is new and privatized Polish firms that most resemble Spanish ones. Polish state-owned firms, and most Romanian enterprises, typically are less integrated. Polish firms tend to lag behind Spanish ones in complying with EU directives, but are ahead of Romanian ones, although awareness of and compliance with directives does not vary with ownership type. Progress in transition at the country level seems to be consistent with improvements in compliance with much of the acquis communautaire. [source] Multilevel Anthropogenic Cycles of Copper and Zinc: A Comparative Statistical AnalysisJOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY, Issue 1-2 2006Barbara Reck Contemporary cycles for copper and zinc are coanalyzed with the tools of exploratory data analysis. One-year analyses (circa 1994) are performed at three discrete spatial levels-country (52 countries that comprise essentially all anthropogenic stocks and flows of the two metals), eight world regions, and the planet as a whole-and are completed both in absolute magnitude and in per capita terms. This work constitutes, to our knowledge, the first multiscale, multilevel analysis of anthropogenic resources throughout their life cycles. The results demonstrate that (1) A high degree of correlation exists between country-level copper and country-level zinc rates of fabrication and manufacturing, entry into use, net addition to in-use stocks, discard, and landfilling; (2) Regional-level rates for copper and zinc cycle parameters show the same correlations as exist at country level; (3) On a per capita basis, countries add to in-use stock almost 50% more copper than zinc; (4) The predominant discard streams for copper and zinc at the global level are different for the two metals, and relative rates of different loss processes differ geographically, so that resource recovery policies must be designed from metalspecific and location-specific perspectives; (5)When absolute magnitudes of life-cycle flows are considered, the standard deviations of the data sets decrease from country level to regional level for both copper and zinc, which is not the case for the per capita data sets, where the statistical properties of the dat sets for both metals approach being independent of spatial level, thus providing a basis for predicting unmeasured per capita metal flow behavior. [source] Perceived Equity in the Gendered Division of Household LaborJOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY, Issue 5 2008Michael Braun Despite huge imbalances in the division of housework between women and men, previous studies have found perceptions of equity on the part of women to be much more frequent than feelings of injustice. Taking a comparative perspective on the basis of International Social Survey Program (ISSP) 2002 data (N = 8,556), we find that, on the individual level, the explanatory frameworks that have been found to influence the actual inequality of household division of labor (time availability, resource dependence, and gender ideology) contribute to the explanation of perceptions of equity, in that they interact with the inequality of the household division of labor. On the country level, the gender-wage ratio and the average level of inequality are important predictors. [source] Comparing bibliometric statistics obtained from the Web of Science and ScopusJOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 7 2009Éric Archambault For more than 40 years, the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI, now part of Thomson Reuters) produced the only available bibliographic databases from which bibliometricians could compile large-scale bibliometric indicators. ISI's citation indexes, now regrouped under the Web of Science (WoS), were the major sources of bibliometric data until 2004, when Scopus was launched by the publisher Reed Elsevier. For those who perform bibliometric analyses and comparisons of countries or institutions, the existence of these two major databases raises the important question of the comparability and stability of statistics obtained from different data sources. This paper uses macrolevel bibliometric indicators to compare results obtained from the WoS and Scopus. It shows that the correlations between the measures obtained with both databases for the number of papers and the number of citations received by countries, as well as for their ranks, are extremely high (R2 , .99). There is also a very high correlation when countries' papers are broken down by field. The paper thus provides evidence that indicators of scientific production and citations at the country level are stable and largely independent of the database. [source] Economic Shocks and Democratic Vulnerabilities in Latin America and the CaribbeanLATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 2 2010Abby Córdova ABSTRACT Historical evidence suggests that bad economic times often mean bad times for democracy, but prior research has given us little guidance on how this process may work. What economic conditions are most threatening, and how might they weaken consolidating democracies? This article uses the AmericasBarometer conducted by the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) to answer these questions by focusing on core attitudes for the consolidation of democracy. We use survey data at the level of the individual and economic data at the country level to help detect democratic vulnerabilities in Latin America and the Caribbean. The study finds that conditions of low levels of economic development, low economic growth, and high levels of income inequality increase those vulnerabilities substantially, but the effects are not uniform across individuals. Some groups, especially the young and the poor, are particularly vulnerable to some antidemocratic appeals. [source] Cost-comparison of DDT and alternative insecticides for malaria controlMEDICAL AND VETERINARY ENTOMOLOGY, Issue 4 2000K. Walker Summary In anti-malaria operations the use of DDT for indoor residual spraying has declined substantially over the past 30 years, but this insecticide is still considered valuable for malaria control, mainly because of its low cost relative to alternative insecticides. Despite the development of resistance to DDT in some populations of malaria vector Anopheles mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae), DDT remains generally effective when used for house-spraying against most species of Anopheles, due to excitorepellency as well as insecticidal effects. A 1990 cost comparison by the World Health Organization (WHO) found DDT to be considerably less expensive than other insecticides, which cost 2 to 23 times more on the basis of cost per house per 6 months of control. To determine whether such a cost advantage still prevails for DDT, this paper compares recent price quotes from manufacturers and WHO suppliers for DDT and appropriate formulations of nine other insecticides (two carbamates, two organophosphates and five pyrethroids) commonly used for residual house-spraying in malaria control programmes. Based on these ,global' price quotes, detailed calculations show that DDT is still the least expensive insecticide on a cost per house basis, although the price appears to be rising as DDT production declines. At the same time, the prices of pyrethroids are declining, making some only slightly more expensive than DDT at low application dosages. Other costs, including operations (labour), transportation and human safety may also increase the price advantages of DDT and some pyrethroids vs. organophosphates and carbamates, although possible environmental impacts from DDT remain a concern. However, a global cost comparison may not realistically reflect local costs or effective application dosages at the country level. Recent data on insecticide prices paid by the health ministries of individual countries showed that prices of particular insecticides can vary substantially in the open market. Therefore, the most cost-effective insecticide in any given country or region must be determined on a case-by-case basis. Regional coordination of procurement of public health insecticides could improve access to affordable products. [source] Maternal height and child mortality in 42 developing countriesAMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN BIOLOGY, Issue 3 2009Christiaan W. S. Monden Previous research reports mixed results about the association between maternal height and child mortality. Some studies suggest that the negative association might be stronger in contexts with fewer resources. This hypothesis has yet not been tested in a cross-nationally comparative design. We use data on 307,223 children born to 194,835 women in 444 districts of 42 developing countries to estimate the association between maternal height and child mortality and test whether this association is modified by indicators at the level of the household (like sex, age and twin status of the child and socio-economic characteristics of the mother and her partner), district (regional level of development, public health facilities and female occupational attainment) and country (GDP per capita). We find a robust negative effect of logged maternal height on child mortality. The effect of maternal health is strongest for women with least education and is more important in the first year after birth and for twin births. The indicators of development at the district and country level do not modify the effect of maternal height. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 2009. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] On the Tasks of a Population Commission: A 1971 Statement by Donald RumsfeldPOPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, Issue 3 2003Article first published online: 20 APR 200 In its most familiar form, analytic assessment of the impact of demographic change on human affairs is the product of a decentralized cottage industry: individual scholars collecting information, thinking about its meaning, testing hypotheses, and publishing their findings. Guidance through the power of the purse and through institutional design that creates and sustains cooperating groups of researchers can impose some order and coherence on such spontaneous activity. But the sum total of the result may lack balance and leave important aspects of relevant issues inadequately explored. Even when research findings are picked up by the media and reach a broader public, the haphazardness of that process helps further to explain why the salience of population change to human welfare and its importance in public policymaking are poorly understood. The syndrome is not unique to the field of population, but the typically long time-lags with which aggregate population change affects economic and social phenomena make it particularly difficult for the topic to claim public attention. A time-tested, if less than fool-proof remedy is the periodic effort to orchestrate a systematic and thorough examination of the causes, consequences, and policy implications of demographic processes. Because the most potent frame for policymaking is the state, the logical primary locus for such stocktaking is at the country level. The Commission on Population Growth and the American Future was a uniquely ambitious enterprise of this sort. The Commission was established by the US Congress in 1970 as a result of a presidential initiative. Along with the work of two earlier British Royal Commissions on population, this US effort, mutatis mutandis, can serve as a model for in-depth examinations conducted at the national level anywhere. Chaired by John D. Rockefeller 3rd, the Commission submitted its final report to President Richard M. Nixon in March 1972. The background studies to the report were published in seven hefty volumes; an index to these volumes was published in 1975. Reproduced below is a statement to the Commission delivered on April 14, 1971 by Donald Rumsfeld, then Counsellor to President Nixon and in charge of the Office of Economic Opportunity. (Currently, Mr. Rumsfeld serves as US Secretary of Defense.) The brief statement articulates with great clarity the objectives of the Commission and the considerations that prompted them. The text originally appeared in Vol. 7 (pp. 1-3) of the Commission's background reports, which contains the statements at public hearings conducted by the Commission. National efforts toward comprehensive scientific reviews of population issues have their analogs at the international level. Especially notable on that score were the preparatory studies presented at the 1954 Rome and 1965 Belgrade world population conferences. The world population conferences that took place in Bucharest in 1974, in Mexico City in 1984, and in Cairo in 1994 were intergovernmental and political rather than scientific and technical meetings, but they also generated a fair amount of prior research. The year 2004 will break the decadal sequence of large-scale international meetings on population, and apart from the quadrennial congresses of the IUSSP, which showcase the voluntary research offerings of its members, none is being planned for the coming years. A partial substitute will be meetings organized by the UN's regional economic and social commissions. The first of these took place in 2002 for the Asia-Pacific region; the meetings for the other regions will be held in 2003-04. The analytic and technical contribution of these meetings, however, is expected to be at best modest. National efforts of the type carried out 30 years ago by the Commission on Population Growth and the American Future would be all the more salutary. [source] Impact of registration procedures on antibiotic policiesCLINICAL MICROBIOLOGY AND INFECTION, Issue 2001B. Schlemmer There is increasing concern over antibiotic resistance and its spread in common bacterial species, such as Streptococcus pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, Haemophilus influenzae and Escherichia coli. This results in increased morbidity and mortality. Over consumption of antibiotics has been reported in many settings and underlines the need for improving antibiotic policies. Crude measures of both antibiotic use and antibiotic resistance do not share a strong cause-and-effect relationship. However, this relationship is highly suggestive at a country level, at a hospital level, at a cohort level and at an individual level. In addition to overuse, antibiotic misuse has also to be considered, because of its impact on promoting antibiotic resistance, related to choice, dosage, dosing regimen or duration of therapy [1]. [source] Global health partnerships in practice: taking stock of the GAVI Alliance's new investment in health systems strengtheningINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HEALTH PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2009Joseph F. Naimoli Despite a burgeoning literature on global health partnerships (GHPs), there have been few studies of how GHPs, particularly those trying to build a bridge between horizontal and vertical modes of delivering essential health services, operate at global and country levels. This paper will help address this knowledge gap by describing and analyzing the GAVI Alliance's early experience with health systems strengthening (HSS) to improve immunization coverage and other maternal-child health outcomes. To date, the strengths of HSS reside in its potential to optimize GAVI's overall investment in immunization, efforts to harmonize with other initiatives, willingness to acknowledge risk and identify mitigation strategies, engagement of diverse stakeholders, responsiveness to country needs, and effective management of an ambitious grant-making enterprise. The challenges have been forging a common vision and approach, governance, balancing pressure to move money with incremental learning, managing partner roles and relationships, managing the "value for money" risk, and capacity building. This mid-point stock-taking makes recommendations for moving GAVI forward in a thoughtful manner. The findings should be of interest to other GHPs because of their larger significance. This is a story about how a successful alliance that decided to broaden its mandate has responded to the technical, organizational, and political complexities that challenge its traditional business model. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] FDI and pollution: a granger causality test using panel dataJOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, Issue 3 2005Robert Hoffmann This study reports the findings of Granger causality tests on the relationship between FDI and pollution across 112 countries over 15,28 years. Our results uncover alternative causality relationships between the two variables depending on a host country's level of development. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Debt, democratization, and development in Latin America: How policy can affect global warmingJOURNAL OF POLICY ANALYSIS AND MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2008René W. Aubourg The environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis conjectures a nonlinear relationship between pollution and economic growth, such that pollution per capita initially increases as countries economically develop, but then reaches a maximum point before ultimately declining. Much of the EKC literature has focused on testing this basic hypothesis and, in studies that find evidence of an EKC, estimating the "turning point" level of development at which the per capita pollution-growth relationship changes sign. This approach has not emphasized the policy relevance of specification issues or the potential role of policy variables. This research explores a modified EKC specification which conditions the pollution-growth relationship on a country's level of debt and degree of democratization. These variables turn out to be significant, implying that different political and economic contexts can shift EKCs and their turning points. These findings suggest that policies to relieve debt burdens and institute political reform, in addition to their usual justifications, also could be used as a strategy to reduce carbon emissions from developing countries. © 2008 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. [source] Siting the Death Penalty InternationallyLAW & SOCIAL INQUIRY, Issue 2 2008David F. Greenberg We examine sources of variation in possession and use of the death penalty using data drawn from 193 nations in order to test theories of punishment. We find the death penalty to be rooted in a country's legal and political systems, and to be influenced by its religious traditions. A country's level of economic development, its educational attainment, and its religious composition shape its political institutions and practices, indirectly affecting its use of the death penalty. The article concludes by discussing likely future trends. [source] Longevity Advances in High-Income Countries, 1955,96POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, Issue 1 2002Kevin M. White The advance of life expectancy within high-income countries from 1955 to 1996 is well represented by a straight-line trend. This explains more of the variance on average, and in 19 of 21 high-income countries, than logged or unlogged age-standardized death rates. Change in life expectancy in individual countries over this period was partially predicted by a country's level relative to the rest of this group of high-income countries and partially by a country's own prior rate of advance, with substantial convergence toward the group mean for both measures. [source] Do plant communities exist?JOURNAL OF VEGETATION SCIENCE, Issue 5 2000Evidence from scaling-up local species-area relations to the regional level Abstract. One long tradition in ecology is that discrete communities exist, at least in the sense that there are areas of relatively uniform vegetation, with more rapid change in species composition between them. The alternative extreme view is the Self-similarity concept , that similar community variation occurs at all spatial scales. We test between these two by calculating species-area curves within areas of vegetation that are as uniform as can be found, and then extrapolating the within-community variation to much larger areas, that will contain many ,communities'. Using the Arrhenius species-area model, the extrapolations are remarkably close to the observed number of species at the regional/country level. We conclude that the type of heterogeneity that occurs within ,homogeneous' communities is sufficient to explain species richness at much larger scales. Therefore, whilst we can speak of ,communities' for convenience, the variation that certainly exists at the ,community' level can be seen as only a larger-scale manifestation of micro-habitat variation. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||