Child brides in Rayer Bazar, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Images courtesy of MH Kawsar
Girl Child Marriages Decline In South Asia, But Only Among Youngest
Findings mixed in India, Nepal, Pakistan and BangladeshEach year, more than 10 million girls under the age of 18 marry, usually under force of local tradition and social custom. Almost half of these compulsory marriages occur in South Asia. A new study suggests that more than two decades of effort to eliminate the practice has produced mixed results.
Writing in the May 16, 2012 issue of Journal of the American Medical Association, Anita Raj, PhD, professor of medicine in the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, and colleagues, report that marriage rates for girls under the age of 14 in India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh – the South Asian countries with the highest historical rates – have significantly declined since 1991. Conversely, the rate among girls aged 16 and 17 continues largely unchanged or, in the case of Bangladesh, has increased 36 percent.
Childhood marriage, which mostly involves girls, is widely condemned as a violation of individual human rights. Numerous studies have found that child brides are more likely to die young, suffer from serious health problems, live in poverty and remain illiterate.
“There is a global effort to eliminate girl child marriage,” said Raj. “Our findings are heartening in terms of eliminating the practice among very young girls, but not among older girls. There needs to be a greater focus on prevention of marriage among later adolescents. If we cannot impact reduction of marriage in this age group, we’ll continue to see inadequate change on reduction of girl child marriage as a whole.”
Raj and colleagues examined randomized cluster samples from multiple demographic, health and nutrition surveys taken between 1991 and 2007 in India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh, where the prevalence of girl child marriages has historically reached or exceeded 20 percent.
Just purchased a flight to Ecuador. It’s officially happening.
just found this video for the first time. someone left it on my computer for me two years ago
The number of people who quit smoking successfully has stalled in the United States at every age.
UC San Diego Researchers Review Cessation Studies and Call for Change in Policy
Smoking is a major public health issue and quitting is the single most important thing smokers can do to improve their health. In the 2012 edition of the prestigious Annual Review of Public Health, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have reviewed the landscape of smoking cessation over the past 20 years. During this time period, there have been improvements in pharmaceutical medications to aid cessation, and free telephone cessation coaching has become available in every state. However, recent trends in smoking cessation are troubling to tobacco control researchers.
“For the past decade, attempts to quit smoking have increased, but the proportion of people who become successful quitters has gone down” said John P. Pierce, PhD, professor of Family and Preventive Medicine and director of Population Sciences at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center. “Widespread dissemination of cessation services has not led to an increase in the probability that a quit attempt will be successful.”
The problem does not appear to be with the cessation services themselves. “Randomized trials continue to demonstrate that innovations in cessation assistance, such as the new text-to-quit service, increase success rates among smokers motivated to be part of clinical studies,” said Sharon Cummins, PhD, director of Evaluation with the California Smokers Helpline and a co-author on the study. “Indeed, one study showed that heavier smokers are much more likely to quit successfully when a doctor actively monitors the quit attempt, pharmaceutical aids are used, and the smoker receives multiple coaching calls from a quitline service”.
this pretty much sums up my family recently. They felt the need to tie a string around the remote and tape the end of the string to the coffee table. They used floss, totally sensible, it will last longer than string.
