The Global Burden of Disease Study, a comprehensive regional and global assessment of mortality and disability from 107 diseases and injuries and 10 risk factors, is an example of an evidence-based input to public health policy debate. The study, which includes projections of the burden through the year 2020, uses the disability-adjusted life year as a composite measure of years of life lost due to premature mortality and years lived with disability. Future patterns of death and disability are likely to change dramatically because of aging of the world9s population, the epidemic of tobacco-related disease, the human immunodeficiency virus epidemic, and the likely reduction in death rates from communicable diseases in children.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/274/5288/740.full.pdf

Evidence-Based Health Policy--Lessons from the Global Burden of Disease Study

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(13)62105-4.pdf

[Global health 2035: a world converging within a generation].

Assisted reproductive technology (ART) makes babies and parents at once. Drawing on science and technology studies, feminist theory, and historical and ethnographic analyses of ART clinics, Charis Thompson explores the intertwining of biological reproduction with the personal, political, and technological meanings of reproduction. She analyzes the "ontological choreography" at ART clinics -- the dynamics by which technical, scientific, kinship, gender, emotional, legal, political, financial, and other matters are coordinated -- using ethnographic data to address questions usually treated in the abstract. Reproductive technologies, says Thompson, are part of the increasing tendency to turn social problems into biomedical questions and can be used as a lens through which to see the resulting changes in the relations between science and society. After giving an account of the book's disciplinary roots in science and technology studies and in feminist scholarship on reproduction, Thompson comes to the ethnographic heart of her study. She develops her concept of ontological choreography by examining ART's normalization of "miraculous" technology (including the etiquette of technological sex); gender identity in the assigned roles of mother and father and the conservative nature of gender relations in the clinic; the naturalization of technologically assisted kinship and procreative intent; and patients' pursuit of agency through objectification and technology. Finally, Thompson explores the economies of reproductive technologies, concluding with a speculative and polemical look at the "biomedical mode of reproduction" as a predictor of future relations between science and society.

Making Parents: The Ontological Choreography of Reproductive Technologies

Motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of death in adolescents and young adults worldwide. Nearly three-quarters of road deaths occur in developing countries and men comprise a mean 80% of casualties. This review summarizes studies on the epidemiology of motor vehicle accidents in developing countries and examines the evidence for association with alcohol.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1365-3156.1997.tb00167.x

Road traffic injuries in developing countries: a comprehensive review of epidemiological studies

Endocrine factors in the etiology of postpartum depression

This book concerns the nature and extent of adult ill health in the world with special attention to the developing countries. It represents more than two years of collaborative effort among the Population, Health, and Nutrition Division of the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Ga. The subject, the neglected health issues of adults and the things that kill them, is treated from an international perspective by a total of 14 contributors, representing Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, New Zealand, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Aware of the vacuum of information and health policy surrounding the topic of adult health in the developing world, the authors seek to overcome this neglect by directing the attention of health policymakers and researchers to the major causes of adult ill health, namely, tuberculosis, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and injuries. At first

The Health of Adults in the Developing World

In a current medical news release, French researchers claim that normal human embryos can be obtained by the injection of round spermatids into oocytes. Authors believe that many patients with hitherto untreatable and unexplained azoospermia will be able to benefit from this new technique of assisted fertilization. 1 Thus, the new specialty of infertility continues its rapid advance since the astonishing announcement in 1978 of the birth of Baby Louise as a result of in vitro fertilization by Drs Patrick Steptoe and R. Edwards of England. 2 Judging from the title of Elaine Tyler May's Barren in the Promised Land: Childless Americans and the Pursuit of Happiness , and the fact that her father, Dr Ed Tyler, Jr, was a prominent pioneer and leader in infertility at his Los Angeles Tyler Clinic, where he launched his specialty in the early 1950s, I expected that her book would detail the rapid and

Barren in the Promised Land: Childless Americans and the Pursuit of Happiness

On January 22, 1973, the day of the Roe v Wade decision, (410 US 113), Leslie J. Reagan was just old enough to ask her mother the meaning of the word "abortion." Apparently she continued to ask questions about this subject, because 24 years later, she has presented us with a scholarly history and analysis of abortion during the 100 years preceding her first question. Nearly 250 pages are devoted to the pre-Roe period, followed by a nine-page epilogue. An additional 132 pages contain notes and an adequate index. (Footnotes, rather than endnotes, would have been a real time-saver for the reader.) The archives of the American Medical Association (AMA) at its "heartland" Chicago headquarters were the chief site for Reagan's research. A systematic survey of the medical literature of this period and examination of trial transcripts in Cook County, Ill, police records, coroners' inquests, and the AMA's Historical Health

When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867-1973

This book is important, even though it offers little new information and few conclusions. Its importance lies in the challenges raised regarding the implications of prenatal genetic testing, the Human Genome Project, and what that new technology means for women today and in the future. Numerous red flags are unfurled throughout its pages as cautionary warnings of the advance of technology. Who will control the production of this new knowledge? Who will interpret the findings? Who will decide what actions are to be taken? Should prenatal testing be compulsory or voluntary? And most important of all, is there a known and predictable quality of life that is associated with specific birth defects or genetic disorders? Such questions led to the conference "Women and the Human Genome Project" in November 1991 on the campus of the National Institutes of Health, cosponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development,

Women and Prenatal Testing: Facing the Challenges of Genetic Technology

"Premenstrual tension" was first described by Frank in 1931, but truly scientific investigation of this condition, now known as "PMS" ("premenstrual syndrome") has scarcely begun. It remains a poorly defined condition for which we know neither the cause nor the treatment. That women are victimized by their hormones is a common conviction among the laity, who are demanding help for PMS victims from a somewhat bewildered medical profession. Much is currently being written about PMS, and we are witnessing an almost cultlike wave of symposia, lectures, and even videotapes on the topic. If the clinical entity PMS really exists, the legal and economic implications are many. The subject demands and deserves our serious concern. This 157-page volume consists of ten papers presented at a symposium entitled "Premenstrual Syndrome: New Findings and Controversies," recently held at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. The updated contributions are described by

Jane E. Hodgson

Papers

The Health of Adults in the Developing World

Barren in the Promised Land: Childless Americans and the Pursuit of Happiness

When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867-1973

Women and Prenatal Testing: Facing the Challenges of Genetic Technology

The Premenstrual Syndromes