Showing papers on "Rural area published in 1992"

Prevalence of Glucose Intolerance in Asian Indians: Urban-rural difference and significance of upper body adiposity

Abstract: OBJECTIVE To evaluate the prevalence of NIDDM and IGT in the urban and rural areas in southern India. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Two populations of the same ethnic background, but different socioeconomic background were chosen for this study. Nine-hundred urban people and 1038 rural subjects were studied. Fasting and 2-h post-glucose capillary blood samples after a 75 g oral glucose load (WHO criteria) were obtained in these randomly selected adults (≥ 20 yr of age). RESULTS Using the WHO criteria, the prevalence of NIDDM, adjusted to the age of the respective general population, was 8.2% in the urban and 2.4% in the rural populations. The prevalence was 8.4 and 7.9%, respectively, in urban men and women, and 2.6 and 1.6% in rural men and women. The age-adjusted prevalence of IGT was 8.7 and 7.8% in the urban and rural areas, respectively. The prevalence of IGT was 8.8% in urban men and 8.3% in women; the corresponding values for rural men and women were 8.7 and 6.4%. The prevalence of NIDDM increased with age, markedly so in the urban people. The urban-rural difference was significant for NIDDM ( X 2 = 29.4, P CONCLUSIONS The study showed a high prevalence of NIDDM in the urban southern Indian population. The prevalence of NIDDM in the same ethnic group in rural areas was significantly lower. The prevalence of IGT was similar in both populations. Upper body adiposity was a significant predictor of NIDDM in this population with low rates of obesity.

The state of world rural poverty: an inquiry into its causes and consequences

Abstract: Poverty is spreading. There are now as many people living in absolute poverty - almost a billion in the rural Third World alone - as lived on the entire planet only a century ago. Yet poverty continues to be shrouded in mystery. Consider that: Four-fifths of the world's poor live in rural areas; About 340 million people worldwide are currently chronically ill from malnutrition; Over 500 million do not get enough calories to do a full day's labor; At a time when enough grain is being produced to provide everyone in the world with twice the daily minimum caloric requirements, global hunger is at an all-time high; Half again as many rural women - almost 600 million - live in absolute poverty today as did 20 years. In an effort to call special attention to this urgent problem, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a United Nations agency that has approved more than 300 development programs in almost 100 countries and is considered the world's foremost authority on issues of rural poverty, and New York University Press are proud to be present The State of World Rural Poverty. In the tradition of the World Development Report and World Resources, The State of World Rural Poverty, offers the first comprehensive look at the economic conditions and prospects of the world's rural poor. Certain to become the definitive source of data and analysis as well as an invaluable policy guide to issues involving development and poverty in underdeveloped nations, this volume incorporates research from all over the world.

Conceptualising Countryside Change : From Post-Fordism to Rural Structured Coherence

Abstract: This paper contributes to the theoretical debates which seek to explain economic restructuring and social recomposition in rural areas. There has been a recent movement towards applying a supposed transition from Fordism to post-Fordism to rural change, but the paper urges caution in this respect, arguing that the regulationist literature requires sensitive handling if it is to fulfil its potential as a framework for conceptualizing rural change. Emphasis is therefore given to the intermediate concepts of 'mode of regulation' and 'societalization' as starting points for understanding contemporary rural life, and these concepts are grounded spatially with reference to Harvey's notion of structured coherence. Discussion of these concepts is then linked to a series of illustrations of the changing structured coherences discernible in rural Britain. In particular the paper emphasizes the breakdown of previously localized coherence and the replacement by more fragmented coherence reflecting different forms of commodification occurring in rural areas. The use of this conceptual framework has important implications for continuing research in rural studies.

Successful rural finance institutions

Abstract: Rural credit has become a prime component of Bank lending operations since its inception. Providing affordable credit to the rural sector was considered warranted on both growth and equity considerations. This paper focuses on the policies, mode of operations, incentives, and financial results of four Asian programs that are considered exceptionally successful. It is part of a broader analytical effort on rural finance issues currently being conducted. This effort aims to define the proper role of governments in rural financial markets and the desirable design features of project and progress interventions in this sector. The paper highlights the elements of successful programs that may be replicable in designing rural finance programs elsewhere.

Which medical schools produce rural physicians

Abstract: Objective. —To examine the hypothesis that medical schools vary systematically and predictably in the proportion of their graduates who enter rural practice. Design. —The December 1991 version of the American Medical Association Physician Masterfile was used to examine the rural and urban practice locations of physicians who graduated from American medical schools between 1976 and 1985. Selected characteristics of the medical schools—including location, ownership, and funding—were linked to the Physician Masterfile. Main Outcome Measures. —The percentage of the graduates from each medical school who were practicing in rural areas in December 1991, disaggregated by physician specialty. Results. —Of the practicing graduates from our study, 12.6% were located in rural counties; family physicians were much more likely than members of other specialties to select rural practice, particularly in the smallest and most isolated rural counties. Women were much less likely than men to enter rural practice. Medical schools varied greatly in the percentage of their graduates who entered rural practice, ranging from 41.2% to 2.3% of the graduating classes studied. Twelve medical schools accounted for over one quarter of the physicians entering rural practice in this time period. Four variables were strongly associated with a tendency to produce rural graduates: location in a rural state, public ownership, production of family physicians, and smaller amounts of funding from the National Institutes of Health. Discussion. —The organization, location, and mission of medical schools is closely related to the propensity of their graduates to select rural practice. Increasing policy coordination among medical schools and state and federal governmental entities would most effectively address residual problems of rural physician shortages. (JAMA. 1992;268:1559-1565)

Rural Livelihoods: Crises and Responses

Abstract: This book is concerned with the question of how people in developing countries survive, and how their lives have been affected by the great changes since the Second World War. Throughout large parts of the developing world rural livelihoods are in crisis. Even in those parts of the third world where there has been growth of food output, that growth has rarely been translated into a commensurate expansion of livelihoods. Frequently, both economic stagnation and economic growth are translated into suffering for those who live in the countryside. Many people are aware that there is a crisis of livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa, but the understanding of that crisis rarely transcends simple conceptions of food or environmental crisis or the inadequacy of states: the ubiquity of crisis is rarely comprehended. This book addresses the pressing question of rural poverty. It examines the diverse human implications of rural change, the various crises of rural livelihoods which arise from change, and the survival strategies of individuals and households. It describes the great processes of agrarian transformation which have fundamentally altered rural livelihoods in developing countries and identifies some of the dilemmas for public action which arise from agrarian transformation and the crises of rural livelihoods. The contributors draw upon a range of disciplinary approaches to the subject, including anthropology, sociology, economics, political economy, agricultural science, and development studies.

Rural poverty, urban poverty, and psychological well-being

Abstract: Data from the National Survey of Families and Households are used to compare the psychological well-being of the rural and urban poor. Overall, the urban poor are higher in perceived health than the rural poor, although no differences are apparent in happiness or depression. Significant interactions are present between rural/urban poverty and sex, race, and family status. The psychological well-being of poor African Americans is higher in rural than urban areas, whereas the well-being of poor whites is higher in urban than rural areas. This trend is especially pronounced for depression among males. In addition, single men without children have especially high depression scores in rural areas, whereas married women without children have especially low depression scores in urban areas. The results are interpreted in terms of the environmental quality of inner-city neighborhoods and attitudes toward poverty in urban and rural communities.

The Country and the City on the Copperbelt

Abstract: Themes of rurality, or "the country," have often provided powerful metaphors for the construction of indigenous critiques of urban, capitalist, industrial encroachments. In a variety of settings, notions of "the country" as natural, pure, authentic, or whole have provided powerful alternative moral images to be contrasted with urban realities conceived as artificial, immoral, corrupt, and anomic. Thus, Raymond Williams (1973) has explored the way in which concepts of country and city in England over the centuries have provided central tropes for conceptualizing the social and economic changes associated with capitalist industrialization. In the same spirit, John and Jean Comaroff (1987) have shown in their work on the Tshidi of South Africa how, where historical consciousness is not formulated according to the conventions of "narrative realism," a set of dualistic contrasts involving notions of inside versus outside, work versus labor, and rural versus urban has provided an implicit critical commentary on the exploitative system of migrant wage labor. Part I of this article will show how constructions of "the country" in Zambia have been contrasted with urban ills in similar ways, both by localist workers with strong links to rural areas, and by more cosmopolitan urbanites during the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s. Part II, however, will go on to show how such critiques of contrast tended to give way in the late 1970s and 1980s to a more inwardly directed critique that located the blame for urban ills in the supposed "selfishness" of Zambians. Part III explores some of the connections between a changing political-economic situation and these changes in styles of critical apprehension of urban ills. It argues that the shift in styles of critique is linked to changes in ideas of "the country" that have come about through political-economic shifts, as urban dwellers' life trajectories have increasingly been brought into conflict with places long imagined and idealized from a certain distance.

Seroepidemiología de la enfermedad de Chagas en México

Abstract: The lack of information about Chagas disease in Mexico, as well as the controversy concerning its importance, was the basis for the seroprevalence study of Trypanosoma cruzi in the National Seroepidemiology Survey (NSS). This information was representative of the national situation with regard to disease prevalences and other factors related to the nation's health. Unfortunately the NSS was not a very good information source for the study of trypanosomiasis americana, because its coverage in the disperse rural areas was poor. Nevertheless, the results of the NSS indicated that Chagas disease has an irregular distribution in Mexico with seroprevalences of 1.6, 0.5 and 0.2 for the different dilution levels used in the evaluation. The survey data showed Chagas disease to be less important than that mentioned by other authors. The NSS data confirmed the areas of disease transmission already reported and identified some new ones in Hidalgo, Chiapas and Veracruz. The survey also detected migratory workers with Chagas antibodies in Baja California border cities, a situation which indicates a risk for blood transfusion in areas of the country presumed to be free of the disease. Three quarters (74.5%) of the seropositive population were less than 39 years old. Moreover, the fact that children of less than four years were infected suggests that natural transmission is still very important in some areas. Although the seroprevalences were greater in the lower socio-economic groups, some persons of the higher socio-economic level were also affected. This situation may be explained by the fact that many of these persons own vacation homes in tropical areas.

The rural non-farm economy : processes and policies

Abstract: This book provides an analytical framework for studying the rural non-farm economy (RNFE) in developing countries, as well as a detailed analysis of rural inequalities and agrarian differentiation, demand constraints in the RNFE, and successes and failures of targeted programmes. The book uses examples - mainly from Asia - to challenge the received ideas and attempts to cast the discussion in a wider context.

High School Size and Student Indiscipline: Another Aspect of the School Consolidation Issue?

Abstract: School consolidation is again an issue in rural areas. Traditionally, such controversies have turned on criteria of equity and efficiency: Large schools are alleged to be more equitable and more efficient than small ones. However, the research on both criteria is exceedingly ambiguous; neither goal seems to be routinely served by making small rural schools larger. This article investigates another possible criterion for judging the desirability of creating larger schools, student indiscipline. Both theory and evidence suggest that large schools are more disorderly than small ones. Using data from a nationally representative sample of high schools, this study suggests that creating larger institutions will increase student misbehavior. However, the increase experienced by small rural high schools—those most at risk of consolidation—will border the trivial. Thus, indiscipline provides no less ambiguous a criterion for deciding consolidation issues than does equity or efficiency. Arguably, when “technical” c...

Rural Poverty in America

Abstract: Foreword by Susan E. Sechler Introduction: Poverty in Rural America by Cynthia M. Duncan and Stephen Sweet The Dynamics of Poverty and Mobility in Rural America Overview of the Rural Poor in the 1980s by Kenneth L. Deavers and Robert A. Hoppe The Growing Problem of Low Earnings in Rural Areas by Lucy Gorham The Working Poor in Rural Labor Markets: The Example of the Southeastern United States by Ann R. Tickmayer Long-Term Poverty in Rural Areas by Terry K. Adams and Greg J. Duncan Poor People and Poor Places Race, Gender, and Poverty in the Rural South: African American Single Mothers by Bonnie Thornton Dill and Bruce B. Williams Persistent Poverty in Appalachia: Scarce Work and Rigid Stratification by Cynthia M. Duncan Migrant Farm Workers by Doris P. Slesinger and Max J. Pfeffer American Indians and Economic Poverty by C. Matthew Snipp and Gene F. Summers Rural Poverty in the Northeast: The Case of Upstate New York by Janet M. Fitchen The New Poor in Midwestern Farming Communities by Cornelia Butler Flora Policies for the Rural Poor Modernization and the Rural Poor: Some Lessons from History by Alice O'Connor Empowerment and Rural Poverty by Steve Suitts Policies to Alleviate Rural Poverty by Robert Greenstein and Isaac Shapiro References Index

Population growth, internal migration, and environmental degradation in rural areas of developing countries.

Abstract: This paper examines possible relationships between demographic processes and the environment in rural areas in developing countries. Evidence is reviewed on increasing degradation in the forms of deforestation (of highland forests as well as lowland forests), soil erosion and soil desiccation. The conceptual framework considers changes in demographics as well as economic behaviour being induced by population growth and increasing pressures upon the land, but the focus here is on economic changes in the form of land extensification—often involving internal migration—and land intenstification. Despite data problems, the expected relationships are observed: countries with higher rural population growth tend to have larger increases in the arable land area and associated deforestation, but the intensification effects appear stronger. The paper concludes with implications for policy and further research.

Psychological traits of rural entrepreneurs

Abstract: This research focused on differences between rural and urban entrepreneurs. It replicates and extends a study of New England managers using data from 926 firms in rural North Florida. Probit and ordered probit models were used to analyze data. Entrepreneurial status and measures of firm performance were related to psychological traits. Type A behavior, need for achievement, ascendancy, emotional stability, and personal relations were the traits which differentiated founders and nonfounders. No major differences in psychological traits were found between rural and urban managers. Thus, psychological traits do not seem to pose constraints on expansion of entrepreneurship in rural areas.

Multicriteria Programming of Water Supply Systems for Rural Areas

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to present a multicriteria methodology for decision aid at the stage of programming a water supply system (WSS) for a rural area. The programming stage is an intermediate one between planning and designing water supply facilities, and can be decomposed into two problems: (a) setting up a priority order of water users, taking into account socio-economic criteria; and (b) choosing the best technical variant of the WSS. Among the criteria considered for the latter problem, there is a criterion of distance between the socio-economic priorities of users and the precedence orders of users according to the technical programming, which plays a coordinating role between problems (a) and (b). All steps of the presented methodology are illustrated by a real case study.

Rural Europe: Identity and Change

Abstract: National and international dimensions of rural transformation the rural mosaic - diversity in rural Europe rural traditions in Europe internationalism and uniformity economic globalization and rural transformation uneven development and social change environmental change in rural areas.

Profits, community role, and hospital closure: an urban and rural analysis.

Abstract: The number of hospital closures increased substantially after the implementation of Medicare's Prospective Payment System (PPS). This acceleration in closures raised a number of concerns over current payment policies and their impact on access. This paper investigates hospital closures that occurred in 1985 through 1988. A hospital's financial status and mission or community standing were found to be determinants of hospital closure. Closed hospitals are much less likely to be publicly owned but more likely to offer fewer facilities and services, and have fewer cases. This may suggest that the patients directly affected by the closure can be absorbed by other hospitals or other nonhospital providers. Profitability is associated with the Medicare case-mix index and the share of Medicare patients. The findings also suggest that the case mix index may be rewarding some small hospitals in excess of the costs attributable to case-mix. For both urban and rural hospitals, a low share of Medicare patients increased the risk of hospital closure, independently of the relationship between Medicare share and profit. The share of Medicare patients also affected closure indirectly, through its effects on profit. Competition appears to affect the odds of closure through its effects on the number of cases. In addition, hospitals in areas with small or declining population are more at risk than other hospitals in both urban and rural areas.

Electronic Byways: State Policies for Rural Development Through Telecommunications

Abstract: Executive summary goals and recommendations rural America in the global economy state telecommunications players and policies rural development players - state and local initiatives local perspectives on telecommunications and development - four community studies rural telecommunications and economic development in Washington state - a case study telecommunications and rural development - quantitative analyses building electronic byways - goals and recommendations.

A rural advantage: urban rural health differences in northern England.

Abstract: Rural health inequalities have been relatively neglected in recent years. The data assembled for a large study of health and deprivation in the Northern Region of England have been reanalysed to examine three questions. How wide are rural health inequalities compared with those in urban areas? Is health intrinsically better in rural areas, given comparable deprivation or affluence? Is the association between health and wealth weaker in rural than in urban areas? It is shown that, although health inequalities are wider in urban areas, this corresponds to wider socio-economic divisions: at equivalent levels of wealth, health measures are similar. This relationship breaks down, however, when the most remote rural areas are compared with matching localities in conurbations, for in this case rural areas have a clear advantage. We go on to show that the apparent weakness of the association between health and wealth in rural areas is largely an artefact; the association becomes stronger when the units of population (electoral wards) are enlarged to resemble more closely those in urban contexts. The comparability of rural and urban forms of deprivation is discussed in the light of these results.

Rural poverty, migration, and the environment in developing countries : three case studies

Abstract: The author presents three case studies (of the links between highlands and lowlands in Latin America; transmigration in Indonesia; and migration and desertification in the Sudan) to illustrate the relationship between poverty, internal migration, and environmental change in rural areas of developing countries. Policies to deal with the problems of environmental degradation in areas that are destinations for migrants would usually include: preparation of a detailed national inventory of land and water resources, and a land-use plan to protect biologically important or fragile areas and direct new agricultural settlements elsewhere; coordination of this plan with the construction of roads; better coordination across government agencies in the development and implementation of policies related to land use; reduction of population growth, a driving force behind decisions to migrate; improving land use in traditional areas of settlement, to reduce both overuse and underuse of land; development of a system of land tenure that provides land users with incentives to maintain productivity; environmental education programs (in schools and for farmers) to create a national environmental consciousness and more appreciation for the country's natural assets and beauty; new, appropriate systems of data collection and analysis, to help clarify underlying processes and develop more refined, appropriate; and broad-based macroeconomic policies. These policies will be aimed at improving incomes in rural areas, relative to urban areas - aimed at reduced poverty, environmental degradation, and rural outmigration.

Differences in fracture pattern between an urban and a rural population: a comparative population-based study in southern Sweden.

Abstract: Differences in the incidence of hip fractures have been reported between urban and rural areas. In this population-based study the characteristics of fracture patterns between the city of Malmo and the nearby rural district of Sjobo were compared. A total of 782 individuals in Malmo and 486 in Sjobo were invited to participate. Fracture history for all invited was registered. The odds ratio for fracture was higher in Malmo, particularly for women over 70. More than half of the urban women aged 70 had a history of a fracture. A fourfold increase in fracture prevalence between the ages of 60 and 70 was observed in women in Malmo, whereas the prevalence doubled in Sjobo. The differences in fracture patterns between these two urban and rural communities may be explained by different lifestyles.

Educational Attainment in the United States: March 1991 and 1990.

Abstract: This report contains data on the educational attainment of persons in the United States from the Current Population Surveys (CPS) conducted by the Bureau of the Census in March 1992 and 1993. Summary data on educational attainment by age sex race and Hispanic origin are shown for 1992 and 1993.... (EXCERPT)