BACKGROUND Violence is an important health problem for pregnant women, with numerous studies showing that it may compromise maternal and infant health. Many women who seek an elective abortion (EA) live in difficult personal and social circumstances, in which violence often has a central role, yet few studies have analyzed the relationships between violence and having an EA. OBJECTIVES To ana...

Marital quality is an important factor for understanding the relationship between marriage and health. Low-quality relationships may not have the same health benefits as high-quality relationships. To understand the association between marital quality and health, we examined associations between two indicators of marital quality (marital support and marital strain) and two biomarkers of inflamm...

This article asks whether blogging in the United Kingdom, which started later than in the United States, reproduces the gender differences in blogging behavior and the gender inequalities in recognition that have been observed in studies based largely on U.S. bloggers. A sample of 48 female and male British bloggers answered a questionnaire about their blogging practices and attitudes; data wer...

BACKGROUND The reasons for low utilisation of maternal health services in settings where the user-fee removal policy has been implemented continue to generate scholarly debates. Evidence of whether user-fee removal benefits the poor women in underserved settings is scanty and inconsistent. This article examines use of maternal health care services in the context of free maternal healthcare and ...

This prospective study examines the impact of four posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom clusters (hyperarousal, reexperiencing, numbing, and avoidance) on reabuse over 1 year among women exposed to intimate partner violence (IPV). The covariates include severity of IPV, a history of childhood violence, and characteristics of the abusive relationship. Although both hyperarousal and numbi...

BACKGROUND Despite the significant proportion of young people residing in slum communities, little attention has been paid to the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) challenges they face during their transition to adulthood within this harsh environment. Little is known about the extent to which living in extreme environments, like slums, impact SRH outcomes, especially during this key develop...

BACKGROUND Tobacco is a leading cause of avoidable death in Russia but there is, as yet, relatively little information in the public domain on who is smoking and how this is changing. This information is important for those seeking to develop effective policies to tackle this issue. OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence of smoking in Russia and its association with sociodemographic factors. ...