About the author: Dr Uthman Olalekan works with the Center for Evidence-based Global Health, a non profit sharing educational and research organization. Research interests include evidence-based medicine, bibliometric analysis, public health nutrition, and demography and population health. Olalekan is also fellow of South African Cochrane Centre / Nuffield Commonwealth Reviews for Africa Progra...

The conventional biomedical concept of the “human subject” is out of step with World Health Organization’s (WHO) holistic definition of health. The “human subject” in international and national research-ethics policies is a highly individualistic, autonomous person, in contrast to WHO’s holistic definition of the healthy person. Qualitative research, this paper suggests, offers a way out of thi...

With the support of the international women's movement, the ideology and methods of traditional population policy were effectively attacked at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). The author discusses some of the complaints about population policy and family planning programs, then considers the substantive, ethical, and feasibility issues of population and r...

Many believe that the welfare state undermines productivity, economic growth and development; that the United States has an unusually small welfare state; and finally that the United States is and always has been a welfare state laggard. This paper shows that all three propositions are false when one includes education along with cash benefits and health care support as part of the welfare stat...

Though many studies have suggested that social and behavioral skills play a central role in gender stratification processes, we know little about the extent to which these skills affect gender gaps in academic achievement. Analyzing data from the Early Child Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort, we demonstrate that social and behavioral skills have substantively important effects on academic ...

Every year, millions of pounds of toxic chemicals thought to be linked to developmental problems in fetuses and young children are released into the air. In this paper we estimate the effect of these releases on the health of newborns. Using data from the Toxic Release Inventory Program and Vital Statistics Natality and Mortality files, we find significant negative effects of prenatal exposure ...

The Mt. Graham red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus grahamensis; MGRS) is among the most critically endangered mammals in the United States and is isolated on the periphery of the species’ range, potentially increasing its conservation priority. To investigate potential threats to the population and provide a tool for land managers, we developed a spatially explicit population dynamics model. ...

Joan L. McGregor T he genetic revolution is well underway, with genetic research and knowledge expanding at an exponential rate. Much of the new genetics research is focused on population groups, and proponents of “population genomics” argue that such studies are necessary since genetic “variation” among human populations holds the most promise for technological innovations that can improve hum...