JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. University of Wisconsin Press andThe Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Human Resources. ABSTRACTThis study investigates the socioeconomic determinants of adult illhealth in developing countries. We use as measures of health, selfreported general health plus a variety of measures of problems in physical functioning. We begin by comparing measures of adult ill-health in four countries: Bangladesh, Jamaica, Malaysia, and the United States, finding that women report more problems and at earlier ages than do men; this despite the greater longevity of women. We examine the sensi-John Strauss is as professor of economics at Michigan State University, Paul J. Gertler and Omar Rahman are researchers at the RAND Corporation, and Kristin Fox is a researcher in the Jamaican Ministry of Health. This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 18:52:05 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 792 The Journal of Human Resources tivity of these gender differentials to mortality selection andfind that while accounting for this does cut down the differentials, they remain.We discuss potential reasons for these findings and then examine the Jamaican data in more detail. We formulate and estimate a reduced form economic model, focusing on the effects of education. We find strong positive effects of own education on health, mirroring results commonly found in the child health literature. At older ages, however, the education differential disappears. Per capita household expenditure, treated as endogenous, is added to the model to attempt to control for long-run income. It is not found to affect adult female health, but limited evidence is found for an effect on males. Strong residential effects exist, although the factors behind them remain to be investigated. Our most robust finding is that even controlling for socioeconomic covariates, strong life-cycle effects exist and are different for men and women. Controlling for these factors, women still report more health problems at earlier ages than do men. I. IntroductionAdult health is becoming an issue of increasing importance in developing countries. Population structures are beginning to age in many Asian, Caribbean and Latin American countries as a result of large fertility declines and longer life expectancies (Kinsella 1988). The health status of adults is of great importance both because there are direct productivity losses (World Bank 1991), potentially large indirect costs (Over et al., 1992) and because adult ill-health can place large demands on already stretched health systems. In particular treating the health p...

BackgroundChildhood overweight is not restricted to developed countries: a number of lower- and middle-income countries are struggling with the double burden of underweight and overweight. Another public health problem that concerns both developing and, to a lesser extent, developed countries is food insecurity. This study presents a comparative gender-based analysis of the association between household food insecurity and overweight among 10-to-11-year-old children living in the Canadian province of Québec and in the country of Jamaica.MethodsAnalyses were performed using data from the 2008 round of the Québec Longitudinal Study of Child Development and the Jamaica Youth Risk and Resiliency Behaviour Survey of 2007. Cross-sectional data were obtained from 1190 10-year old children in Québec and 1674 10-11-year-old children in Jamaica. Body mass index was derived using anthropometric measurements and overweight was defined using Cole's age- and sex-specific criteria. Questionnaires were used to collect data on food insecurity. The associations were examined using chi-square tests and multivariate regression models were used to estimate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals.ResultsThe prevalence of overweight was 26% and 11% (p < 0.001) in the Québec and Jamaican samples, respectively. In Québec, the adjusted odds ratio for being overweight was 3.03 (95% CI: 1.8-5.0) among children living in food-insecure households, in comparison to children living in food-secure households. Furthermore, girls who lived in food-insecure households had odds of 4.99 (95% CI: 2.4-10.5) for being overweight in comparison to girls who lived in food-secure households; no such differences were observed among boys. In Jamaica, children who lived in food-insecure households had significantly lower odds (OR 0.65, 95% CI: 0.4-0.9) for being overweight in comparison to children living in food-secure households. No gender differences were observed in the relationship between food-insecurity and overweight/obesity among Jamaican children.ConclusionsPublic health interventions which aim to stem the epidemic of overweight/obesity should consider gender differences and other family factors associated with overweight/obesity in both developed and developing countries.

Objectives. This article reports the prevalence of two types of interpersonal violence (IPV) (sexual and physical) and one type of aggression (psychological) in three low-to-middle-income ABSTRACTBased on recent studies of violence and injury reporting high and rising rates of morbidity and mortality as well as high associated economic costs, violence and injury must now be seen as a major public health problem (1-3), especially in the Caribbean (4-6). In addition, there is growing evidence

This article uses data from the United States, Jamaica, Malaysia, and Bangladesh to explore gender differences in adult health. The results show that women fare worse than men across a variety of self-reported health measures in all four countries studies. These health status disparities between men and women persist even after appropriate corrections are made for the impact of (a) differential mortality selection by gender and (b) sociodemographic factors. Data from Jamaica indicate that gender disparities in adult health arise early and persist throughout the life cycle, with different age profiles for different measures.

To improve vital registration, institutions should become registration centres for all vital events occurring there (births, stillbirths, deaths). Recommendations aimed at modernizing the vital registration system in Jamaica and other developing countries are also made.