International Comparisons Of Levels Research Articles

Sexually Transmitted Diseases among Adolescents in Developed Countries

Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are responsible for a variety of health problems, and can have especially serious consequences for adolescents and young adults. An international comparison of levels and trends in STDs would be useful to identify countries that are relatively successful in controlling the incidence of STDs, as a first step toward improving policies and programs in countries with high or growing STD incidence. Incidence data for the past decade on three common bacterial STDs--syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia--were obtained for as many as 16 developed countries from official statistics, published national sources or scientific articles, and unpublished government data. Rates of incidence per 100,000 were calculated for adolescents, for young adults and for the total population. (These estimates should be considered conservative, because STDs commonly are underreported.) The incidence of these three STDs has generally decreased over the last decade, both in the general population and among adolescents. However, the Russian Federation is an important exception: Syphilis has risen dramatically in the 1990s. Except in the Russian Federation and Romania, the syphilis rate in the mid-1990s was quite low, with rates of less than seven reported cases per 100,000 teenagers in most developed countries. Gonorrhea incidence is many times higher than that of syphilis in several countries, and this disease disproportionately affects adolescents and young adults. Gonorrhea rates among adolescents can be as high as 600 per 100,000 (in the Russian Federation and the United States), although in many countries the reported rate among teenagers is below 10 per 100,000. In all countries with good reporting, chlamydia incidence is extremely high among adolescents (between 563 and 1,081 cases per 100,000). The reported incidence of all three STDs is generally higher among female teenagers than among males of the same age; this is especially true for chlamydia. Prevention programs, active screening strategies and better access to STD diagnosis and treatment services, especially for adolescents and young adults, are necessary to reduce the incidence and the burden of STDs among young people.

Manufacturing Productivity Levels in France and the United Kingdom

International comparisons of levels of labour productivity are rare in the field of productivity analysis. In the case of Anglo-French comparisons, for example, it has already been widely established that the French economy was more slowly transformed from an agricultural economy into an industrial society than the United Kingdom; and that since the last world war manufacturing output has increased much faster in France than in Britain. The aim of the present study is to complement previous comparisons of growth rates of manufacturing productivity in Britain and France with estimates of the current differences in the levels of output per person-hour worked in a dozen branches which constitute the manufacturing sector.

Growth Rates of the Social Product and Social Labor Productivity

The basic economic task — to overtake and surpass the main capitalist countries in terms of volume of per capita production — cannot be achieved unless the USSR closes the gap between itself and the U.S. as regards social labor productivity. This demonstrates the necessity and importance of international comparisons of levels and growth rates of labor productivity.