Population Education Programs Research Articles

A Study on Development of E-learning Population Education Program in Response to Low Birthrate and Aging Society

A Study on Development of E-learning Population Education Program in Response to Low Birthrate and Aging Society

The Effect of State Policies on Organ Donation and Transplantation in the United States.

Shortages in transplantable solid organs remain a critical public health challenge in the United States. During the past 2 decades, all states have implemented policies to increase organ supply, although their effectiveness is unknown. To determine the effects on organ donation and transplantation rates of state policies to provide incentives for volunteer donation. Using a quasi-experimental design and difference-in-differences regression analyses, we estimated the effect of policies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia on organ donors per capita and the number of transplantations from January 1, 1988, to December 31, 2010. Analyses were also stratified by type of donor (living vs deceased). Data were derived from the United Network for Organ Sharing. All data collection occurred between July 7 and September 27, 2013. Policies of interest were the presence of first-person consent laws, donor registries, dedicated revenue streams for donor recruitment activities, population education programs, paid leave for donation, and tax incentives. Information on states' passage of various policies was obtained from primary legislative and legal sources. The number of organ donors and transplantations per state, per year, during the study period. From 1988 to 2010, the number of states passing at least 1 donation-related policy increased from 7 (14%) to 50 (100%). First-person consent laws, donor registries, public education, paid leave, and tax incentives had no robust, significant association with either donation rates or number of transplants. The establishment of revenue policies, in which individuals contribute to a protected state fund for donation promotion activities, was associated with a 5.3% increase in the absolute number of transplants (95% CI, 0.57%-10.1%; P = .03). These associations were driven by a 4.9% increase in organ donations (95% CI, 0.97%-8.7%; P = .01) and an 8.0% increase in transplants (95% CI, 3.1%-12.9%; P = .001) from deceased donors as opposed to changes among living donors or transplants from living donors. Nearly all state-level policies to encourage organ donation have had no observable effect on the rate of organ donation and transplantation in the United States. The one exception was the establishment of revenue policies to promote organ donation, which may have led to small increases in organ donations and transplantations from deceased donors. New policy designs are needed to increase donation rates and curtail the widening gap between organ supply and demand.

PREVENCIJA KARDIOVASKULARNIH OBOLJENJA

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) shorten average human life for 10 years. In total mortality rate they occupy the top of the list. According to the researches during the last decade, number of patients with CVD will continue to increase mainly due to obesity raise and increase in number of patients suffering from diabetes mellitus. At the same time in CVD prevention presence of all risk factors is taken into consideration since they potentiate one another and significantly increase risk for CV event. Population and high-risk preventive strategies should be complementary; an approach limited to high-risk persons will be less effective; population education programs are still needed.In both strategies, the goal is reduction of risk for occurrence of fatal CVD event. If the goal cannot be reached by reduction of one risk factor, risk for fatal CVD can be reduced by acting upon other risk factors more intensively. We should always consider modification of lifestyle since there is no adequate CVD prevention without it regardless application of various medicines.

The Effect of Population Education Program on Values of Marriage, Childbearing and Gender Equality among Unmarried Youth

The Effect of Population Education Program on Values of Marriage, Childbearing and Gender Equality among Unmarried Youth

Women and education: a crucial equation for human development in Africa

Population education programs in Africa are specific to each country yet have important common characteristics. Concern with safeguarding positive cultural traditions and moral values and an essential objective of improving quality of life for individuals and societies are shared by many different programs. The idea of responsible parenthood often touched on in the context of larger programs of "population and development" or "economic development and quality of life" calls for relating family size to prospects of economic development rather than limiting families to small sizes dictated by available family resources. Small families are seen not as a panacea but as a favoring factor within development policies. Smaller families are viewed as facilitating education of children and protecting family health through avoidance of early and closely spaced pregnancies. Rehabilitation of family values modernization of means of production and increasing educational levels and marriage ages are considered necessary steps in reduction of family sizes and improving quality of life. Fertility per se receives less priority in population education programs and when the issue is raised it is usually related to mortality or womans status. The value attached to children in traditional African societies and their importance to female status limits receptivity to messages focusing exclusively on reducing family size. Most of the programs also place little emphasis on family size in relation to management of family resources partly because of the continued importance of the extended family. Women occupy the most important place in population education programs because of their role in assuring family health protecting the environment educating children and in production and also because of their increasing marginalization in distribution of the benefits of growth. Educational activity is directed toward explaining the current status of women as resulting from sociocultural and religious prejudices which relegate women to an inferior position. The well being of women and their social promotion are essential conditions for family welfare. Womens role in family life and comparative analysis of the responsibilities of women and men and encouragement of birth spacing through family planning are emphasized with a view toward improving their conditions of existence and promoting their participation in development. Population education programs usually consider women;s marital status and condition in traditional society to be prejudicial to their progress but positive aspects of their socially recognized traditional status are usually omitted as are discussions of the negative impact on womens status and condition of the market economy. it is striking that a critical spirit is shown only in regard to traditional factors and not to the values imported from more developed countries.

Initiatives and resistances in the Arab states

The first sign of interest in population education in the Arab world was the 1974 creation of a Population and Environmental Education Unit in Egypts Ministry of Education. Population education has since been introduced in Tunisia Morocco Sudan Syria and Yemen and is planned for Jordan. The Arab countries regard population education as a contribution to the solution of problems arising from higher rates of population growth and urbanization which exceed rates of economic growth and the ability of cities to absorb rural migrants. Resistance to the introduction of formal or informal population education is insignificant or nonexistent in the Arab countries with declared population policies. In other countries such as Jordan in the early 1980s there has been some resistance. But prospects of peace in the Middle East and an unfavorable economic context aggravated by the return of hundreds of thousands of foreign workers led to a reassessment of attitudes toward population problems in Jordan and of the need for government intervention in the search for solutions. The Arab countries with population education programs have opted to include the material in existing subject areas rather than to create separate courses. The integration of population education concepts into the curriculum and the teaching materials should occur at the same time as initial and continuing training of teachers in the new subject matter. Integration of population education should be initiated at propitious moments such as educational reforms or program revisions. The units within the Ministry of Education that administer population education in the Arab countries generally consist of 3-5 educators working full or part time. Such units may specialize in population education or they may include population education within broader programs such as primary or secondary education. Population education programs in Arab countries have survived despite initial opposition and resistance because their incorporation of new teaching techniques has won support because of the personal prestige of some of the directors of population education projects and because of the involvement of religious leaders in population education training programs. Population education has been introduced in almost all Arab countries with population problems and program performance has generally been satisfactory. However some projects display weaknesses. The absence of specific institutional structures for population education may leave programs vulnerable when external financing is terminated. The mobility of personnel is another problem.

The politician's point of view

The politician's point of view refers to studies which prove that neither a socio-economic development plan which ignores population questions, nor population education in isolation, can succeed. Educated people tend to have fewer children and to provide better education for them, while girls marrying before the age of 20 have little hope of continuing education and are subject to other social pressures. Examples are given from population education programs in Egypt.

Initiatives and resistances in English-speaking African countries.

In 1989 there were 10 English-speaking African countries plus Mozambique with on-going population education programs within the school system. 7 other countries had programs in the planning stages. School programs were preceded after out-of-school and informal programs of the 1970s. Countries have designed population education in their own terms. The generalized goals of population education for the region were to expand awareness of population-related issues and problems; to develop skills values and attitudes which will enable people to make rational and timely decisions; and to behave in meaningful and socially desirable ways and improve the quality of human life. Population education has been accepted in most education curriculum in African countries but fertility regulation in an action program is limited to a few countries. Although attention has been directed to mortality teen pregnancy drug use and AIDS there has been little discussion of the status of women child labor and female circumcision. Family-life education and population have been linked because of the acceptability of the term and the reality that the family is the basic unit of society. Anglophone African strategies have encompassed a central location for the population program within government a pilot phase an integration into other subjects a life-long approach and community participation; each of the aforementioned topics is discussed. Constraints in program design and implementation were identified as the lack of political support; the absence of a firm and consistent policy; the perceived conflict between population education and cultural values; the limited sporadic financial support; the shortage of resources; poor attention to the importance of horizontal and vertical information transmission; and lack of coordination between agencies with population education programs. Future needs are for program expansion and a focus on groups at-risk prominent policy support at the decision-making level and teacher-training. Curriculum must be renewed periodically with a focus on its appropriateness for adolescents. Adolescent sexuality contraception and the spread of AIDS must be addressed both formally and informally for those who are illiterate. Sustainability requires institutionalizing population education within the ministry of education with a stable budget and staff.

The case of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Population education programs in Latin America and the Caribbean are traced from their first inception around 1970 and express the diversity of strategies that would be appropriate to the variety of cultures development styles climates and geography. In the early 1970s this region had the highest growth rates in the world. The thinking embodied the notion that large populations were a sign of progress and geopolitical power; size was relevant only to the physical space available. The connections between population and economic development were not being made explicitly in policy or sectoral planning. There was some contention surrounding urban growth and the ability to meet the needs and the imbalance in the age structure. Initially educational sectors did not take population into accounting; international agencies were responsible for promoting attention to demographics. It was the medical profession that mobilized the education sector to start sex and family education due to the increasing number of abortions and their consequences. By 1974 education departments were engaged in curricula that included sex and family life issues in teacher education and training staff to implement these programs. The demographic situation has changed over the past 20 years and not includes reduced mortality and the beginning of fertility decline. Growth rates are now 1.9% annually compared with 2.8% in 1970 and population increases by 9 million/year. Population education is described in terms of styles motivations human resources administrative awareness teacher training training strategies and research needs and future management. Population education has advanced but the need is still there to reduce fertility among large numbers of people who "leave procreation to chance and fate." Education serves the purpose of changing values attitudes and knowledge that entails a different view of the value of children the relations between the sexes and the adoption and practice of effective birth control. Education has already been shown to be effective in reducing infant mortality. The challenge ahead is to educate the poorer social and economic classes and Indian groups that lack knowledge of preventive hygiene and believe fatalistically that deaths are natural and unavoidable. Development models must accommodate population issues.

Population education in the USA.

By the late 1960s universities and private organizations began to develop population education programs and courses in the wake of the warning of demographer Philip M. Hauser about the lack of demographic information in the school curriculum. In the early 1970s the US Department of Health Education and Welfare provided limited funding for teacher training workshops and classroom materials. Baltimore Citys district wide population education program proved successful in 1975 after 10 years of work population education materials were adopted in the official social studies curriculum and this model was accepted later by other school systems. In 1979 not quite 15 US colleges and universities taught population issues at graduate-level training or by offering workshops and materials. By the mid-1970s universities and private organizations were conducting conferences and workshops for secondary school teachers. In the 1970s these included the Center for Information on America. Environment-Population Education Services Planned Parenthood Population Institute Population Reference Bureau (PRB) the World Bank and Zero Population Growth (ZPG). In the 1970s and early 1980s various other organizations contributed to population educations e.g. the University of Cincinnati by organizing institutes the National Catholic Educational Association representing 8200 schools ZPG with teacher-training workshops and PRB with meaningful materials for students and teachers. The state of population education in 1992 means that PRB staff lead 15-30 workshops each year and provide workshop materials for teachers. ZPG emphasizes hands-on learning. Pet Net a network of volunteer teacher trainers leading workshops and ZPG staff conducted 88 workshops in 1991.

Resistances et initiatives a Madagascar

Despite Madagascars recognition of the importance of population education in changing fertility attitudes and behaviors as a step toward achieving development population education in the country faces cultural political and institutional resistance typical of Africa. Culturally population education is offered in the context of a traditional educational system with a populationist ideology that favors uncontrolled fertility. Taboos concerning sexuality inhibit discussion of family planning. Loss of continuity in program development due to the frequent changes of government is a political obstacle to population education. Institutionally the schools are by nature stable and homeostatic offering resistance to innovations. Many teachers and administrators feel that topics included in population education such as sexuality and human reproduction are inappropriate for children. The objectives and techniques of population education involving group work nondirective educational techniques and other innovations designed to encourage changes in attitudes and behaviors are contradictory to the goals of teachers and administrators who seek to impose obedience regularity and discipline. Teachers in Madagascar typically have large classes and little time for lesson preparation. Few resources are available to provide the preliminary training that population education instructors need. An organizational structure responsible for implementing population education was formed as a first step in gaining official support. The 3-part organization included representatives of all the major geographic regions and categories of educational personnel. A permanent full time technical team was recruited from the staff of the Ministry of Public Education a scientific resource group comprised of experts in fields related to population education was assembled and a group of collaborating teachers was formed to participate in training trainers assist in testing new educational materials and promote population education. The Association for the Promotion of Population Education in Madagascar has attempted to establish groups in the 112 subprefectures. Respect for the sociocultural values of the diverse ethnic groups in Madagascar is a guiding principle in determination of program content. The traditional desire for a large family as a sign of respect for the ancestors is examined in the light of current economic and demographic realities. Involvement of parents teachers and local officials in population education seminars counters the perception of population education as externally imposed. The cooperation of teachers is sought by involving them in program development and by assuring them that their autonomy will not be threatened by the new teaching approach to population education. The population education program seeks to cooperate with other development programs to maximize impact and minimize competition for scarce resources.

Population Education, Some Comparative Perspectives: Singapore, Sri Lanka and Indonesia

The study objective is to analyze in comparative perspectives the policies issues and problems associated with the implementation of population education programs in Sri Lanka Singapore and Indonesia. A comparison of population policies of the 3 countries revealed a close similarity between Indonesia and Sri Lanka which is not necessarily discernible in Singapore. In both of the former countries there has been a gradual conversion to the acceptance of progressive family planning attitudes over a number of years but government policies have often been inconsistent and at times contradictory. Sometimes such inconsistencies have been inevitably a function of political influence. Singapore has been the most receptive to modernizing influences and was the first to accept population control as a way of life. In formulating a population education policy Sri Lanka has closely followed the concept formulated at the Asian Regional Workshop on Population Education which defined population education as an educational program which provides for a study of the population situation in the family community nation and world. The Sri Lanka program talks about making decisions by means of an informed and reasoned process but it fails to spell out the steps through which such concepts or skills would be introduced and taught to the students. A main objective of Singapores population education program is to impress upon students the need for the acceptance of the small family norm. Unlike Sri Lanka Singapores Family Planning and Population Board and the Ministry of Education are jointly involved in promoting population education. The Indonesian to population education is neither vague like the Sri Lanka program nor highly prescriptive as is Singapores approach. The primary purpose of the Indonesian program is to create an awareness to provide knowledge and to develop responsible attitudes and behavior. The population education program in Sri Lanka uses the infusion approach to introduce population concepts at grades 6-10 in 5 subject areas i.e. science mathematics social studies health education and mother tongue. In Singapore population education has been provided for primary school children since 1973 through 2 subjects--education for living and health education. In Indonesia population education is closely associated with the national family planning program. The teaching methodologies utilized need to be continually renovated to ensure longterm effectiveness.

Identification of Objectives for Population Education Programs

(1980). Identification of Objectives for Population Education Programs. Health Education: Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 18-20.

The Socialization of Family Size Values: Youth and Family Planning in an Indian Village.

Most population education programs in India have been based on the assumption that children at all ages can learn about population related matters in school which will modify later fertility behavior. Yet, as is illustrated in this monograph, the most important learning regarding fertility behavior may be unrelated to any school activity and an understanding of the nature of this learning can be useful to program planners.The present research approaches the problem from the standpoint of the socialization of youth. Socialization is not only the preparation of youth to perform traditional roles but also the teaching of new roles which are necessary as a result of changes affecting the society. It is the consistency with which roles are performed from one generation to the next that maintains established social structure and much has been made of the need to change the structure of peasant societies if fertility is to be changed. A focus on the role of socialization may help assess the extent to which social change is taking place.

Resources for Population Education

Population education programs should include portions on reproduction resource use and migration. Various population education program are mentioned. There are varying theories as to the ideal content of such programs. There are also theories as to the strategy for introducing population education into an existing curriculum.

An Experimental Population Education Program in Rural India

A proposed population education program for rural India is presented. The program has the dual goals of 1) determining how population learning takes place the extent and adequacy of the knowledge and how this knowledge affects fertility attitudes; and 2) using this information in planning population learning programs for in-school and out-of-school youth. Life planning education must deal realistically with the problems faced by parents of youth and in turn by the youth themselves. The program would cover 6 areas related to population education: 1) community acceptance project 2) secondary school project 3) out-of-school project 4) curriculum-material development project 5) teacher training project and 6) research and evaluation project. It is suggested that the program be conducted over a 5-year period. Objectives of the program would be to develop curriculum materials teaching aids and educational insights and approaches which could be effectively used to introduce population concepts into the Indian school system. However since the number of youth in the rural areas who may be reached through the schools is limited an additional program objective would be to determine ways to reach out-of-school youth. Toward the achievement of these goals the villages studied would be considered as dynamic social systems with the members both adults and youth affected by recurrent external and internal communications that may bring about learning and may influence attitudes regarding population problems. The program would attempt to identify and make use of such variables and to develop approaches that could be used elsewhere.

Population Learning and Out-of-School Youth in India

Schools may play an important role in population education; however in many developing nations only a minority of the youth attend school and the problem of reaching the unattending majority remains. This is a major problem particularly in rural areas. In India for example in 1965-66 it was estimated that less than 7% of the girls aged 14-17 years were enrolled in school. It is these girls that will have to be reached in a population education program. The author then discusses education and fertility differentials by social status and concludes that the students in the higher standards (classes) are more likely to tend toward a small family norm than are those who do not reach this educational level. Some kind of out-of-school program is needed to reach the lower and middle level castes with the highest fertility. Population learning may be conceptually better terminology. It means the process of gaining knowledge understanding or skills in regard to population matters by study instruction or experience.