Development of a Tablet Computer Application for HIV Testing and Risk History Calendar for Use With Older Africans

Life history calendars (LHCs) are able to capture large-scale retrospective quantitative data, which can be utilized to learn about transitions of behavior change over time. The Testing and Risk History Calendar (TRHC) is a version of life history calendar (LHC) which correlates critical social, sexual and health variables with the timing of HIV testing. In order to fulfill the need for time-bound data regarding HIV testing and risk of older persons in South Africa, a pilot of the TRHC was performed using a paper fold-out grid format. Though the TRHC study in this format was effective as older persons were able to recall details about their HIV testing and risk contexts, the interview process was tedious as data were collected manually. Development of a tablet application for TRHC study will improve data quality and make data entry and collection more automated. This paper presents the development of the TRHC application prototype in order to collect TRHC data electronically and provides a platform for efficient large-scale life history calendar data collection.

Discontinuation of modern contraception methods due to side effects and method failure in India: an analysis using reproductive calendar data

Background: Contraceptive discontinuation for reasons other than the desire to get pregnant is a significant public health concern. This study aimed to understand the elaborated role of side effects and method failure behind modern reversible contraception method discontinuation among married women aged 15-49 years in India.Methods: The analysis was based on 142992 episodes of contraceptive use contributed by 90414 married women aged 15-49 years covered in the National family health survey-4 (2015-2016). Multivariate analyses, discontinuation rates using the multiple/single decrement life table and multi-level multinomial competing risk analyses were performed.Results: Discontinuation rate due to side effects within 12 months of use was highest for injectables (14.7%) and lowest for male condoms (3%) and due to method failure, it was highest for male condoms (3%) and lowest among IUD users (1.2%). Compared to women using IUD, those using pills had 2.3 times and 1.6 times the higher hazard of discontinuation due to method failure and side effects, respectively.Conclusions: The discontinuation rate of all selected methods was higher due to side effects than method failure. The high discontinuation rate of many contraceptive methods and the frequency of contraceptive failure suggest the need for strategies to promote improved contraceptive use following method selection. Improved quality of services through proper counselling of the potential contraceptive users would enhance informed choice, thus increasing modern contraception continuation among women in India.

Contraceptive Use Dropout-adjusted Unmet Need for Family Planning

Background: In the last two decades, unmet need for family planning in Indonesia remains stagnant, and contraceptive discontinuation has increased. These two indicators describe the risk of unwanted pregnancy in a population. Therefore, this study aims to develop an accurate calculation of the unmet need for family planning in Indonesia. Method: The study uses 2017 IDHS data to compare unmet need at survey-time and five years preceding the survey, measured by contraceptive calendar data that measured history of contraceptive use within five years preceding the survey. Unmet need at five years preceding the survey is measured by calculating the proportion of months not using contraceptive to the duration of months exposed to pregnancy in a period of 69 months. The study population is married women in Indonesia, with a sample size of 35,681. Results: Unmet need with contraceptive calendar calculation is higher than unmet need at survey-time. A difference of 3% concerns an additional of nearly 1.6 million unwanted pregnancies. This study proves that the high number of contraceptive discontinuations is directly proportional to higher unmet need with contraceptive calendar calculation. Conclusion: In Indonesia, with a relatively high contraceptive discontinuation rate, the calculation of unmet need using the calendar method is more precise than at survey-time method. The study results suggest the use of unmet need calendar for countries with high contraceptive discontinuation rate and provision of primary health care that is responsive to a potential unwanted pregnancy.

Examining the Effect of Residential Mobility on Crime Through the Mechanism of Perceived Informal Social Costs

Although research suggests a positive association between adolescent residential mobility and offending, the mechanism by which this process unfolds is less understood. One commonly cited explanation is that moving severs ties to pro-social others, reducing perceptions of informal social costs that then leads to offending. We test this mechanism with data from the Pathways to Desistance Study, which is a longitudinal study of serious offending youth. We integrate monthly-level residential mobility information from the access-restricted Life Event Calendar data with the publicly available data comprised of informal social costs and offending. We estimate fixed effects models with bootstrapping techniques to produce point estimates of the indirect effect. Our results provide insight into a prominent mechanism by which mobility affects offending.

"One For The Money"? The impact of the "disk crisis" on "ordinary musicians" income: The case of French speaking Switzerland

The so called "disk-crisis" and the rise of music digitization and/or music piracy regularly make the headlines of general and specialized newspapers. The impacts of these metamorphoses on the more visible actors of the national musical industries are relatively well documented. Nevertheless, little is known about the impact of these changes on the musicians’ incomes – especially the "ordinary" ones, who are located at the intermediary and the bottom stages of the professional hierarchy. This paper aims to contribute to better understanding the extent to which digitization reshaped the ways these little-known musicians make a living from music. To do so, we use longitudinal data collected from a sample of musicians active in the French-speaking part of Switzerland in the early 2010’s. These data mainly consist of life calendar-data, with retrospective information on income sources for every year of the career – from the first gig played in public to 2013. Crossing sequence analysis and geometrical data analysis tools, we analyze whether or not digitization spurred a career reorientation to one of two major "poles" structuring the "ordinary musicians" professional space (the "artist" pole or the "craftsman" one). We show that changes are few. Nevertheless, we point out how social origin and gender impact these potential career re-orientations. More broadly, our paper points to the need to analyze the social conditions of appropriability of technological innovations - especially when it comes to symbolic goods.

Solving the problem of calendar data preprocessing during the implementation of Data Mining technology

At the moment, dirty data, that is, low-quality data, is becoming one of the main problems of effectively solving Data Mining tasks. Since the source data is accumulated from a variety of sources, the probability of getting dirty data is very high. In this regard, one of the most important tasks that have to be solved during the implementation of the Data Mining process is the initial processing (clearing) of data, i.e. preprocessing. It should be noted that preprocessing calendar data is a rather time-consuming procedure that can take up to half of the entire time of implementing the Data Mining technology. Reducing the time spent on the data cleaning procedure can be achieved by automating this process using specially designed tools (algorithms and programs). At the same time, of course, it should be remembered that the use of the above elements does not guarantee one hundred percent cleaning of "dirty" data, and in some cases may even lead to additional errors in the source data. The authors developed a model for automated preprocessing of calendar data based on parsing and regular expressions. The proposed algorithm is characterized by flexible configuration of preprocessing parameters, fairly simple implementability and high interpretability of results, which in turn provides additional opportunities for analyzing unsuccessful results of Data Mining technology application. Despite the fact that the proposed algorithm is not a tool for cleaning absolutely all types of dirty calendar data, nevertheless, it successfully functions in a significant part of real practical situations.

Anaemic women are more at risk of injectable contraceptive discontinuation due to side-effects in Ethiopia

Introduction This paper investigates the importance of women’s physiological condition for predicting the risk of discontinuation due to side-effects of the injectable contraceptive in Ethiopia, where side-effects account for around 20% of all discontinuations. Methods Contraceptive calendar data from the 2016 Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey were analysed. Women aged 15-49 who had initiated the injectable contraceptive in the two years prior to interview were included in the analysis (N=1,513). After checking for reverse causality, the associations between physiological risk factors and discontinuation of the injectable contraceptive due to either side-effects (DSE) or other reasons (DOR) were estimated using multivariate Cox proportional regression analyses. Results In 2016, 10% of women had initiated the injectable in the last two years, and 1 in 4 had discontinued use by the time of the interview. Of these, 1 in 5 discontinued due to side-effects. Women with anaemia were at twice the risk of DSE compared with non-anaemic women, while anaemia status was not associated with DOR. Sociocultural factors including religion, wealth and relationship status were significant predictors for DOR, but not for DSE. Conclusion Accounting for diversity in physiological condition is key for understanding contraceptive discontinuation due to side-effects.

Impact of Fear of Falling on Future Falls and Changes in Physical Activity in Older Adults With Glaucoma

To understand how Fear of falling (FoF) alters mobility, FoF was evaluated annually in 243 older adults (median age=70) with varying degrees of visual field loss from glaucoma, and Rasch-analyzed FoF scores associated with the likelihood of falling in the following year (judged by prospective calendar data) and changes in physical activity (Judged by annual accelerometer trials). At lower FoF levels, each one-unit worsening in FoF was associated with a 2.73-fold higher odds of reporting a fall in the next year (95% CI:1.55,4.81) but not with average daily steps taken (p = 0.44). At higher FoF levels, inter-year changes in FoF were not significantly associated with a fall in the next year (p = 0.78); but were associated with 407 fewer daily steps taken per one-unit change in FoF (95% CI:-743,-71). FoF is an important driver of mobility; the specific aspects of mobility affected varies by the degree of FoF.

Anaemic women are more at risk of injectable contraceptive discontinuation due to side-effects in Ethiopia

IntroductionThis paper investigates the importance of women’s physiological condition for predicting the risk of discontinuation due to side-effects of the injectable contraceptive in Ethiopia, where side-effects account for around 20% of all discontinuations.MethodsContraceptive calendar data from the 2016 Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey were analysed. Women aged 15-49 who had initiated the injectable contraceptive in the two years prior to interview were included in the analysis (N=1,513). After checking for reverse causality, the associations between physiological risk factors and discontinuation of the injectable contraceptive due to either side-effects (DSE) or other reasons (DOR) were estimated using multivariate Cox proportional regression analyses.ResultsIn 2016, 10% of women had initiated the injectable in the last two years, and 1 in 4 had discontinued use by the time of the interview. Of these, 1 in 5 discontinued due to side-effects. Women with anaemia were at twice the risk of DSE compared with non-anaemic women, while anaemia status was not associated with DOR. The association between anaemia and experience of side-effects is likely driven by iron-deficiency anaemia, as having taken iron supplements during last pregnancy is found to decrease the risk of DSE. Sociocultural factors including religion, wealth and relationship status were significant predictors for DOR, but not for DSE.ConclusionAccounting for diversity in physiological condition is key for understanding contraceptive discontinuation due to side-effects. To reduce side-effects and thereby unmet need for contraception, family planning programs may benefit from providing an integrated service package addressing anaemia as well as supplying hormonal contraception.