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Akimbo, the blog of the The International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC), "leads global and local actions to secure every woman’s right to a just and healthy life. We are creating a world where women are free from discrimination, sexual coercion and violence, and have access to health services and information. We promote and protect the sexual and reproductive rights and health (SRRH) of all women and young people, particularly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, by helping to develop effective health and population policies, programs, and funding."

Akimbo publishes perspectives on world events and policies affecting women’s health and rights. "The blog is less formal than our research papers and publications and will provide some insight on our daily reactions to what’s happening in reproductive health and sexual rights on the global scale. Our contributors include IWHC staff members and our partners from around the world."

A recent blog entry was Sexual Rights Online and IRL: The International Scene.

Other recent posts have covered:

• Taking on the Hype: Youth, the Media and Representation
• Variations of SMS Text Message and Youth Sexual Health
• Winds of Change Blow Over Saudi
• The Pope Spends His Last Day in Cameroun

Religion and Politics
Another Pew poll reveals a change

The Pew Research Center posts a new poll with a release, More Americans Question Religion's Role in Politics; Some Social Conservative Disillusionment

"Some Americans are having a change of heart about mixing religion and politics. A new survey finds a narrow majority of the public saying that churches and other houses of worship should keep out of political matters and not express their views on day-to-day social and political matters. For a decade, majorities of Americans had voiced support for religious institutions speaking out on such issues.

"The new national survey by the Pew Research Center reveals that most of the reconsideration of the desirability of religious involvement in politics has occurred among conservatives. Four years ago, just 30% of conservatives believed that churches and other houses of worship should stay out of politics. Today, 50% of conservatives express this view.

"As a result, conservatives' views on this issue are much more in line with the views of moderates and liberals than was previously the case. Similarly, the sharp divisions between Republicans and Democrats that previously existed on this issue have disappeared.

"There are other signs in the new poll about a potential change in the climate of opinion about mixing religion and politics. First, the survey finds a small but significant increase since 2004 in the percentage of respondents saying that they are uncomfortable when they hear politicians talk about how religious they are — from 40% to 46%. Again, the increase in negative sentiment about religion and politics is much more apparent among Republicans than among Democrats."

Read the entire release and the 63 page report

Men or Women: Who's the Better Leader?

The Pew Research Center has published a report that focused on the question of which sex provides the best leadership:

"Americans believe women have the right stuff to be political leaders. When it comes to honesty, intelligence and a handful of other character traits they value highly in leaders, the public rates women superior to men, according to a new nationwide Pew Research Center Social and Demographic Trends survey.

"Nevertheless, a mere 6% of respondents in this survey of 2,250 adults say that, overall, women make better political leaders than men. About one-in-five (21%) say men make the better leaders, while the vast majority — 69% — say men and women make equally good leaders.

"The paradox embedded in these survey findings is part of a wider paradox in modern society on the subject of gender and leadership. In an era when women have made sweeping strides in educational attainment and workforce participation, relatively few have made the journey all the way to the highest levels of political or corporate leadership.

"Why not? In the survey, the public cites gender discrimination, resistance to change, and a self-serving "old boys club" as reasons for the relative scarcity of women at the top. In somewhat smaller numbers, respondents also say that women's family responsibilities and their shortage of experience hold them back from the upper ranks of politics and business."

Read the rest of the release and the full report at the Pew site.

 

Disappearing Daughters

Action Aid has released a report at its website based on research at five Indian states:

THE PROBLEM
India’s daughters are disappearing. New research by ActionAid and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) shows that the number of girls born and surviving in northern India compared to boys falls far short of normal expectations, and continues to slide.

Sons are increasingly preferred to daughters in northern India.

In a country with a long history of discrimination against women, the preference for sons over daughters has led to the number of girls under the age of six hitting an all-time low.

The introduction of sex-detection ultrasound technology, coupled with the long-term problem of the neglect of girls, means that millions of women are now ‘missing’ in India.

The research, conducted in sites across five states in north and northwest India reveals:

• ratios of girls to boys aged 0-6 across four out of five sites are now lower than in 2001
• ratios are declining fastest in comparatively prosperous urban areas
• in areas with limited access to public health facilities and modern ultrasound technology, girls are more likely to be born, but less likely to survive
• lower birth rates and higher mortality rates for second and third daughters through selective abortions and neglect
• a trend for smaller families is deepening the aversion to daughters
• laws banning prenatal sex detection and sex-selective abortions are being ignored as ultrasound technology is widely and explicitly used for sex selection
• given the enormous pressure on families to avoid having girls, the use of ultrasound technology is now considered a ‘rational’ way to plan a family
• despite policies to address girls’rights and improvements in women’s literacy, education and employment, the pressure to produce a male heir remains.

The entire report may be read at the ActionAid site.

Seeds of Social Issues Dot 2008 Elections

Stateline.org, a publication of Pew Research, poses the question of whether social issues will be overshadowed by concern about the economy during the election season. The article, Seeds of Social Issues Dot 2008 Elections, is by Louis Jacobson:

 

Screening for Domestic Violence

MedPage has published an article, Pediatricians Should Screen Moms for Domestic Violence by Todd Neale. Here are a few sentences from that piece:

"Screening for domestic abuse in a pediatric practice can uncover cases that otherwise might not come to light, researchers here said.

"Among women who brought children to an urban pediatric clinic, 23% disclosed that they had been victims of domestic abuse, either emotional or physical, Megan Bair-Merritt, M.D., of Johns Hopkins, and colleagues reported online in the Journal of Pediatrics.

" 'Abuse of one parent by their partner is not a private adult matter, but is very much a public health problem that affects children's health and well-being,' Dr. Bair-Merritt said.

"More than half (57%) of the abused women the researchers surveyed indicated that at least one child had been exposed to the violence."

Read the entire article at the MedPage site.

Compared to other countries, US flunks in teacher pay

by Joydeep Roy with research assistance by Lauren Marra, an Economic Snapshot by the Economics Policy Institute

Recent research has highlighted the important role of teachers in fostering student achievement. However, the United States lags significantly behind other countries in teacher compensation, which adversely impacts efforts to recruit high-quality teachers.

A recent study by McKinsey and Co. argues that good starting salaries are an essential ingredient for getting the right people to become teachers. Though people who enter teaching often cite a number of reasons, surveys find that unless school systems offer salaries commensurate with that on offer in other career opportunities, the teaching profession will not attract equivalent candidates. The McKinsey study shows that starting salaries in the United States are much lower than in other Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.

Not only is teacher pay in the United States losing ground compared to other professions, it lags far behind other industrialized countries. This week's Economic Snapshot illustrates the pay gap by comparing starting salaries for teachers as a percent of per capita GDP in the United States and nine other wealthy countries.

Read the rest of the Snapshot at the EPI site.

The Last Iceberg

Camille Seaman (so aptly named) is a photographer whose exhibit, The Last Iceberg, is on view at the National Academy of Sciences. She is also part of Soulcatcher Studio and it is at that website where it's possible to view the photographs included in the exhibition. Here's an excerpt from Soulcatcher's description:

Seaman states, "The Last Iceberg is one piece of a larger project entitled "Melting Away" which documents the polar regions of our planet, their environments, life forms, history of human exploration and the communities that work and live there.

Nick Cave once sang, "All things move toward their end." Icebergs give the impression of doing just that, in their individual way much as humans do; they have been created of unique conditions and shaped by their environments to live a brief life in a manner solely their own. Some go the distance traveling for many years slowly being eroded by time and the elements; others get snagged on the rocks and are whittled away by persistent currents. Still others dramatically collapse in fits of passion and fury.

The Last Iceberg chronicles just a handful of the many thousands of icebergs that are currently headed to their end. I approach the images of icebergs as portraits of individuals, much like family photos of my ancestors. I seek a moment in their life in which they convey their unique personality, some connection to our own experience and a glimpse of their soul, which endures."

When Natural Processes Are Blurred by Human Activities

From the Asian tiger mosquito in the American South, to the Eurasian zebra mussel in the Great Lakes, to European quackgrass throughout the United States, invasions of non-native species can disrupt ecosystems, cause havoc with local economies, and even threaten health. A new study shows that, at least for freshwater fishes, the major driver of successful invasion is human development, not intrinsic ecological factors, suggesting that in the future, many more newcomers will be making their homes in foreign lands.

Competing hypotheses have been proposed to account for the establishment of non-native species. Human activities, from disrupting ecosystems to transporting exotic species, have clearly contributed to many invasions. But do ecosystems themselves play a part? The “biotic resistance” hypothesis suggests that species-rich environments can deter newcomers, while the “biotic acceptance” hypothesis suggests the opposite, that if it's good for the locals, it's good for the invaders.

To test the relative weight of human versus other ecologic factors on freshwater fish invasions, Fabien Leprieur and colleagues collated species data on over 1,000 river basins throughout the world (collectively draining over 80% of Earth's land surface), characterizing each species as native or non-native.

They found six “hot spots” of invasion: the Pacific coast of North and Central America, southern South America, western and southern Europe, central Eurasia, South Africa and Madagascar, southern Australia, and New Zealand. In these areas, more than a quarter of species were non-native, and they had higher-than-average numbers of native species threatened by extinction.

There was no correlation between the richness of native species and that of non-natives, at once refuting biotic acceptance (for which high numbers of natives predict high numbers of non-natives) and biotic resistance (for which high numbers of natives predict low numbers of non-natives). Instead, regardless of local diversity, non-natives were most abundant where human activity was greatest: gross domestic product, population density, and percentage of urban area predicted the greatest proportion of invasives throughout the globe.

The galloping pace of economic development throughout the world during the 20th century, and the likely increase of that pace in the developing world during the 21st century, suggest that the invasive species problem will get worse, not better. To mitigate this problem, the authors suggest that their data be used to anticipate where new invasions are likely and that priority be given to heading off new invaders before they are established in those areas. They also recommend a ban on the import of non-natives into invasion hot spots without detailed impact assessments.

The above is taken from a synopsis of Human Activity, not Ecosystem Characters, Drives Potential Species Invasions by Richard Robinson in PLoS (Public Library of Science) Biology for February.

Immigrants, Reporting Income and Paying Taxes

The Immigratiion Policy Center has released the following:

Like The Rest of Us, Undocumented Immigrants Pay Taxes
Undocumented immigrants contribute to the US economy not only through the labor they provide, but through the taxes they pay. Between one-half and three-quarters of undocumented immigrants pay federal and state income taxes, Social Security taxes, and Medicare taxes. And all undocumented immigrants pay sales taxes (when they buy anything at a store, for instance) and property taxes (even if they rent housing).

According to the 2005 Economic Report of the President, undocumented immigrants working “‘on the books’…contribute to the tax rolls but are ineligible for almost all Federal public assistance programs and most major Federal-state programs.” The report also notes that immigrants in general “contribute money to public coffers by paying sales and property taxes (the latter are implicit in apartment rents).”

The Undocumented and Social Security: Contributing Yes, Collecting No
The Social Security Administration (SSA) has concluded that undocumented immigrants “account for a major portion” of the billions of dollars paid into the Social Security system under names or social security numbers that don’t match SSA records; payments from which immigrants cannot benefit while undocumented.5 As of October 2005, the reported earnings on which these payments are based — which are tracked through the SSA’s Earnings Suspense File (ESF) — totaled $520 billion.

Even at the State Level, Undocumented Immigrants Still Pay More in Taxes Than They Use in Services
A 2006 study by the Texas State Comptroller found that “the absence of the estimated 1.4 million undocumented immigrants in Texas in fiscal 2005 would have been a loss to our gross state product of $17.7 billion. Undocumented immigrants produced $1.58 billion in state revenues, which exceeded the $1.16 billion in state services they received.”

Similarly, a 2007 study by the Oregon Center for Public Policy estimated that undocumented immigrants in Oregon pay state income, excise, and property taxes, as well as federal Social Security and Medicare taxes, which “total about $134 million to $187 million annually.” In addition, “taxes paid by Oregon employers on behalf of undocumented workers total about $97 million to $136 million annually.” As the report goes on to note, undocumented workers are ineligible for the Oregon Health Plan, food stamps, and temporary cash assistance.

Likewise, a 2007 report from the Iowa Policy Project concluded that “undocumented immigrants pay an estimated aggregate amount of $40 million to $62 million in state taxes each year.” Moreover, “undocumented immigrants working on the books in Iowa and their employers also contribute annually an estimated $50 million to $77.8 million in federal Social Security and Medicare taxes from which they will never benefit. Rather than draining state resources, undocumented immigrants are in some cases subsidizing services that only documented residents can access.

Spending Begets More Spending and a Stronger Economy
The consumer purchasing power of undocumented immigrants — what they spend on goods, services, and housing — not only creates new jobs, but also provides federal, state, and local governments with additional revenue through sales, income, business, and property taxes. In other words, spending by undocumented immigrants has an economic “multiplier effect.”

For instance, a 2002 study by the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Chicago found that undocumented immigrants in the Chicago metropolitan area alone spent $2.89 billion in 2001. These expenditures stimulated “an additional $2.56 billion in local spending,” for a total of $5.45 billion in additional spending, or 1.5% of the Gross Regional Product. This spending, in turn, sustained 31,908 jobs in the local economy.

Grassley's Letter and Long Term Care Insurers

Senator Charles Grassley "is asking the nation’s top providers of long-term care insurance to provide information about how claims are processed in order to learn more about how effectively the sector is meeting the needs of Americans who have purchased such policies, which has been encouraged through federal tax incentives.

“Preparing for long-term care needs can make a big difference in both the quality of life for individuals and the solvency of Medicaid,” Grassley said. “Long-term care insurance products are fairly new to the marketplace, so it’s important that policy makers continue to assess how they are working to meet needs and how their success is affecting public programs.”

Grassley's letter to 11 insurance providers follows:

The United States Senate Committee on Finance ("Committee") has exclusive jurisdiction over the Medicare and Medicaid programs and, accordingly, the duty to ensure that these programs are fiscally sound. As a senior member of the United States Senate and Ranking Member of the Committee, I have a special responsibility to ensure that programs such as Medicare and Medicaid are not unnecessarily burdened. It is for this reason that I have been interested in learning more about long term care insurance ("LTCI").

As you know, LTCI is an invaluable tool to millions of Americans planning for their long term needs. Furthermore, the Federal Government has a significant interest in the LTCI industry's partnership with the Medicaid program. As part of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, Congress allowed for the expansion of the long term care insurance partnership program to all 50 states. The purpose of the partnership program is to encourage people who might otherwise rely on the Medicaid program to purchase LTCI to help meet their long term care needs. However, if more claims for long term care related expenses are denied, there could be a substantial and perhaps unnecessary financial burden placed on Medicaid.

As you are likely aware, earlier this year The New York Times published an article critical of the long term care insurance industry. The article focused on reports that a growing number of LTCI policyholders are experiencing greater difficulty in recovering claims for long term care expenses. The article also suggested that some LTCI providers have made it more difficult for policyholders to be paid for legitimate claims.

In response to my growing concern over this matter, I asked the Government Accountability Office ("GAO") to perform an extensive review of the long term care insurance industry. I also contacted the National Association of Insurance Commissioners ("NAIC") to gather its insight on these matters.

While the GAO review is ongoing, I have received the NAIC's response and it contains some troubling data. In my letter to the NAIC, I asked a number of questions, including whether or not there were any notable trends in the industry. Specifically, I was concerned with reports of an increasing number of claim denials. In its response, the NAIC reported that there has been a 92% increase in the number of long term care complaints nationally from 2001 to 2006. The NAIC also conveyed that it had identified a steady increase in the number of complaints
regarding claim denials, including a 74% increase in the number of claim denial related complaints between 2003 and 2006. While this may be explained by the increasing number of people purchasing LTCI, the relationship remains unclear. Furthermore, the NAIC reported that over 70% of claim denials are overturned in favor of the policyholder upon appeal. The NAIC noted that this is "a pattern of error not typically found in other lines of health-related insurance."

Read the Senator's letter in its entirety.

Glaciers Then and Now

The National Snow and Ice Data Center/World Data Center for Glaciology

Long-Term Change Photograph Pairs (collected and contributed by Bruce F. Molnia, US Geological Survey)

This special collection features 14 pairs of Alaskan photographs. Each photographic pair consists of a late-19th or early-20th century photograph and a 21st century photograph taken from the same location. The comparative photographs clearly show substantial changes in glacier position and size and document significant landscape evolution and vegetative succession. Please see the section on Repeat Photography of Glaciers in the documentation for more information.

Click on the box next to Long Term Change Photograph Pairs and then click on Submit

Regardless of how you feel and what you think about global warming, do look at these pair of pictures; the difference between then and now is quite stunning.

If you'd like to learn or see more, take a look at A Tour of the Life of a Glacier

The amount of precipitation (whether in the form of snowfall, freezing rain, avalanches, or wind-drifted snow) is important to glacier survival. In areas such as Antarctica, where the low temperatures are ideal for glacier growth, very low annual precipitation causes the glaciers to grow very slowly.

The glacier story starts with the Growing Years of a glacier.

 

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