The literature on women's empowerment has defined and conceptualized "empowerment" using different and often interchangeable terms, including "autonomy," "status" and "agency." 1,2 According to one definition, empowerment is "the expansion of people's ability to make strategic life choices in a context where this ability was previously denied to them." 3 Two central components of empowerment are the agency and the resources needed to exercise life choices. 2,3 In addition, the construct of women's empowerment encompasses many dimensions, including reproductive, economic, social and cultural, familial and interpersonal, legal, political and psychological, 2 which leads to wide variation in conceptualization. Given this wide variation, women's empowerment is difficult to measure consistently. Studies often assess women's autonomy with an index measuring participation in decision making about various household issues, which represents women's degree of control over their environment. Some researchers include both major decisions (e.g., large household purchases) and minor decisions (e.g., what food to cook) in the index, 4 whereas others exclude day-to-day household choices and those that are traditionally within the woman's domain. 5 Other measures of women's empowerment assess freedom of movement, 6,7 differences in age and education between marital partners, 8,9 and the process of spouse selection. 10Even with a clear definition and conceptualization, these constructs are difficult to quantify in a standardized way within a given population. To measure empowerment at an individual level, researchers must translate the amorphous construct into a set of specific questions that population-based surveys can ask; ideally, those questions would be applicable to individual respondents with a diverse set of social and demographic characteristics. For example, young women who have not had sex would not have the experience needed to answer questions about sexual power. In such a case, hypothetical situations could be used to ascertain attitudes and beliefs, but such situations are often difficult for people to fully understand and respond to realistically. 11Another challenge is the variation in cultural contexts that affect the measurement of women's empowerment. A measure that captures empowerment in one context may have limited relevance in another, as is the case with measures of mobility in communities where free movement is the norm for women. Thus, for the validity of cross-national comparisons, it is important to identify universally applicable measures, regardless of the gender equity environment. (beta coefficients, -0.5 and -0.3, respectively

Key Points Question Did preterm births increase among Latina women who were pregnant during the 2016 US presidential election? Findings This population-based study used an interrupted time series design to assess 32.9 million live births and found that the number of preterm births among Latina women increased above expected levels after the election. Meaning The 2016 presidential election may have been associated with adverse health outcomes of Latina women and their newborns.

Stress over the lifespan is thought to promote accelerated aging and early disease. Telomere length is a marker of cell aging that appears to be one mediator of this relationship. Telomere length is associated with early adversity and with chronic stressors in adulthood in many studies. Although cumulative lifespan adversity should have bigger impacts than single events, it is also possible that adversity in childhood has larger effects on later life health than adult stressors, as suggested by models of biological embedding in early life. No studies have examined the individual vs. cumulative effects of childhood and adulthood adversities on adult telomere length. Here, we examined the relationship between cumulative childhood and adulthood adversity, adding up a range of severe financial, traumatic, and social exposures, as well as comparing them to each other, in relation to salivary telomere length. We examined 4,598 men and women from the US Health and Retirement Study. Single adversities tended to have nonsignificant relations with telomere length. In adjusted models, lifetime cumulative adversity predicted 6% greater odds of shorter telomere length. This result was mainly due to childhood adversity. In adjusted models for cumulative childhood adversity, the occurrence of each additional childhood event predicted 11% increased odds of having short telomeres. This result appeared mainly because of social/traumatic exposures rather than financial exposures. This study suggests that the shadow of childhood adversity may reach far into later adulthood in part through cellular aging. cellular aging | telomeres | lifespan adversity | childhood adversity A ging cells play a crucial role in the pathogenesis of noncommunicable diseases, and telomere shortening in cells plays a part of this aging process (1, 2). Telomeres are DNAprotein caps at the ends of chromosomes that protect genetic material from degradation, and their lengths indicate cellular aging (2, 3). Experiments in rodents implicate shortened telomeres and lower activity of telomerase, the enzyme that lengthens telomeres, as causes of mitochondrial and tissue damage associated with disease pathogenesis (4-6).Telomere length is linked cross-sectionally and prospectively with human disease states in many studies. A recent meta-analysis suggests that individuals with observed short leukocyte telomeres are at an ∼80% increased risk of concurrent reports of cardiovascular disease and an ∼40% increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease in the future (7). Other recent meta-analyses support the concurrent associations between short telomeres and diabetes (8) and several cancers (9, 10). Several studies indicate that short telomeres from varied sources, including leukocytes and saliva, are related to early mortality (11-17), including a study with >60,000 adults (18), although null studies also exist (19)(20)(21)(22).Although these studies suggest that telomere length plays a role in disease, they are observational, and studies directly linking genetics...

The contraceptive features women want are largely absent from currently available methods. Developing and promoting methods that are more aligned with women's preferences presumably could help increase satisfaction and thereby encourage consistent and effective use.

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Background Despite being one of the wealthiest nations, disparities in adverse birth outcomes persist across racial and ethnic lines in the United States. We studied the association between historical redlining and preterm birth, low birth weight (LBW), small-for-gestational age (SGA), and perinatal mortality over a ten-year period (

BackgroundKnowledge on how well we can predict primary postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) can help policy makers and health providers design current delivery protocols and PPH case management. The purpose of this paper is to identify risk factors and determine predictive probabilities of those risk factors for primary PPH among women expecting singleton vaginal deliveries in Egypt.MethodsFrom a prospective cohort study, 2510 pregnant women were recruited over a six-month period in Egypt in 2004. PPH was defined as blood loss ≥ 500 ml. Measures of blood loss were made every 20 minutes for the first 4 hours after delivery using a calibrated under the buttocks drape. Using all variables available in the patients' charts, we divided them in ante-partum and intra-partum factors. We employed logistic regression to analyze socio-demographic, medical and past obstetric history, and labor and delivery outcomes as potential PPH risk factors. Post-model predicted probabilities were estimated using the identified risk factors.ResultsWe found a total of 93 cases of primary PPH. In multivariate models, ante-partum hemoglobin, history of previous PPH, labor augmentation and prolonged labor were significantly associated with PPH. Post model probability estimates showed that even among women with three or more risk factors, PPH could only be predicted in 10% of the cases.ConclusionsThe predictive probability of ante-partum and intra-partum risk factors for PPH is very low. Prevention of PPH to all women is highly recommended.

Coal and oil power plant retirements reduce air pollution nearby, but few studies have leveraged these natural experiments for public health research. We used California Department of Public Health birth records and Energy Information Administration data from 2001-2011 to evaluate the relationship between 8 coal and oil power plant retirements and nearby preterm births ( < 37 weeks gestational age). We conducted a difference-in-differences analysis using adjusted linear mixed models that included 57,005 births-6.5% of which were preterm-to compare the probability of preterm birth before and after power plant retirement among mothers residing within 0-5 km and 5-10 km of the 8 power plants. We found that power plant retirements were associated with a decrease in the proportion of preterm birth within 5 km (-0.019, 95% CI: -0.031, -0.008) and 5-10 km (-0.015, 95% CI: -0.024, -0.007) controlling for secular trends with mothers living 10-20 km away. For the 0-5 km area, this corresponds to a reduction in preterm birth from 7.0% to 5.1%. Subgroup analyses indicated a potentially larger association among non-Hispanic Black and Asian mothers compared to non-Hispanic White and Hispanic mothers and no differences in educational attainment. Future coal and oil power plant retirements may reduce preterm birth among nearby populations.