Search

Therefore this study will concentrate on finding out how children who have experienced violence actually perform academically. The participants will be drawn from among fourth and fifth graders in a Jamaican primary school in an urban area. It is hope that this study will provide some insight for school administrators and stakeholders of the various strategies to which they can employ in correcting violence at school and changing the low academic performance of children who are exposed to violence in their communities.

The study of human memory has progressed greatly beyond those early philosophical notions and currently involves clinical psychiatry, experimental psychology, neuropsychology, neurology, and a variety of other cognitive sciences. These have provided new insights into the human memory and managed to differentiate and isolate diverse structures and aspect of memory, such as immediate vs. long-term memory, procedural vs. declarative memory, retrieval vs. distortion of memory, and so forth.

Background: Empirical evidences have shown that happiness, life satisfaction and health status are strongly correlated with each other. In Jamaica, we continue to collect data on health status to guide policies and intervention programs, but are these wise? Aims: The current study aims to fill the gap in the literature by examining life satisfaction, health status, and happiness in order to ascertain whether they are equivalent concepts in Jamaica as well as the coverage of the estimates. Materials and Methods: The current study used a cross-sectional survey of 2000 men 55 years and older from the parish of St. Catherine in 2007 which is it also generalizable to the island. A132-item questionnaire was used to collect the data. The instrument was sub-divided into general demographic profile of the sample; past and Current Good Health Status; health-seeking behavior; retirement status; social and functional status. Ordinal logistic regression techniques were utilized to examine determinants of happiness, life satisfaction and health status. Results: Happiness was correlated with life satisfaction - Pseudo r-squared = 0.311, -2LL = 810.36, χ2 = 161.60, P < 0.0001. Life satisfaction was determined by happiness - Pseudo r-squared = 0.321, -2LL = 1069.30, χ2 = 178.53, P < 0.0001. H ealth status was correlated with health status age, income, education and area of residence - Pseudo r-squared = 0.313, -2LL = 810.36, χ2 = 161.60, P < 0.0001. Conclusion: The current study refuted the empirical finding that self-reported happiness depends on perceived health status for older men in Jamaica.

Background: Statistics showed that males reported fewer illnesses and greater mortality rates than females, but are outlived by approximately 6 years by their female counterparts, yet their self-rated health status is the same as that of females. Aims: This study examines the following questions: (1) Are there paradoxes in health disparity between the sexes in Jamaica? and (2) is there an explanation for the disparity outside of education, marital status, and area of residence? Methods and Materials: The current study utilised a data set collected jointly by the Planning Institute of Jamaica and the Statistical Institute of Jamaica. The data set is a survey on the living conditions of Jamaicans. It was conducted between May and August of 2007. The JSLC is a modification of the World Bank's Living Standards Measurement Study. The sample size was 6,783 respondents, with a non-response rate being 26.2%. Results Good health status was correlated with self-reported illness (OR =0.23, 95% CI = 0.09-0.59), medical care-seeking behaviour (OR = 0.51, 95% CI = 0.36-0.72), age (OR = 0.96, 95% CI = 0.96-0.97), and income (OR = 1.00, 95% CI = 1.00-1.00). Self-reported illness is statistically correlated with sex (OR = 0.25, 95% CI = 0.10-0.62), head of household (OR = 0.33, 95% CI = 0.12-0.96), age (OR = 1.04, 95% CI = 1.01-1.07) and current good self-rated health status (OR = 0.32, 95% CI = 0.12-0.84). Conclusion This paper highlights that caution must be used by researchers in interpreting self-reported health data of males.

Background: There is a paucity of information on the old-old-to-oldest-old in Jamaica. In spite of studies on this cohort, there has never been an examination of the epidemiological transition in health condition affect this age cohort. Objectives: The aims of the current study are 1) provide an epidemiological profile of health conditions affecting Jamaicans 75+ years, 2) examine whether there is an epidemiological transition in health conditions affecting old-old-to-oldest-old Jamaicans, 3) evaluate particular demographic characteristics and health conditions of this cohort, 4) assess whether current self-reported illness is strongly correlated with current health status, 5) mean age of those with particular health conditions, 6) model health status and 7) provide valuable information upon which health practitioners and public health specialists can make more informed decisions. Method: The current study utilized a sub-sample of approximately 4% from each national cross-sectional survey that was conducted in 2002 and 2007. The sub-sample was 282 people ages 75+ years from the 6,783 respondents surveyed for 2007 and 1,069 people ages 75+ years from the 25,018 respondents surveyed for 2002. Results: In 2007, 44% of old-to-oldest-old Jamaicans were diagnosed with hypertension, which represents a 5% decline over 2002. The number of cases of diabetes mellitus increased over 570% in the studied period. The poor indicated having more health conditions than the poorest 20% of the sample. Conclusion: The implications of the shift in health conditions will create a health disparity between 75+ year adults and the rest of the population.

Background: Caribbean scholars continue to dichotomise self-reported health status without empirical justification for inclusion or exclusion of moderate health status in the dichotomisation of poor health. Aims: This study will 1) evaluate which cut-off point should be used for self-reported health status; 2) assess whether dichotomisation of self-reported data should be practiced; 3) ascertain any disparity in dichotomisation by some covariates (i.e., marital status, age cohort, social class); and 4) examine the odds of reporting poor or moderate-to-very poor self-reported health status if one has an illness. Materials and Methods: The current study used cross-sectional survey data for 2007. The survey used stratified probability sampling techniques to collect the data from Jamaicans. The sample consisted of 6,783 respondents, with a focus on participants aged 46+ years (n=1,583 respondents). Self-reported health status was a 5-item Likert scale question. The dichotomisation was poor health status or otherwise and poor (including moderate) self-reported health. Odds ratios were calculated in order to estimate the effect of the covariates. Result: When moderate self-reported health status was used in poor health status, the cut-off revealed moderate effect on specified covariates across the age cohorts for women. However, for men, exponential effects were used on social class, but not on area of residence or marital status across the different age cohorts. Conclusions: The cut-off point in the dichotomisation of self-reported health status does not make a difference for women and must be taken into consideration in the use of self-reported health data for Jamaica.

Background: The new thrust by WHO is healthy life expectancy. Therefore, health must be more than morbidity. It is within this framework that a study on childhood health in Jamaica is of vital importance. Aims: This study 1) expands the health literature in Jamaica and by extension the Caribbean, 2) will aid public health practitioners with research findings upon which they are able to further improve the quality of life of children, 3) investigates the age at with children in Jamaica become influenced by particular chronic diseases and 4) assesses the subjective wellbeing of children. Methods: The current study extracted a sample of 8,373 and 2,104 children 0-14 years from two surveys collected jointly by the Planning Institute of Jamaica and the Statistics Institute of Jamaica for 2002 and 2007 respectively. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data. Results: Ninety-one percent of children in Jamaica, for 2007, reported good health. The number of children who had diarrhea fell by 84.2% in 2007 over 2002, and a similar reduction was observed for those with asthma (42.1% in 2002 and 19.7% in 2007). Another critical finding was that 1.2% of children, in 2007, had diabetes mellitus compared to none in 2002. Conclusion: Public health now has an epidemiological profile of health conditions of children and the demographic shifts which are occurring and this can be used for effective management and planning of the new health reality of the Jamaican child.