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Aims: We estimated the prevalence of substance use disorders (SUDs) in the Norwegian, Danish and Swedish prison populations and compared the prevalence of SUDs in the national prison populations with country‐specific general population prevalence rates. Design: A multi‐national cohort study using data from the National Prison Registries linked to the National Patient Registries in Norway, Denmark and Sweden. Setting and participants: We used data from the PriSUD‐Nordic study, including national prison populations aged 19 years and older in Norway (2010–19), Denmark (2010–18) and Sweden (2010–13). A total of 119 507 Individuals (108 971 men and 10 536 women) contributing to 191 549 incarcerations were included in the study (Norway: 45432 men; 5429 women, Denmark: 42 162 men; 3370 women, Sweden: 21 377 men; 1737 women). Measurement: We calculated a study prevalence and prevalence at entry to prison for all types of SUDs before imprisonment each consecutive year of observation in each prison population. We also extracted country‐specific 1‐year prevalence rates from the Global Burden of Diseases database to calculate comparative national prevalence ratios. Findings The study prevalence of any SUD was approximately 40% [Norway: 44.0%, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 43.6–44.5%; Denmark: 39.9%, CI = 39.5–40.4%; Sweden: 39.1%, CI = 38.4–39.7%] in all three countries. Women had a significantly higher study prevalence of any SUD compared with men (Norway: 55.8 versus 42.6%, P < 0.001; Denmark 43.1 versus 39.7%, P = 0.004; Sweden: 51.7 versus 38.0%, P < 0.001). Prevalence estimates were higher for SUDs among people in prison than in the general population. We observed an increasing proportion of people with SUDs entering prison in Norway (P = 0.003), while the proportion was more stable in Denmark and Sweden. Conclusions: Substance use disorders (SUDs) appear to be highly prevalent among the Scandinavian prison populations compared with the general population, especially among women. In Norway, there was a relative increase in SUDs from 2010 to 2019. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the association between substance use and violence has been well established, knowledge on predictors for violent victimization of individuals treated for alcohol use disorder (AUD) or drug use disorder (DUD) is lacking. Using Goldstein's tripartite conceptual framework, this study examines the relationship between substance use and violent victimization. Data were derived from national registers on persons aged between 15 and 75 years, living in Denmark, and admitted for AUD or DUD treatment during 2006-2016 (n = 82,767). Rates of new incidence of violent victimization were estimated per 10,000 person years for the patient cohort, and for an age- and gender-matched control group of 492,397 people with no history of treatment for drug and alcohol problems. The incidence of victimization for the AUD/DUD sample was 145.6 per 10,000 person years and 5.4 per 10,000 person years for the comparison cohort. Results of multivariate Cox regression on specific types of substance use supported Goldstein's psychopharmacological and economic compulsive models of victimization, but not the systemic model. Gender-stratified results showed that the use of cannabis and methadone was associated with victimization in women treated for AUD and DUD. Patients with a non-Western background were more likely to experience victimization than Danish patients. The study highlights the strong association between substance use disorder and victimization, and the important role that service providers play in addressing the high levels of victimization experienced by patients with AUD or DUD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Ethiopia, despite some recent improvements, the health and nutritional status of children is very poor. A better understanding of the main socioeconomic determinants of child health and nutrition is essential to address the problem and make appropriate interventions. In the present study, an attempt is made to explore the effect of maternal characteristics on the health and nutritional status of under-five children using the 2005 Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey. The health and nutritional status of children are measured using the two widely used anthropometric indicators height-for-age (HAZ) and weight-for-height (WHZ). In the ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation, it is observed that maternal characteristics have a significant impact on child health and nutritional status. The magnitudes of the coefficients, however, are found to slightly increase when maternal education is instrumented in the 2SLS estimation. Moreover, in the quantile regression (QR) estimation, the impacts of maternal characteristics are observed to vary between long-term and current child health and nutritional status.