Preterm birth continues to be an important public health concern globally. Born only 3 to 6 weeks premature, findings increasingly demonstrate that the late preterm population (34-36 weeks gestational age) is not exempt from long-term risk, as the last few weeks of gestation are important for both physical and cognitive development. This study examined whether late preterm birth was associated with poorer health, development and educational outcomes in the early childhood period, after controlling for a range of medical and social factors. / February 2016

published_or_final_version / Urban Planning / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

Background Child development is adversely affected by the socioeconomic status of the family and community. In view of the increasing socioeconomic disparity in Hong Kong in the past decade, this proposed study aims at investigating the existence, magnitude, pattern and manifestations of socioeconomic gradients in school readiness of preschool children, as well as interpreting how these are shaped and mediated through families, institutions and the wider communities. Objectives 1) To adapt and validate the Chinese Early Development Instrument (CEDI); 2) To investigate the socioeconomic gradients in school readiness of preschool children in relation to family SES, contextual effect, and family processes. Methods This study employs a cross-sectional research design comprising two stages. Stage one was a stand-alone pilot study to translate and validate the Chinese version of Early Development Instrument (CEDI). A total of 167 K3 children (4 kindergartens) from Hong Kong Island (HKI, the affluent district) and Yuen Long (YL, the disadvantaged district) were recruited. Stage two was the main study to examine socioeconomic gradients in school readiness. 567 K3 children of 21 kindergartens from YL and HKI were recruited. Four hypotheses regarding socio-economic gradients in terms of existence, magnitude, pattern, and mediating mechanism were tested using two-level linear models. Results CEDI showed adequate internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alpha ranging from .70 to .95. The concurrent validity of CEDI was established using The Pearson correlations between CEDI and Hong Kong Early Child Development Scale (HKECDS), locally developed direct assessment, ranged from .39 to .66 with statistical significance (p<.05). The test-retest reliability of CEDI was analyzed, and the kappa coefficient was .89, demonstrating a good stability of CEDI. In the main study, children from YL have a significantly lower total CEDI domain score of emotional maturity (p= .025) and language and cognitive development (p= .01) than their counterparts from HKI. Girls scored significant higher on the total CEDI scores (mean= 44.5, sd= 4.80) than their male counterparts (mean=42.52, sd=6.10), and significantly less proportion of girls than boys were classified as developmentally vulnerable in at least one CEDI domains (26.0% girls vs. 35.8% boys, p=0.12). Hypothesis testing regarding existence of socioeconomic gradient by multi-level modeling suggested a significant association between the overall developmental outcomes of children and family SES index. Testing of kindergarten’s contextual effect showed that kindergarten level variables (annual school fees, teacher education background and working experience) accounted for significant proportion of variance in the total CEDI score. Additionally, our results supported the mediating effect of family processes (i.e., frequency of parent-child interactions and management of child digital use at home) in explaining socioeconomic gradients in child developmental outcomes. Conclusions CEDI is a psychometric sound measurement tool for early child development and assessing school readiness in Chinese society. Using CEDI, the evidence gathered from the main study demonstrated the existence of socioeconomic gradient with a significant association between the developmental outcomes of children and family SES, and highlighted the mediating effects from kindergarten and family levels, which are potentially modifiable to bridge the gap between the rich and poor. / published_or_final_version / Public Health / Master / Master of Public Health

No description available.

No description available.

This thesis examines how globalization poses immediate and long-term challenges and opportunities for small towns and, as a consequence, for local economic development policy. The authors' perspectives raise vital questions about the shape, substance, and function of small towns in an increasingly interdependent and competitive global economy. The thesis provide both retrospective and prospective insights into the ways in which poverty, industrial migration, economic globalization, and technological innovation affect public-sector choices for small towns approaching the turn of a new century. The central theme emerging from this thesis is that the responses of the past will not necessarily provide a path to the future. Cities must innovate and adapt when seeking solutions to problems caused by rapid changes in their environment. Flexibility and creativity are key to designing public policies to deconcentrate poverty, increase opportunity, and furnish a better quality of life. For example, the continuing loss of jobs and population in many large cities can be reversed only with public policies that profit from the emerging global economy. Cities must strategically adapt to the information age by mobilizing public and private resources to be successful in the new, highly competitive economic environment by coming up with new locally designed economic development interventions in what has been termed local economic development (LED). LED in South Africa's small towns will be driven increasingly by forces of global economic interaction in the 21st century. Whereas the export sector is thriving, international trade and investment creating more and better paying jobs for developed, better-prepared regions, South Africa's small towns have yet to adjust quickly to these and other international forces. As they are unable to grow and prosper, and take advantage of global economic benefits, they are currently faced with numerous challenges of improving their local economic system to attract international investment, provide services and infrastructure to support globally competitive firms, and develop stronger entrepreneurial and technological capacity among small and medium-size companies. Local economic development and community action are essential to expanding and modernizing urban and rural infrastructure, strengthening mechanisms of community cooperation within small towns and fostering public-private partnerships to expand opportunities for employment. Demands for integrating the poor into economic activities has proven to be a vital element of local economic development that build on business-oriented approaches to community development. Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies (triangulation), data was collected within the framework of participatory approach to social enquiry. Findings of this thesis provided a new perspective in dealing with local economic development and market failure. They also show that not all is worse, as community driven and locally designed economic regeneration programmes provide an alternative to global economic growth. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, [2005?]

The purpose of this dissertation is to show that socio-economic development can be better understood through an interdisciplinary approach.From the writings on socio-economic development and related disciplines., background information and theories are gleaned to provide the bases for the development of the concept of tri-dimensional technology (called residuals in economic theories of development). As the major focus in this study, tri-dimensional technology is divided into three major components: human, social and material. This concept, in addition to capital and labor, is shown to be the basis of productive potential in a society and as a crucial factor in explaining the socio-economic progress of a nation.In order to explore tri-dimensional technology, social psychology was chosen as the most relevant discipline since it concerns itself with individual as well as society. Within the three components of tri-dimensional technology, the human aspect is given priority and the social behaviorist model of man as a general model will be developed. References tech to explainthe rapid socio-economic development of Japan are made to relevant theories and literature to identify the social and material aspects of tri-dimensional technology.The concept of tri-dimensional technology is applied with emphasis on Meiji Restoration era. The implications of the Japanese experience for developing countries is suggested. Reference to the ethical analysis of tri-dimensional technology is also made.

This study examines the impact of conflict on the socio-economic development of Burundi. Conflicts, underdevelopment and poverty had marred most, if not all the post-colonial and African States contrary to the expectations of the world, especially after the end of the Cold War in 1989 when rivalry between Russia and United States ceased. International and other conflicts occurred paradoxically to the United Nations' claim that considerable progress has been achieved in resolving conflicts since the end of the Cold War and the creation of the United Nations. In almost every area the individuals. · nations, international communities, regional organizations, continental and global structures are working together in attempts to set the global agenda for peace and security. Burundi is one of the African States that has drawn the attention of the United Nations in as far as conflict and underdevelopment is concerned. The ethnically motivated tension between the Hutu and Tutsi is one example where socio-economic development has been affected and the communities are suffering, especially the vulnerable ones like women and, children and old people. Building lasting peace in Burundi will require that post-conflict regimes implement strategies that are explicitly aimed at addressing the root causes of the country's . contlicts and come up with best strategies for development. Therefore I examined carefully the causes of the conflicts that occurred in 1965, 1972, 1988, 1991 and the ongoing conflict that started in 1993, drawing from the literature on the social, economics and politics of civil wars in general and on existing studies on Burundi in particular. The socio-economic decline during 1960-1972 was due to political instability and the loss of Burundi's export markets in neighbouring Rwanda and Congo following decolonisation. During the period 1972-1988, socio-economic decline was fuelled by an increase in coffee export whereby the funds were used to create inefficient state firms used by the ruling elites as a source of economic rents and massive borrowing. During the third· sub-period, that is 1988 to date the decline was due a result of three civil wars, a total economic blockade, the freezing of aid by international donors and the collapse of investment and infrastructure. The study characterizes the conflicts in Burundi as distributional conflicts in the sense that they arise from institutional failure and unequal distribution of national wealth across ethnic groups and regions. I illustrate the argument with the case of education and military, two key tools of consolidation of the patrimonial state. Institutional failure was not a result of incompetence on the part of leaders, but that it was carefully engineered by the ruling ethno-regional elite to consolidate power and privatise the state. Characterizing the wars as distributional conflicts has immediate policy implications for post-conflict recovery and peace consolidation. The analysis implies that the emphasis should be on achieving equitable access to national resources and power sharing, and that the attention should move beyond the narrow confines of ethnicity to embrace all the dimensions along which discrimination has been engineered in the past, especially regionalism. On the whole, growth and socio-economic development has been a failure because it has not been the priority of Burundi leadership. Blending traditional macroeconomic growth analysis with microeconomic, institutional and political economy approaches, the study shows that socio-economic outcomes have been endogenous to political imperatives. Controlled access to education and to the civil service and the army, the creation of a large number of state corporations, monetary policy, trade policy and a myriad of other policies were used to ensure that resources were allocated to the members of the ruling elite. The overarching objective of the leadership was the government's desire to hold its grip over the different sources of economic rents It is therefore clear that if the new Burundian leadership is serious about building peace and developing the socio-economic situation in Burundi, it must engineer institutions that uproot the legacy of discrimination and promote equal opportunity for social mobility for all members of ethnic groups and regions. In the process, the protection of human life and the socio-economic integration of all Burundians without distinction based on regional or ethnic background should be the basic principle guiding political, social and economic reforms. / M.Admin. (Peace Studies and International Relations) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2005

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 128-135). / Microfiche. / xii, 135 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 97-101). / xiii, 101 leaves, bound ill., maps 29 cm