BACKGROUND: Organ transplantation is one of the best modalities for treating fatal organ failure. Despite the success of this procedure, an increasing incidence of cancer in this population has drawn the attention of public health officials in recent years. OBJECTIVES: The overall objective of this study is to conduct a detailed examination of adverse health outcomes among Canadian organ transplant recipients, with an emphasis on cancer incidence and mortality. METHODS: This project employed a retrospective cohort follow-up study design, whereby Canadian Organ Replacement Registry records were linked to the Canadian Mortality Database and the Canadian Cancer Registry Database. The study population consisted of more than 16,000 solid organ transplant recipients registered between January 1, 1981 and December 31, 1998. This study was designed to assess the risks of developing cancer, overall and site-specific, in transplant recipients in comparison to the general Canadian population using Standardized Incidence Ratios (SIR), Standardized Mortality Ratios (SMR), and Proportionate Mortality Ratios (PMR). In addition, Cox and logistic models were used to assess the effects of various risk factors on cancer incidence and mortality in transplant sub-populations, while cumulative incidence was used to study the patient survival pattern. Lastly, Population Attributable Risk (PAR) was used to quantify the impact of organ transplantation on cancer incidence and mortality. RESULTS: Among major causes of death, the highest PMRs are due to genitourinary diseases, followed by endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases, and infectious diseases. SIRs indicate that cancer incidence and mortality were relatively lower than that observed for other major causes of death, and slightly higher than that observed in the general Canadian population. Lastly, logistic regression results indicate that age, year of surgery, and smoking status were significant risk factors in mortality due to all causes, while the Cox regression model shows that age, sex and year of surgery were significant risk factors for cancer incidence. Overall, the PAR in this cohort was very minimal, indicating that the risk in mortality and cancer incidence due to organ transplantation is negligible. CONCLUSION: Life threatening diseases such as those of the genitourinary system, as well as endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases and infectious diseases are leading causes of death. Future research should be directed at ways of reducing incidence and subsequent mortality due to these causes.

Objective: To compare individual risk behaviors in African American, Whites, and Hispanic women as found in the literature and support those findings by analyzing date available through NHANES in order to find out if the higher rate of HIV infection in African American women is a direct result of higher risk behaviors. Those risk behaviors include lower rates of condom use, higher rates of drug use including those taken intravenously, higher rates of risky sex habits, higher number of sexual partners over their lifetime, and a more extensive history of sexually transmitted infection. This study also aims to draw attention to larger factors that may foster the conditions for increased HIV rates in African American women. Results: The perception that higher rate of HIV infection is the result of increased risk factors among African American women is not supported either in the literature or in the analysis of NHANES data. For instance, results from data analysis found that African American women had fewer average sexual partners (P ≤ 0.05), lower overall rate of drug use (P ≤ 0.01), lower rates of risky sexual practices (P ≤ 0.01), but more likely to report a history of STIs (P ≤ 0.01) than Whites. The literature also confirmed that current HIV testing recommendations do not cover a large enough portion of the population to make significant impact on HIV incidence. In addition, socioeconomic situations further exacerbate the condition favorable to transmitting the disease. Conclusion: Methods that rely on individual risk behaviors alone may not be enough to reduce HIV rates in African American women, though those methods may be work in MSM. Socioeconomic programs that address disparities and testing recommendations that cover more people are needed in order to drive down HIV infection rates in African American women.

Objective: To compare known individual risk behaviors in African American, Whites, and Hispanic women as found in the literature and support those findings by analyzing data available through NHANES in order to find out if the higher rate of HIV infection in African American women is a direct result of higher risk behaviors. Those risk behaviors include lower rates of condom use, higher rates of drug use including those taken intravenously, higher rates of risky sex habits, higher number of sexual partners over their lifetime, and a more extensive history of sexually transmitted infections. This study also aims to draw attention to larger factors that may foster the conditions for increased HIV rates in African American women. Results: The perception that higher rate of HIV infection is the result of increased risk factors among African American women is not supported either in the literature or in the analysis of NHANES data. For instance, results from data analysis found that African American women had fewer average number of sexual partners (P ≤ 0.05), lower overall rate of drug use (P ≤ 0.01), lower rates of risky sexual practices (P ≤ 0.01), but more likely to report a history of STIs (P ≤ 0.01) than Whites. The literature also confirmed that current HIV testing recommendations do not cover a large enough portion of the population to make a significant impact on HIV incidence. In addition, socioeconomic situations further exacerbate the conditions favorable to the transmission of the disease in African American women. Conclusion: Prevention programs that rely on individual risk behaviors alone may not be enough to reduce HIV rates in African American women, though those same programs may be working in MSM. Programs that address socioeconomic disparities and testing recommendations that cover more people are needed in order to drive down HIV infection rates in African American women.

After Harberger published his influential paper in 1962, many authors have assessed empirically whether the incidence of the corporate income tax (CIT) falls on capital owners, consumers, or workers (Krzyzaniak and Musgrave, 1963; Gordon, 1967; Arulampalam et al., 2008). Today, there is little agreement among economists about who bears the incidence of the CIT (Gruber, 2007; Harberger, 2008a,b). The reason for the little convincing evidence is that the econometric models used in the literature ignore that the factors that motivate changes in corporate tax policy are sometimes correlated with other developments in the economy and disentangling those effects from exogenous policy changes requires tremendous effort. Using annual information at the industry level for the United States, I propose to investigate the consequences of exogenous changes in corporate tax policy. The identification of these exogenous events follows the work of Romer and Romer (2009, 2010), who provide an extensive analysis of the U.S. federal tax legislation using narrative records from presidential speeches and congressional reports, among other documentations. The results validate the original predictions from Harberger (1995, 2008a). That is, in the short-term, capital owners bear the full burden of the tax. Over time, however, capital owners are able to shift this burden either by raising consumers' goods prices, or decreasing workers' wages. The magnitude of these e ects depends on the degree of capital intensity as well as the access to international markets and the availability of substitutes for the industry under consideration.

No description available.

No description available.

Project (M.P.P.) - Simon Fraser University, 2006. / Theses (Master of Public Policy Program) / Simon Fraser University. Also issued in digital format and available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.) - University of Göttingen, 2004.

Although the incidence of breast cancer is high among Caucasian women, African American women continue to experience higher breast cancer mortality and lower survival rate in comparison to Caucasian women of the same age. Research regarding breast cancer screening among ethnic minority women from lower socioeconomic groups is extensive, but there is a lack of research that investigates barriers to breast cancer screening among African American women of higher socioeconomic status. The purpose of this study was to compare health beliefs of African American and Caucasian women regarding perceived barriers to breast cancer screening. The sample for this study consisted of 80 women, 40 African American and 40 Caucasian women, who were between the ages 40 to 80 years. The study was conducted at two local community churches located in Tampa, Florida. The barriers subscale from the Health Belief scale was used for data collection. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze demographic data, and independent t-test were used to compare the two groups in their perceived barriers. Results revealed that both groups perceived barriers to breast cancer, there were more similarities than differences. However, African American women were significantly more likely to indicate that having a mammogram would make them worry about breast cancer (p= 0.39). Although previous research has shown differences African American and Caucasian women, this study did not support those results. The two groups of women were similar in age, education, and marital status and all were active in their churches. Perhaps these similarities led to the lack of differences in perceived barriers scores between the two groups. This finding lends support to the idea that socioeconomic status more than race leads to disparities in breast screening.

Disease surveillance is the continuous collection, analysis, and interpretation of health-related data. Information gained from routine HIV disease surveillance is vital to national program managers deciding to implement new prevention or treatment programs. In this dissertation, we describe methods for estimation of HIV incidence and the prevalence of HIV drug resistance.