Bibliography: leaves 215-236

This thesis was funded by the Department of Human Services (South Australia) to test the acceptability of nicotine patches to pregnant women and to assess the safety of nicotine patches for pregnant women, at least in terms of overall exposure to nicotine. The study was conducted in the antenatal clinics at the Women's and Children's Hospital, Adelaide and was a pilot for a planned larger study. If the pilot indicated that the nicotine patches could be used safely by this group of women, the larger study would examine the effectivemess of patches in a smoking cessation program. Four focus groups, three with pregnant women and one with their care providers, were used to elucidate issues for pregnant women related to smoking and the use of nicotine patches to aid cessation.

published_or_final_version / Microbiology / Master / Master of Medical Sciences

published_or_final_version / Medical Sciences / Master / Master of Medical Sciences

published_or_final_version / Community Medicine / Master / Master of Philosophy

Recurrent data are widely encountered in many applications. This thesis work focuses on how the recurrent hospital admissions relate to the air pollutants. In particular, we consider the data for two major cities in Saskatchewan. The study period ranges from January 1, 2005 to December 30, 2011 and involves 20,284 patients aged 40 years and older. The hospital admission data is from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). The air pollutants data is from the National Air Pollution Surveillance Program (NAPS) from Environment Canada. The data set has been approved by the Biomedical Research Ethics Board, University of Saskatchewan. The gaseous pollutants included in this study are carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), ozone (O3), as well as particulate matter PM2:5 (tiny particles in the air that are 2:5 microns in width). In the data analysis, we applied three different existing models to all respiratory diseases and asthma, respectively. The three models are the Poisson process model (also called Andersen-Gill model), the Poisson process model with the number of previous events as a covariate and the Poisson process model with shared gamma distributed frailties (random effects). For all respiratory diseases, the Poisson process model with random effects provides the best t in comparison to the other two models. The model output suggests that the increased risk of hospital readmission is significantly associated with increased CO and O3. For asthma, the Poisson process model provides the best t in comparison to the other two models. We found that only CO and O3 have significant effects on recurrent hospital admissions due to asthma. We concluded this thesis with the discussion on the current and potential future work.

No description available.

This thesis was funded by the Department of Human Services (South Australia) to test the acceptability of nicotine patches to pregnant women and to assess the safety of nicotine patches for pregnant women, at least in terms of overall exposure to nicotine. The study was conducted in the antenatal clinics at the Women's and Children's Hospital, Adelaide and was a pilot for a planned larger study. If the pilot indicated that the nicotine patches could be used safely by this group of women, the larger study would examine the effectivemess of patches in a smoking cessation program. Four focus groups, three with pregnant women and one with their care providers, were used to elucidate issues for pregnant women related to smoking and the use of nicotine patches to aid cessation.

Bibliography: leaves 215-236 / xiii, 238, [78] leaves : ill ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Community Medicine, 1988

Diss. (sammanfattning) Uppsala : Sveriges lantbruksuniv. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.