Undue Burdens
Medicaid funding limits, 24-hour waiting periods, mandatory counseling,
and parental consent rules have lowered abortion rates. According to Stephen
Matthews and Mark Wilhelm of Penn State’s Population Research Institute,
and David Ribar of George Washington University, such restrictions account
for 24-30 percent of the national 5 percent decline in abortion rates (from
27.3 to 25.9 abortions per 1,000 women) between 1988 and 1992. Where abortions
were restricted, birthrates went up. In Pennsylvania, for instance, 15
counties had abortion access in 1973. By 1977, the number was 32; in the
early 1990s it dropped to 16. In the mid-Atlantic region, 18 percent of
women seeking an abortion had to drive between 50 and 100 miles. Another
9 percent drove 100 miles or more. “The Supreme Court has generally held
regulations to be invalid if they place substantial obstacles in the path
of a woman considering an abortion,” the researchers say. “Our findings
suggest that the ‘undue burden’ standard should be broadened to consider
the availability of abortion providers in certain geographical regions.”
Coffee and Your Bones
The caffeine in coffee and tea isn’t linked to osteoporosis in postmenopausal
women. Even five cups a day made no difference when Tom Lloyd and his colleagues
in the College of Medicine measured bone density (both total body and hips
alone) in 138 healthy women ages 55-70. The women kept diet records; Lloyd’s
group then chemically assessed the amount of caffeine in each woman’s average
cup to come up with her consumption.
Watching Cancer Start
Cervical cancer -- for women, the second most common cause of cancer
death -- often begins with a virus. Other strains of this papillomavirus
cause only warts. A technical breakthrough in the lab of Craig Meyers in
the College of Medicine will help researchers learn why -- and how, perhaps,
to interrupt the disease. Meyers and colleagues are the first to grow an
infectious papillomavirus in tissue culture. “This means we can reinfect
new, healthy cells,” says Meyers. “We can then watch the virus grow and
take over. By seeing the virus from beginning to end we can look for opportunities
at therapeutic measures.”
Losers Take Steroids
Combine a win-at-all-costs ethic with a lean, muscular, hard-body image
of beauty, and the result is high steroid use among teenage girls. Charles
Yesalis of the College of Health and Human Development found steroid use
doubled between 1991 and 1996 among 8th and 10th grade girls. With most
interventions aimed at boys, girls apparently haven’t gotten the message.
Steroids might increase their strength, but it comes with a high price:
facial hair or baldness, a deeper voice, and enlarged genitals, along with
risks of heart and liver disease. Yesalis suspects damage to their developing
reproductive systems as well.
Welfare Wives
It’s poverty, not the snippet of economic independence enjoyed by a
woman on welfare that keeps her from marrying, according to a study by
Diane McLaughlin and Daniel Lichter of the Population Research Institute.
“Some proponents of so-called ‘welfare reform’ argue that poor single women
would be more inclined to marry if welfare were made a short-term, rather
than long-term solution to poverty,” Lichter says. “Our results suggest
that the marriage rates among poor women would go up faster if these women
had decent jobs and access to economically attractive men.” Their study
used data from the U.S. Census Bureau and National Longitudinal Survey
of Youth, with a total sample of 2,532 women.
Living Together
If you and your boyfriend live together before marrying, you’re likely
to end up wanting fewer (or no) children and accepting divorce as a norm,
according to a study by William Axinn of the Population Research Institute
and Jennifer Barber, now at the University of Michigan. “Other arrangements
-- living alone, sharing an apartment with a roommate, staying in a college
dorm, remaining with parents -- appear to have no effect on how young people
today perceive childbearing and marriage,” says Axinn. “While they are
more inclined to postpone matrimony than their parents, they still anticipate
a lasting marriage and childbearing.” Axinn and Barber used a 1961 sample
of mothers and children from Michigan; 82 percent of the families were
reinterviewed in 1985, when the children were 23.
Secondary Fathers
Children of the Bari people in the Venezuelan rainforest often have
two fathers. According to anthropologist Stephen Beckerman, a man who has
an extramarital affair with a pregnant Bari woman is believed to contribute
to the child’s development -- he’s also required to help provide for the
child. Children with two fathers are more likely to live to age 15, Beckerman
has found. His ongoing research focuses on the role of kin to the survival
of children.
Women's Voices
From the bold speech of ancient Egyptian women, to the rhetoric of medieval
mother’s manuals and the sexual stereotyping of Enlightenment prose styles,
to the exhortations for racial uplift by 19th-century African American
women, Listening to Their Voices shows how women throughout history
contribued to their communities as speakers and writers. The book of essays,
by Molly Meijer Wortheimer of Penn State Hazleton, was published in 1997
by the University of South Carolina Press.
HRT to Heart
More than one in three women will die of a heart attack. Notes David
Halbert, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Penn State's
College of Medicine, “About half of those can be prevented with hormone
replacement therapy.” Yet of women who begin HRT, only about 30 percent
stick with it. Of Halbert’s 214 patients, however, 89 percent took HRT
for one year and 82 percent for five years. According to colleague Tom
Lloyd, Halbert worked closely with the women when side effects (weight
gain, vaginal bleeding) occured. He adjusted their medication, “and reassured
them.This trust contributed greatly to compliance.”
--compiled from reports by Penn State's Public Information Offices.
To subscribe to the Penn State Newswire, send an e-mail note to
pat5@psu.edu.
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