ACTA MEDICA
ACTA MEDICA
Acta Medica (Hradec Králové) je víceoborový vědecký recenzovaný časopis vycházející v angličtině. Acta Medica publikují review, původní články, stručná sdělení, případové studie a oznámení. Časopis byl založen v roce 1958 pod názvem Sborník vědeckých prací Lékařské fakulty Univerzity Karlovy v Hradci Králové. Je indexován v databázích Chemical Abstracts, CNKI, DOAJ, EBSCO, Hinari, Index Medicus, MEDLINE, Scopus a Ulrichsweb.

ACTA MEDICA, Vol 56 No 4 (2013), 162–166

Secular Trends and Latitude Gradients in Sex Ratios at Birth in the Former Soviet Republics

Victor Grech

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14712/18059694.2014.12
zveřejněno: 23. 07. 2015

Abstract

Background: The male-female ratio at birth (M/F: male births divided by total births), which is anticipated to approximate 0.515, has been shown to exhibit latitude gradients and secular trends. Methods: Annual national data for male and female live births for the 15 countries that comprise the former Soviet Union were obtained from the World Health Organisation for the period 1980–2009 (115,167,569 total live births) and analysed with contingency tables. Spearman correlation was also carried out to compare percentage annual gross domestic product growth (GDP% – downloaded from the World Bank) and M/F. In this context, GDP% is used as a measure for economic hardship or wellbeing within the populace. Results: There have been overall highly significant secular increases in M/F (p < 0.0001) in the countries and regions investigated. M/F is significantly lower in the three more northern regions (Russian Federation, Baltic States and Central Asia. M/F 0.51324, 0.51335-0.51314) than the two more southern regions (Southern Caucasus and Eastern Europe. M/F 0.51654, 0.51635-0.51672). There was a male excess of 113,818 live births.There was a significant positive correlation between GDP% and M/F for Armenia, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan. There was a significant negative correlation in Estonia. Conclusion: Previous studies have shown that improving socioeconomic conditions increase M/F, and the converse has also been demonstrated. This is a potential influence in this geographical area since this region has relatively recently emerged from communist rule and experienced an overall economic upturn, but is only partially supported using GDP%. Another factor may be the selective termination of female pregnancies. The latitude gradient parallels that of neighbouring Europe but no theory has been put forward to convincingly explain this finding to date.

Creative Commons License
Secular Trends and Latitude Gradients in Sex Ratios at Birth in the Former Soviet Republics is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

210 x 297 mm
vychází: 4 x ročně
cena tištěného čísla: 150 Kč
ISSN: 1211-4286
E-ISSN: 1805-9694

Ke stažení