European journal of epidemiology
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We examined factors associated with increased mortality in a cohort of 85,203 adults with a history of imprisonment in New South Wales, Australia, between 1988 and 2002. Information on death was collected through linkage to the Australian National Death Index. The influence of demographic and criminological factors on the standardised mortality ratio (SMR) for all-cause mortality, and deaths due to drug overdose and suicide was examined using negative binomial regression models. ⋯ Certain demographic and imprisonment characteristics are indicators of high mortality among this population. The underlying causes of some of these characteristics such as mental illness or multiple imprisonments are potentially treatable and preventable. Prison health services need to develop interventions targeting high-risk groups to avoid this situation.
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Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a rare cancer in most parts of world, but rather common in Southern China and Southeast Asia. This study used IARC published datasets to explore the secular trends of incidence rates of NPC among different Chinese populations in Singapore, Hong Kong and Los Angeles, over the time period 1973-1997. We observed great disparity in the risks and time trends of NPC in those selected Chinese populations. ⋯ We further assessed the contribution of period and cohort effects to the observed trends in Hong Kong and Singapore populations through age-period-cohort modeling and found that an age-cohort model provided the best fit to the data in both populations, although for Singapore females a simple age-drift model fit the data well. There was a statistically significant decrease in the drop in incidence of NPC for cohorts born around 1940 in Hong Kong and 1958 in Singapore. This indicates that environmental and lifestyle changes play an important role in the declining incidence of NPC over time.