Trends in cervical cancer incidence following the introduction of screening have mostly been studied using cross-sectional data and not analysed separately for squamous cell cancer and adenocarcinomas. Using Swedish nationwide data on incidence and mortality, we analysed trends during more than 3 decades and fitted Poisson-based age-period-cohort models, and also investigated whether screening has reduced the incidence of adenocarcinomas of the cervix. The incidence of reported cancer in situ increased rapidly during 1958-1967. Incidence rates of squamous cell cancer, fairly stable before 1968, decreased thereafter by 4-6% yearly in women aged 40-64, with a much smaller magnitude in younger and older women. An age-cohort model indicated a stable 70-75% reduction in incidence for women born 1940 and later compared with those born around 1923. The incidence of adenocarcinomas doubled during the 35-year study period. The mortality rate increased by 3.6% before 1968 and decreased by 4.0% yearly thereafter. Although a combination of organized and opportunistic screening can reduce the incidence of squamous cell cancer substantially, the incidence of adenocarcinomas appears uninfluenced by screening.

Background. Etiologic hypotheses in infantile autism suggest a strong genetic component, as well as possible environmental risks linked to early fetal development. We evaluated the association of maternal, pregnancy, delivery, and infant characteristics and risk of infantile autism. Methods. We conducted a case-control study nested within a population-based cohort (all Swedish children born in 1974-1993). We used prospectively recorded data from the Swedish Birth Register, which were individually linked to the Swedish Inpatient Register. Cases were 408 children (321 boys and 87 girls) discharged with a main diagnosis ion infantile autism from any hospital in Sweden before 10 years of age in the period 1987-1994, plus 2,040 matched controls. Conditional logistic regression was used to calculate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Results. The risk of autism was associated with daily smoking in early pregnancy (OR = 1.4; CI = 1.1-1.8), maternal birth outside Europe and North America (OR - 3.0; CI = 1.7-5.2), cesarean delivery (OR = 1.6; CI = 1.1-2.3), being small for gestational age (SGA; OR = 2.1; CI = 1.1-3.0), a 5-minute Apgar score below 7 (OR = 3.2, CI = 1.2-8.2), and congenital malformations (OR = 1.8, CI = 1.1-3.1). No association was found between autism and head circumference, maternal diabetes, being a twin, or season of birth. Conclusions. Our findings suggest that intrauterine and neonatal factors related to deviant intrauterine growth or fetal distress are important in the pathogenesis of autism.

Background. The effectiveness of mammography screening could be improved if factors that influence nonattendance were better understood. Methods. We examined attitudes, beliefs, and knowledge in relation to nonattendance in a population-based mammography screening program, using a case-control design. Data were collected from November 1997 to March 1998 through telephone interviews with 434 nonattenders and 515 attenders identified in a population-based mammography register in central Sweden. The questions asked drew primarily upon the components constituting the Health Belief Model. Results. Multivariate analysis showed that nonattendance was most common among women within the highest quartile of perceived emotional barriers, compared to women within the lowest quartile (OR = 4.81; 95% CI 2.96-7.82). Women who worried most about breast cancer were more likely to attend than those who worried least (OR = 0.09; 95% CI 0.02-0.31). Women with the highest scores of perceived benefits were more likely to attend than women with the lowest ones (OR = 0.35; 95% CI 0.08-0.75). Other factors associated with nonattendance were less knowledge about mammography and breast cancer, lack of advice from a health professional to participate, and very poor trust in health care. Conclusions, Our findings suggest that increased participation in outreach mammography screening programs can be achieved through enhancement of breast cancer awareness and possibly by reducing some of the modifiable barriers.

The aim of this study was to identify predictors of non-attendance in a population-based mammography-screening programme in central Sweden, on the basis of telephone interviews with 434 non-attendees and 515 attendees identified in a mammography register, Non-attendance was studied in relation to sociodemographic factors, indicators of general health behaviour, self-rated health and experience of cancer in others and own cancer or breast problems. Being single or being non-employed were the only important socio-demographic predictors of non-attendance. Non-attendance was more likely among women who never visited a dentist, had not visited a doctor in 5 years, had never used oral contraceptives or hormone replacement therapy, had never had cervical smear tests, never drank alcohol, smoked regularly, reported no breast cancer in family or friends or own breast problems, We conclude that socio-demographic factors alone do not appear to constitute strong predictors of non-attendance, General health behaviour and previous experience of cancer and breast disease seem to be more important factors. Our results suggest that in the setting of population-based outreach mammography programmes, previous contacts with the health care system and encouragement from health professionals represent determinants of attendance.

Over the past 40 years Estonia has experienced similar developments in mortality to other former Soviet countries. The stagnation in overall mortality has been caused mainly by increasing adult mortality. However, less is known about the social variation in health. This study examines differences in self-rated health by eight main dimensions of the social structure on the basis of the Estonian Health Interview Survey, carried out in 1996/1997. A multistage random sample (n = 4711) of the Estonian population aged 15-79 was interviewed; the response rate was 78.3%. This study includes those respondents aged 25-79 (n = 4011) with analyses being performed separately for men and women. The study revealed that a low educational level, Russian nationality, low personal income and for men only, rural residence were the most influential factors underlying poor health. Education had the biggest independent effect on health ratings: for women with less than an upper secondary education the odds of having poor health were almost fourfold (OR = 3.88) when compared to those with a university education, and for men these odds were almost two and a half times (OR = 2.32). Material resources, in this study measured by personal income, were important factors in explaining some of the educational and ethnic differences (especially for Russian women) in poor self-rated health. Overall, we found no differences between men and women in their health ratings. On the contrary, when we controlled for physical health status, emotional distress and locus of control women reported better health than men. Health selection contributed to, but did not explain the differences by structural dimension. This study also showed a strong association of poor self-rated health with three correlates-physical health status, emotional distress and locus of control, although the influence of these correlates on poor health ratings was not seen equally in the different structural dimensions.

This thesis is about social variation and long-term trends in health and mortality in Estonia. After five decades of Soviet occupation Estonia’s independence was re-established in 1991 on the basis of the historical continuity of its statehood. Estonian independence changed political, economic and social realities; it was accompanied by a sharp decline in living standards. By 1994/1995 the socioeconomic and political situation had started to stabilize. Both transitions, the Sovietization and the return to independence, were particularly hard on the population. Life expectancy had improved little or not at all from the 1960s. At the beginning of the 1990s there was an unprecedented fall. From 1995, life expectancy started to rise again.

Cause-specific mortality for 1965–2000 was examined in order to understand both the recent and the earlier long-term health crises in Estonia; educational and ethnic differences in cause-specific mortality were analysed for 1987–1990 and 1999–2000. Self-rated health was examined for 1996/1997. The cause-of-death data come from the national mortality database, and the self-rated health data come from the Estonian Health Interview Survey.

Circulatory diseases, neoplasms, and injuries and poisonings account for over 80% of all deaths in Estonia. Circulatory disease mortality started to decline considerably later than in Western countries, is very high by international standards and was sensitive to sudden social changes in the 1980s and 1990s. Cancer mortality rates among men increased, mostly because of lung cancer mortality. Mortality from injuries and poisonings is extremely high, has increasingly been contributing to Estonia’s long-term mortality stagnation and was the major contributor to the decline in life expectancy in the 1990s. Educational and ethnic differences in mortality increased sharply in 1989–2000. In 2000, male graduates aged 25 could expect to live 13.1 years longer than corresponding men with the lowest education; among women the difference was 8.6 years. Estonian men could expect to live 6.1 years longer than Russian men in 2000; among women this difference was 3.5 years. Injuries and poisonings were mainly responsible for the lagging behind of the lower educated and of Russians; in terms of total mortality the ethnic differences were small and not significant in 1989.

Generally low living standards (particularly a poor diet), and the increasing gap with Western countries, may have contributed to the long-term mortality stagnation from the mid-1960s. In the 1990s, the increasing differentiation of wealth and opportunity, as well as perceived social exclusion and poor adaptation to the social and economic changes, in particular among the low educated and among ethnic Russians, are important determinants of the growing mortality divide in Estonia. Alcohol consumption, in particular binge drinking, has to be seen as a main cause of increasing mortality among middle aged men from the mid-1960s, most evident in those causes of death that can be directly linked to alcohol. It accounts for a considerable part of circulatory disease mortality as well. Alcohol also contributes to educational and ethnic differences in mortality and their widening over the 1990s. Tobacco smoking, similarly, has contributed to long-term mortality stagnation and the widening of educational, but not ethnic, differences in mortality. Adverse living conditions in childhood may also have contributed to the educational and ethnic differences in mortality and to the long-term mortality development in Estonia. Estonia needs to think hard about policies to remedy this situation.

The current paper seeks to systematize the discussion on the causes of the changes in Eastern European countries’ suicide mortality during the last 15 years by analyzing the changes in relation to some common causes: alcohol consumption, economic changes, “general pathogenic social stress”, political changes, and social disorganization. It is found that the developments in suicide have been very different in different countries, and that the same causes cannot apply to all of them. However, the relation between suicide mortality and social processes is obvious. A model consisting of the hypothetical general stress (as indicated by mortality/life expectancy), democratization, alcohol consumption, and social disorganization (with a period-dependent effect) predicted the percentual changes in the suicide rates in 16 out of the 28 Eastern Bloc countries in 1984–89 and 1989–94 fairly accurately, while it failed to do this for Albania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and the Caucasian and Central Asian newly independent states. Most interesting were the strong roles played by changes in life expectancy, the causes of which are discussed, and the fact that economic change seemed to lack explanatory power in multiple analyses. The data are subject to many potential sources of error, the small number of units and the large multicollinearity between the independent variables may distort the results. Nevertheless, the results indicate that the changes in Eastern European suicide mortality, both decreases and increases, may be explained with the same set of variables. However, more than one factor is needed, and the multicollinearity will continue to pose problems.

Kapitlet presenterar EG:s varumärkesförordning, och det EG-varumärke som den började reglera i april 1996. Förutom historiken behandlas förordningens verkställande, dess processrättsliga delar samt förhållandet mellan Förordningen och svensk lag.

Long term trends of deteriorating health status in Soviet Union and Eastern Europe during the last two decades of communism were followed by a new crisis in health, after the collapse of its social system. In contrast, the perestroika period coincided with strongly improved public health. Explanations for the latest Russian health crisis are discussed. It is concluded that explanations based on poor medical care, excessive alcohol consumption or nutrional deprivation are, at best, insufficient. The collapse of the social system itself has lead to a narrowing of individual and collective decision latitudes; we speculate that historical factors, such as vulnerability of specific birth cohorts or segments of the population, may be part of the unexpected and very steep rise of mortality during the first half of the 1990s.

The prevalence of cancer in Sweden has increased greatly during the past 30 years. 40-47% of the observed increase can be explained by population dynamics, and 30% by better survival. Hence, only 23-29% is attributable to risk increase.