Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 2006
Survival time data of Plasmodium falciparum infections from deliberate infection of human subject... more Survival time data of Plasmodium falciparum infections from deliberate infection of human subjects with P. falciparum between 1940 and 1963 as a treatment for neurosyphilis in the USA (Georgia) have been used to test the fits of five commonly used parametric distributions for survival times using quantile-quantile plots. Our results suggest that the best fit is obtained from the Gompertz or Weibull distributions. This result has important implications for mathematical modelling of malaria, which has for the past century exclusively assumed that the duration of malaria infections has an exponential distribution. It is desirable to know the correct distribution because its shape profoundly influences the length of monitoring needed in an intervention programme for eliminating or reducing malaria.
A statewide evaluation of the Education Now and Babies Later (ENABL) program was conducted to ass... more A statewide evaluation of the Education Now and Babies Later (ENABL) program was conducted to assess its ability to increase adolescents'knowledge and beliefs about pregnancy prevention. ENABL is aimed at preventing teenage pregnancy through abstinence. Using a quasiexperimental research methodology, middle school students (N= 1,450) comprised a treatment group (n = 974) and a comparison group (n = 476). Subjects completed a pretest and posttest reflecting knowledge and beliefs about teenage pregnancy. ANCOVA revealed significant differences (F = 8.98, p < .001) on posttest scores between the two groups. The treatment group showed marked improvement from pretest to posttest scores, whereas the comparison group did not. These findings support the claim that the Postponing Sexual Involvement (PSI) curriculum is effective in affecting students' knowledge and beliefs about teenage pregnancy and illuminate the need for social work intervention at a variety of levels to address this multifaceted problem.
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