Demographic change in Northern Ireland.

"This paper has two objectives: firstly, to provide an assessment of the current state of Northern Ireland demography, focusing on recent trends and the prospects for the future; secondly, to highlight the more significant ramifications of these trends for the wider society." Aspects considered include past and future population trends, consequences of stagnant or slow population growth, and implications of population trends.

Urine toxicology as an outcome measure in drug abuse clinical trials: must every sample be analyzed?

Clinical trials designed to establish the effectiveness of a pharmacotherapy for the treatment of drug abuse typically call for the collection and analysis of three urine samples per week to detect changes in drug use patterns. Examination of over 16,500 urine samples collected from 225 subjects during a one year buprenorphine/methadone clinical trial indicates that analysis of one weekly urine sample from those collected on a three-times-per-week fixed schedule provides essentially the same outcome information as analysis of all three weekly urines. Further, the percent of opiate-positive samples is constant across weekday, indicating that a single urine, randomly selected from those collected each week, is a valid indicator of treatment performance.

Buprenorphine as a pharmacotherapy for cocaine abuse: a review of the evidence.

The partial mu-opiate agonist, buprenorphine, is the subject of recent evaluation as a potential pharmacotherapy for cocaine dependence. This paper reviews the extant preclinical and clinical evidence of buprenorphine effectiveness in treating cocaine abuse, including data from our large methadone comparison trial and a smaller buprenorphine dose ranging study. Although buprenorphine appears to reduce cocaine self-administration in studies of non-opiate dependent animals, clinical evidence for the same response in opiate addicts abusing cocaine has not been demonstrated. Further efficacy trials should await preclinical demonstrations of effectiveness in samples with opiate and cocaine exposure.

Migration from Northern Ireland: a survey of new year travellers as a means of identifying emigrants.

"Travellers leaving Northern Ireland's air and sea ports at the end of the New Year holiday period 1988 were contacted as a means of identifying potential out-migrants. The method proved to be highly cost effective and reasonably successful. One thousand individuals who had either lived or had been born in Northern Ireland but who were now residing outside the province were obtained from 1,702 traveller contacts. The paper discusses the problems surrounding the representativeness of this sample of emigrants and outlines possible strategies for their resolution. The more significant results of a brief questionnaire survey about migrant origins, destinations, characteristics, motivations and intentions are also presented." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND GER)

Family size and religious denomination in Northern Ireland.

PIP: During the summer of 1983, a provincewide representative sample of all ever-married women and single women with children, under the age of 60, was interviewed to examine variations in family size in Northern Ireland. The valuation list of domestic dwellings was used as the sample frame and a clustered sample was drawn from this using the 526 electoral wards as individual clusters. Wards were stratified according to socioeconomic structure, religion, location within Northern Ireland, and whether they were predominatly rural or urban. Sampling within selected clusters was on a systematic basis and proportional to population size. For women currently married, 1 in 5 of the husbands was interviewed using a shorter questionnaire focusing on attitudes to fertility. Of the 3914 houseolds where contact was made and which contained an eligible female, there were 2997 successful interviews with females, giving an effective response rate of 77%. An additional 392 interviews were obtained from husbands. The most persistent fertility differential in Northern Ireland going back at least to the beginning of the 20th century has been that between Protestants and Roman Catholics. According to these preliminary findings, this remains the case. The average number of children born alive to ever-married Roman Catholic females was 3.24 in 1983, compared with 2.29 children for the corresponding group of non-Catholic women. Yet, the survey relates to an instant during a peirod of considerable flux in Roman Catholic fertliity, and comparison of these 1983 data with those collected at the 1971 census of population shows that Roman Catholic family size declined by 11% over the intervening 12 years, although this is marginally reduced after standardization for changes in the age structure of ever-married women. Non-Catholic family size, by contrast, remained virtually static during the same time period. The pace of change has been more pronounced in Belfast and its suburbs. Data are not yet available from the survey to chart these processes by marriage cohort, but some pointers can be obtained from the tabulation of family size by denomination and age of mother. With the exception of the under-20 age group, the average size of Roman Catholic families was consistently and substantially larger than that of the corresponding non-Catholic age group. The absolute difference in terms of mean numbers of children widened steadily with increasing age. These preliminary data also show that there is still a strong geographical dimension to the religious differential in fertility. Average family size was larger in rural than urban areas but moreso for Roman Catholics (16% larger) than for non-Catholics (9% larger). Although differences in family size between Roman Catholics and non-Catholics still prevail, there has been a considerable degree of overall convergence since 1971.^ieng

Fertility differentials and their impact on population distribution and composition in Northern Ireland.

The geographical variability of fertility in Northern Ireland is described and related to the factors of religious denomination, social class, and proportion of the population who are married. Although the substantial differences in birthrate from 1 region to another have a significant impact on population composition, it is concluded that internal migration rather than natural increase is the more important component of regional population growth and changing population.