In a study of women’s health around the globe, the World Health Organization (WHO) found that the AIDS virus is the leading cause of death and disease in women between the ages of 15 and 44, according to an Associated Press story.

The full report, Women and health: Today’s evidence tomorrow’s agenda, is available online from WHO.

TIME Magazine features research by nutritionists using Add Health Romantic Pairs data showing that married people are much more likely than those who are dating to gain weight.

See also: The, N. S., & Gordon-Larsen, P. (2009). Entry into romantic partnership is associated with obesity. Obesity.

The September 2009 supplement to Journal of Adolescent Health is themed Adolescent Obesity: Towards Evidence-Based Policy and Environmental Solutions, and is available for free on the journal’s web site.

This is an annual report on trends in health statistics from NCHS. The PDF files for the complete, executive summary, and highlights are available at this link. There is also a special “Chartbook on Young Adult Health”.

If you would like to comment or add additional questionnaire, lab, or exam components for the 2011-12 NHANES wave, please read the memo (PDF) from NHANES director, Dr. Clifford Johnson.

The deadline for submitting items for the Examination component is June 30, 2009.

The National Study of Fertility Barriers is a nationally representative telephone survey of women age 25-45. The focus of the survey is biomedical fertility barriers including subfecundity, repeated miscarriages, health conditions that preclude childbearing, and sterilization regret. The data is available to all researchers but registration is required before data is released.

For more information on the NSFB and instructions on registering to obtain access, see the NSFB SodaPop page.

A new report from MACRO International/MEASURE DHS (PDF), using data from 22 developing countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, finds that HIV prevalence is linked to social and economic characteristics. This may reflect an association between these characteristics and sexual risk-taking.

A survey of health insurance in Pennsylvania found that more than 1 million Pennsylvanians, mostly employed adults, lack health insurance (Philadelphia Inquirer).

The 2008 Health Insurance Survey research report and county statistics, as well as the 2004 survey results, are available online from the Pennsylvania Insurance Department.

Researchers at Virginia Tech have created a synthetic US population based on Census data, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Wired Campus.

The model runs on a supercomputer and assigns demographic characteristics to fake individuals based on real data, as reported in IEEE Spectrum. The model could be used to study any number of social science problems, and researchers are currently using it to study flu transmission.

For more, included selected publications, see the EpiSims project web page.

More than half of Americans with chronic conditions skip medication or doctor appointments because of costs, according to a new survey by The Commonwealth Fund (New York Times).

Citation: Schoen, C., Osborn, R., How, S. K., Doty, M. M., and Peugh, J. (2008). In chronic condition: Experiences of patients with complex health care needs, in eight countries, 2008. Health Affairs.