These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: [The relation between population and health in a crisis].
    Author: Bronfman M.
    Journal: Cuad CENDES; 1989; (12):87-107. PubMed ID: 12286201.
    Abstract:
    This work argues that the economic crisis in Latin America resulting from structural adjustment programs and recession has had deleterious effects on the relationship between demographic factors and health. 2 works presented at the 1989 International Union for the Scientific Study of Population meeting in New Delhi considered the difficulty of demonstrating unambiguously the demographic effects of the economic crisis. This work, instead of looking at overall rates which may not have been greatly affected, focuses on 3 specific areas that reflect the relationship between population and health in the context of the crisis. Although the infant mortality rate has continued to decline in almost all countries and regions of Latin America during the crisis, the decline has been unequal in different sectors. A comparison of data from the 1987 National Survey of Fertility and Health in Mexico with that of the 1982 National Demographic Survey shows that rural infant mortality declined by only 1% between the 2 surveys, while urban infant mortality declined by 21%. An indicator of available services in the household showed the same increase inequality. Disaggregation of infant mortality data for Mexico suggests that even a presumably biological determinant, maternal age, loses much of its weight when socioeconomic factors are considered. Other studies, on the impact of maternal education, similarly indicate that the relationship is different for different social sectors. The infant mortality data taken together suggest that infant mortality continues to ba a valid indicator of social inequality, and that the crisis has had the effect of increasing inequality and worsening the relative conditions of the least advantaged. In the area of fertility, data from the 1989 National Survey of Fertility and Health in Mexico are used to argue that family planning programs are integral components of an authoritarian governmental political style. The survey indicated that sterilization is now the most commonly used contraceptive method in Mexico and that fully 12.4% of sterilized women did not make the decision to be sterilized themselves. 34% of illiterate women who were sterilized did not make the decision themselves. 14% of all the women but 33% of illiterate women reported they would not be sterilized if they could make the decision again. These data and others on the high proportion of women who undergo sterilization at young ages and low parities and without being informed of other methods suggest that the attitude of the official family planning program is becoming more authoritarian and less respectful of human rights as it seeks to curb population growth. The area of health effects has usually been ignored in migration studies. The phenomenon of Mexican migrant workers in the US who return to Mexico after contracting AIDS is an obvious example of the link between population variables and health.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]