CHRC meets in Trinidad

Nearly 200 people attended the 45th scientific meeting of the Caribbean Health Research Council in Port-of-Spain's Hilton Hotel in April. Opening the event, Trinidad and Tobago's health minister Dr Hamza Rafeek emphasised the importance of essential national health research. He congratulated CHRC on the work it was doing. The minister for Tobago, Dr Morgan Job, gave an address discussing the financing of healthcare. Even wealthy nations were unable to meet the entire cost of providing care, he said. Individuals must be encouraged to take more responsibility for their own health, particularly with regard to behavioral change required to prevent ill-health. Presentations at the conference began with a consideration of the course content, and the delivery of that content, at the three campuses of the medical faculty of the University of the West Indies. Speakers from Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad described recent developments and the continuing efforts being made to ensure that doctors were well and appropriately trained (AU)

CARA: a breath of fresh air

Few conditions are of more concern in the Caribbean today than asthma. This much was clear from the large turn-out and enthusiastic response to a meeting organised in Port-of-Spain by the Caribbean Allergy & Respiratory Association (CARA). The meeting took place immediately before the annual scientific gathering of the Caribbean Health Research Council. The meeting also heard feature lectures on allergic rhinitis in Jamaica, new techniques under development for the assessment of inflammation, and patient education. The importance of the latter was indeed a recurring theme throughout the discussions. There were also presentations of recent Caribbean asthma research, which included accounts of experience in paediatric asthma clinics in Tobago and Jamaica. Results were presented from a study seeking to determine whether there were seasonal peaks in the incidence of asthma attacks in Trinidad. Rises in temperature, humidity, and wind speed all seem to be able to increase the number of attacks. Prior to the main CARA meeting there had been a mini-symposium on asthma in Tobago, and a public meeting at the Eric Williams Medical Complex in Trinidad. The three-day event was popular with those who attended and was a fine example of continuing medical education in action (AU)

An analysis of the food and nutrition situation in the Commonwealth Caribbean and the role of the Caribbean Food and Nutrition Institute in this nutritional environment

The paper analyses the nutritional environment in the Commonwealth Caribbean. The differences in economic growth and the detrimental social consequences of those countries experiencing negative growth, are used to demonstrate the differing scenarios existing in the area. All the countries under review have for a prolonged period showed low domestic food production, and incurred large food import bills. Within this environment, household food security is unstable and very vulnerable especially for the poorer segments of society. Coping mechanisms employed by the government and the people have maintained an adequate supply of energy-rich foods so that energy-protein analysis of the available foods(using the most recent FAO data) point to a deficiency of complex carbohydrates, an overabundance of simple sugars and animal foods. From observation, the animal products tend to be very fatty. Coincidentally, the countries are experiencing an epidemic of the chronic nutrition-related diseases,e.g. cerebrovascular and ischemic heart diseases and diabetes mellitus of adult onset. The role and mission of the Caribbean food and Nutrition Institute in this nutritional environment is stated, as are its priority programme activities. As regards future directions, new targes to 1995 to be based on the situational analysis are presented. A shift in the work of the Institute to focus on chronic nutrition related diseases and health promotion and to emphasize health for development, is the major consideration for the 1990's

An analysis of the food and nutrition situation in the Commonwealth Caribbean and the role of the CFNI in this nutritional environment

The paper analyses the nutritional environment in the Commonwealth Caribbean. The differences in economic growth and the detrimental social consequences of those countries experiencing negative growth, are used to demonstrate the differing scenarios existing in the area. All countries under review have for a prolonged period showed low domestic food production, and incurred large food import bills. Within this environment, household food production is unstable and very vulnerable especially for the poor segments of society. Coping mechanisms employed by the government and people have maintained an adequate supply of energy-rich foods so that energy-protein malnutrition has slowly and steadily declined in most countries. However, an analysis of the available foods (using the most recent FAO data) point to a deficiency of complex carbohydrates, an overabundance of simple sugars and animal foods. From observation, the animal products tend to be very fatty. Coincidentally, the countries are experiencing an epidemic of the chronic nutrition-related diseases, e.g. cerebrovascular and ischemic heart diseases and diabetes mellitus of adult onset (AU)

Caribbean Food and Nutrition Institute: policies, objectives, programmes and strategies for the medium-term

This paper presents an outline of the policies, objectives, programmes and medium-term strategies of CFNI and provides a background for more detailed discussions on the Institute's technical programme components, which are offered in other contributions