Jamaican studies in nutrition and child development, and their implications for national development

Protein-energy malnutrition (PEM) is diagnosed by comparing children's anthropometric measurements with reference values for their age and sex. It is estimated that 177 million children under 5 years of age in developing countries have weights-for-age below two standard deviations of their expected value. Low weight-for-height (wasting) is less common but low height-for-age (stunting) is estimated to affect 35 percent of children between 24 and 59 months of age (Grant, 1991). If PEM has a detrimental effect on children's mental development the implications are obviously enormous. In the present paper, studies which have addressed this problem in Jamaica over the last 15 years will be discussed. No attempt is made to review the international literature which has been reviewed recently (Simeon & Grantham-McGregor, 1990). First those studies concerning severe and mild to moderate PEM in young children will be discussed, then studies conducted in school-aged children (AU)

Whatever happened to public health?

In many rich and poor countries, recent health service developments have led to neglect of the traditional public health functions. For various reasons, however, the need for these functions is increasing rather than diminishing. Developing countries should devote more resources to them, but they should not necessarily folow proposals from developed countries such as those in the Acheson Report, when locating public health in their organizational structure (AU)

Jamaica: a case study in health development

Jamaica is a sub-tropical country with a population of 2.2 million, ethnically and culturally related to West Africa. Its level of health in 1920 was similar to that of the poorest sub-Saharan countries today, but improved steadily during the period to 1980 and is now not far from that of many developed countries. The factors responsible for health development include basic public health measures, improved medical technology and increasingly incomes, literacy and public awareness of health matters, the balance between them varying over time; the emergence of a sense of national commitment on the part of health professionals is also important. While the Jamaican case demonstrates the feasibility of health development as the basis of modest national resources it is emphasised that each country is likely to find its own path to better health. International data are used to show the wide variations between developing countries in their present access to health resources (AU)