Health transition review : the cultural, social, and behavioural determinants of health
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Fieldwork conducted in Kpelle village in north-central Liberia revealed that health-care expenses constitute a major part of domestic spending. The actual transactions for major health-care expenditures are handled by men, typically using income that jointly belongs to the couple in addition to the husband's personal income. Women are likely to spend their personal incomes on minor health expenses for themselves and their children. Women's health expenditure, as well as their income handling arrangements, seem to differ according to the type of conjugal union they are in. Although Kpelle wives have input in most financial decisions, they tend to defer to men on issues which are associated with the Western world, namely Western health care, educational and tax expenditures.
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As Asia becomes increasingly urbanized the effect of new industrial development on child mortality becomes of increasing interest. In India, considerable investment has been made in the social infrastructure of industrial new towns. This survey of Durgapur steel town in West Bengal shows that although the average level of child mortality in the working class population is favourable in comparison with other Indian cities, considerable differentials, that can be related to social, economic and environmental differences within the population, have arisen since the creation of the city in the late 1950s. The paper argues that the undertaking of selective sanitary interventions to improve access to drinking water (in particular) would be administratively feasible in these industrial new towns, of immediate impact, and indeed necessary if the differentials in mortality are to be eliminated.
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Review Comparative Study
Socioeconomic inequalities in childhood mortality: the 1970s to the 1980s.
The last three decades have witnessed substantial reductions in childhood mortality in most developing nations. Despite this encouraging picture, analysis of WFS and DHS survey data shows that socioeconomic disparities in survival chances have not narrowed between the 1970s and 1980s, and in some cases, have widened. ⋯ In most countries studied, no more than 20 per cent of the national trend could be accounted for by compositional improvements. The median contributions of improvements in mother's education and father's occupation were ten and eight per cent, respectively.