Articles: mortality.
-
Socio-medical indicators developed by WHO for monitoring progress towards Health-for-All have been adapted to reveal, clearly and objectively, the devastating impact of state planning based on an outmoded immoral and unscientific philosophy of race superiority in South Africa on the health of the disenfranchised majority within the context of social and economic discrimination; Health policy indicators confirm that the government is committed to three options (Bantustans, A New Constitution, and A Health Services Facilities Plan) all of which are inconsistent with the attainment of Health-for-All; Social and economic indicators reveal gross disparities between African, Coloured, Indian, and White living and working conditions; Provision of health care indicators show the overwhelming dominance of high technology curative medical care consuming about 97 percent of the health budget with only minor shifts towards community-based comprehensive care; and Health status indicators illustrate the close nexus between privilege, dispossession and disease with Whites falling prey to health problems related to affluence and lifestyle, while Africans, Coloureds, and Indians suffer from disease due to poverty. All four categories of the indicator system reveal discrepancies which exist between Black and White, rich and poor, urban and rural. To achieve the social goal of Health-for-All requires a greater measure of political commitment from the state. We conclude that it is debatable whether a system which maintains race discrimination and exploitation can in fact be adapted to provide Health-for-All.
-
During the 12-month period from September 1982 to August 1983, 9,317 live births and 58 maternal deaths were recorded in Melanda and Islampur upazilas in the Jamalpur district of rural Bangladesh, giving a maternal mortality rate of 62.3 per 10,000 live births. Maternal mortality was positively related to maternal age and parity, with the mortality risk rising very sharply beyond age 35 years, and beyond parity four among women aged 25-34 years in particular. The most common causes of maternal death were eclampsia (20.7 percent), septic abortion (20.7 percent), postpartum sepsis (10.3 percent), obstructed labor (10.3 percent), and antepartum and postpartum hemorrhage (10.3 percent). These findings indicate that family planning, by decreasing the likelihood of pregnancy after age 35 and parity four, can help reduce the proportion of women at risk of maternal mortality.
-
Trop. Med. Parasitol. · Dec 1985
Comparative StudyControl of deaths from diarrheal disease in rural communities. I. Design of an intervention study and effects on child mortality.
From May through October 1980, the "Strengthening Rural Health Delivery" project (SRHD) under the Rural Health Department of the Ministry of Health of Egypt had conducted an investigation into prevention of child mortality from diarrheal disease through testing various modules of Oral Rehydration Therapy delivery mechanisms. In a six-cell design counting a total of almost 29,000 children, ORT was provided both as hypotonic sucrose/salt solution prepared and administered by mothers and normotonic, balanced electrolyte solution in the hands of both mothers and health care providers and the effects on child mortality during the peak season of diarrheal incidence were measured. ⋯ A cost-benefit analysis was performed on the cost of the services as well as on the outcome for each of five study cells using the sixth, the control, as reference. Results showed that early rehydration with a sucrose/salt solution in the hands of mothers, backed by balanced oral rehydration solution in the hands of health care providers proved the most cost-effective means of reducing diarrhea-specific mortality as well as being as safe as prepackaged commercial preparations.