Articles: health.
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This report describes the breastfeeding and weaning practices of rural women in two Mexican towns and the cultural beliefs upon which these practices are based. Interviews and focus group discussions were used to collect information. Women thought breastfeeding preferable to bottle-feeding. ⋯ Women's decisions regarding infant feeding were influenced most by custom and advice from doctors and family members. In some instances medical advice conflicted with traditional practices. These findings suggest important avenues for intervention in hospital practices, education for health care workers, and in the development of health promotion services.
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Bull. World Health Organ. · Jan 1994
ReviewNutritional status as a predictor of child survival: summarizing the association and quantifying its global impact.
By pooling the results from five previously published prospective studies, we have obtained estimates of the relative risks of mortality among young children 6-24 months after they had been identified as having mild-to-moderate or severe malnutrition. These risk estimates, along with global malnutrition prevalence data, were then used to calculate the total number of young-childhood deaths "attributable" to malnutrition in developing countries. Young children (6-60 months of age) with mild-to-moderate malnutrition (60-80% of the median weight-for-age of the reference population) had 2.2 times the risk of dying during the follow-up period than their better nourished counterparts (> 80% of the median reference weight-for-age). ⋯ Each year approximately 2.3 million deaths of young children in developing countries (41% of the total for this age group) are associated with malnutrition. The comparability of studies, methods used to derive pooled values, potentially confounding factors that may influence risk estimates, and the validity of the results are discussed. Child survival programmes should assign greater priority to the control of childhood malnutrition.
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Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol · Jan 1994
The epidemiology of needlestick and sharp instrument accidents in a Nigerian hospital.
To characterize the epidemiology of percutaneous injuries of healthcare workers (HCWs) in Ile-Ife, Nigeria. ⋯ The high frequency of percutaneous exposure to blood among HCWs in this Nigerian hospital potentially could be reduced by simple interventions at modest cost.