BIBLIOGRAPHIC INPUT SHEET TEMPORARY Patterns of mortality ...

Chapter XVI
Environmental Conditions
In addition to tile various factors influencing
the level of mortality in childhood
that have been considered in previous
chapters, another important group of environmnental
factors deserves analysis. These
include conditions in tile child's surroundings
such as housing, water supplies, and
sanitary facilities,.
In Chapter XIV education of the mother
was shown to be a useful overall indicator
of socioeconomic conditions. That analysis
revealed that there were differences ill socioeconomic
conditions among families in
two groups: (1) those of infants dying in
the neonatal period and (21 those of infants
(lying in tIme postneonatal period. The fainilies
of the first group are probably fairly
representative of the situation in tile general
population of the areas concerned, as inany
deaths occur soon after birth and are due
to factors related to pregnancy and delivery,
However, even in this period environmental
conditions affect mortality and become of
increasing importance with age. The vartation
in death rates in Latin American areas
was much less in this neonatal period than
in the postneonatal period, when time causes
stemmed principally from environmental
factors and the infectious diseases were
responsible for ai high proportion of deaths,
Also, excessive mortality from nutritional
deficiency in the postneonatal period was
probably the result of unfavorable socio-
309
economic conditions that deprived tile children
of sufficient nutritive food for proper
growth and development and left tlemi
suscelptible to repeated infections.
In this chapter the two aforementioned
groups of families are taken as a basis for
lringing out tIhe differences in environnental
conditions. Mortality in the postneonatal
period is then analyzed in relation
to environmental conditions affecting tihe
families.
Availability of drinking water has been
recognize(l as an important determinant
of morbidity and mortality due to diarrheal
disease (Watt et al., 1953; Hollister et al.,
1955). The Investigation has shown that
the supply of piped water available to
families of deceased infants varied widely
anong the cities and wits ahnost completely
lacking in a few cities and in several of the
rural areas.
Water supply is the principal environmental
condition analyzed in this chapter;
however, data on sanitary facilities and size
of house, which are also important factors,
are considered as well.
Schliessnmnn et al. (1958), on investigating
the associations between environmental
conditions and incidence of diarrheal
disease, found that tile effect of socioccononic
factors such as income, family size,
education of housewife, and crowding was
secondary in importance to tile effect of the