BIBLIOGRAPHIC INPUT SHEET TEMPORARY Patterns of mortality ...

Chapter IV
Mortality in Childhood
The overall view of death rates in childhood
in the 15 projects, as presented in this
chapter, reveals wide variations in mortality
that need to be studied in depth. The
analysis of the rates by age group in
infancy indicates also the problems that
must be overcome to obtain complete and
comparable data not only in the Americas
but throughout the world. Officia 1 data of
higher quality than those now available are
indispensable for health planning. Moreover,
in order to relate the findings on
infants and young children to the health
status of the mother, research on !ow birth
weight, nutritional status, intelligence and
mental condition, and congenital anomalies
is necessary, and this requires full and cornparable
data on the outcome of all pregnancies.
For building healthy and intelligent
populations, infancy is a decisive period of
life, and one for which basic data of the
highest quality should be made available.
Tht present deficiencies cannot be tolerated
in an era in which spectacular progress is
possible in such other fields as travel in
space. The well-being of each child can be
attained through the application of medical
technology. The first step is to define the
problems.
DEATH RATES IN CHILDREN UNDER 5 YEARS OF AGE
Mortality in the period from birth to 5
years of age is discussed first in general
terms to illustrate the variations found in
urban, suburban, and rural areas of the 15
projects (Table 15). There are 25 distinct
areas and these are shown in Figure 32
according to size of the death rates, which
descend from the extreme high of 50.5 per
1,000 population to the low of 4.1.
The two areas with exceedingly high rates
were the rural municipios of El Salvador
(50.5) and the rural community of Viacha,
58
Bolivia (48.1). The three with the next
highest rates were cities: Recife, Brazil
(29.3), La Paz, Bolivia (26.6), and San
Salvador, El Salvador (26.4). Other areas
with death rates exceeding 20 per 1,000
population were the rural and suburban departments
of San Juan Province, Argentina
(24.0 and 21.9) and the rural departments
and the city of Resistencia in Chaco Province,
Argentina (23.9 and 20.7). At the
other end of the scale were three areas with
very low rates: two in California in the