Health problems associated with agricultural colonization in Latin America

Abstract

Disease hazards help explain why much of Latin America's humid tropics remains sparsely inhabited. Recent agricultural colonization, occupation of new lands by peasant farmers, has been fostered partially by amelioration of some of the former threats. But landscape modification by colonists also has created new disease hazards. The continual arrival of settlers and the periodic nature of much ‘migration’ to colonization zones provide ideal conditions for the introduction and re-introduction of infectious diseases. Migration itself produces stress that may contribute to health problems. In the central Andean countries, the migrants to lowland settlement areas may be adapted biologically to high altitudes. Furthermore, cultural practices brought from different ecological zones often prove maladaptive in the lowlands. Finally, health care delivery among low-income colonists far from urban centers is difficult and expensive.