Interrelation between health and population: Observations derived from field experiences

Abstract

This paper presents information and concepts concerning the health of populations in less developed countries as background for discussions of more focused and detailed papers on these and related subjects.

It begins with a review of health status and trends in developing countries since 1950, followed by a section identifying the major health problems and their causes.

The third part includes analyses of associations between health resources, water and sanitation facilities, food availability, and economic and social indicators taken as independent variables and measures of health status—life expectancy, crude death rates, and infant mortality—as the dependent variables.

The final section discusses health policies and their implementation and offers an analysis of the resource requirements and health effects of different methods of organizing and combining health programs in a few developing countries. The objective is to illustrate a method of determining preferred activities at any given level of investment and the probable health effects of varying increases in the level of health expenditures.