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Jump to Chapter 3 Sections:
>> Health, development and aid >> Broad progress, startling changes, persistent quandaries >> Health indicators: advances and obstacles >> Health systems and services >> To review the bidding >> Implications of trends for future directions >> Implications for the philosophy and pursuit of "foreign assistance" >> Notes >> Background paper >> References
Some of the most extensive literature on the role of nonhealth variables focuses on women’s education, particularly for child mortality. Studies from a variety of settings indicate that women with about six years of basic education are less likely to see their children die to some extent regardless of their income, family size, or access to targeted services. Women’s education, therefore, is critical to infant survival in both developing and industrial countries.
Combined, aging and education could accelerate declines in infant and child mortality over the
next 20 years. In developing countries women with primary education tend to maintain traditional
roles (working at home and bringing goods to market) while having primary responsibility for
their children. With secondary education women take jobs outside the home, and illiterate
grandmothers care for the children. But when that happens, mortality rates tend to rise. Thus it
is hoped that when today’s literate mothers become tomorrow’s literate grandmothers, child
survival will increase.
Recent progress does not mean, however, that infant and child mortality will continue to fall in
all regions. As with many other indicators, Africa is a striking exception: infant mortality has been rising in countries hit hard by HIV/AIDS, reflecting the disease and its opportunistic infections. Secondary effects of HIV/AIDS such as changes in weaning or care-taking by infected
mothers can make infants more vulnerable regardless of their infection rates. Infant and child mortality also rise when infected parents suffer declines in their health, nutrition, and
overall well-being. Elsewhere, infant and child mortality rates may also be rising in Central Asia
and the southern part of Eastern Europe.
At the same time that food supplies and nutritional status are rising in most developing countries,
nutritional deficiencies continue to afflict the least developed countries. Malnutrition takes different forms in different regions, but always affects infants and children most profoundly.
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