Community participation in malaria control on the Amazon frontier

Meeting: Roundtable on Community Participation in Tropical Disease Control, 12th, 18-23 Sept. 1988, Amsterdam, N

Migration bias in indirect estimates of regional childhood mortality levels

Demographers often use Brass-style indirect methods to obtain childhood mortality estimates for regions within developing countries. Regional populations are not closed to migration, however, and mortality reports of women resident in a certain region on the survey date may contain information on events and exposure that occurred elsewhere as the mother migrated. Including this “imported”; mortality information may cause significant bias in regional estimates. In this paper the authors: (1) investigate the possible magnitude of migration bias using a multiregional simulation model, (2) propose a modification to standard methods which should reduce bias in many circumstances, and (3) apply the modified technique to data from Brazil's 1980 Census. We find that migration bias can indeed be significant, and that in the specific case of Sao Paulo state, imported mortality information may result in overestimates of local mortality levels of 10-15% when using Brass-style methods.Migration, mortality, indirect estimation methods, Brass methods, Brazil,

O ensino da demografia e a formação de demógrafos no Brasil

O artigo faz uma descrição das principais atividades de ensino e de formação de demógrafos no Brasil, além de tecer algumas considerações sobre o marco de referência que nortearia a estrutura curricular e os arranjos institucionais. Procura-se mostrar o dinamismo do ensino da demografia no país, que combina várias formas: cursos de sensibilização, de curto prazo; disciplinas em programas de outras áreas de conhecimento; cursos de especialização; e programas de mestrado e doutorado. A Abep teve importante papel na promoção de cooperações interinstitucionais e na disseminação do ensino da demografia para um público amplo, nas diferentes regiões do país. Novas formas de disseminação e descentralização do ensino são sugeridas, através de arranjos institucionais inovadores e/ou fazendo uso de tecnologia de ensino à distância

Malaria rates and fate: A socioeconomic study of malaria in Brazil

This paper examines behavioural risk factors for malaria in the Machadinho resettlement area in the Amazonian forests of Brazil. Analysis suggests that economic status and knowledge of the importance and behaviour of the mosquito in transmitting malaria are significant factors in determining prevalence risk, irrespective of whether preventive precautions (DDT spraying of houses, and clearing vector breeding sites) are undertaken in the endemic area. However, a higher economic status combined with better knowledge of the vector and DDT spraying decreases the risks of infection considerably. The results suggest that economic status--which is not easily subject to intervention--plays a more important role in transmission than is normally suspected, although preventive actions diminish the disease burden significantly. One might conclude that the landless and impoverished migrants who seek income, and independence in the jungle are destined to have malaria as one of their many burdens. A more positive implication is that control programmes must work harder and more intensively on behalf of poorer migrants in order to diminish the disease burden for these groups.malaria Brazil socioeconomic status risk