RESEARCH ISSUES IN CHILD HEALTH

Abstract

The discussion of research issues in child health and nutrition at this symposium has centered around what are really two different types of questions. One type of question is in regard to political imperatives: imperatives for social and economic change, imperatives for change in the circumstances of whole segments of population, and imperatives for the expression of dignity and for the expression of self-determination on the part of these segments of the population. The second type of question, which has been confused with rather than integrated with the first, concerns research issues and research problems that may be confronted in the area of health, education, and development, particularly as it affects certain segments of the population which are called "socially disadvantaged." This "disadvantaged" population has not merely been culturally deprived. Its members have been exploited. They have been segregated in the community. They have been subjected to excessive and unbearable patterns of insult for centuries. They have been deprived of housing, of health, of educational and economic opportunities, and of a variety of other things. Our discussion takes place in an atmosphere in which a significant segment of this part of the American population is expressing itself in various and heterogeneous ways and in many different voices, but with a common message, namely, "We wish to be heard. We wish to be determiners of our own destinies. We wish to define the kinds of problems we have and the ways in which the problems we have are to be approached. problems we have are to be approached.