Rural Northeast Research Articles

TBAs in rural Northeast Brazil: referral patterns and perinatal mortality

This paper examines factors affecting hospital referral by traditional birth attendants (TBAS) and the impact of both TBA assistance and hospital intervention on birth outcome. In the county of Trairi Brazil 139 of 1057 women seen by TBAs over the course of a year planned to deliver at home but were referred to a hospital. An additional 119 women gave birth at home without the assistance of a TBA. Adjusted odds ratios showed that referral rates were significantly higher for women in the following groups; 1st delivery 35 year of age and over antenatal pathology malpresentation previous cesarean section multiple birth and lower caseload of TBA. Although TBAs identified and referred most high risk women hospital intervention did not have a statistically significant impact on the survival of infants born to women most likely to be referred. Reporting problems may have reduced significance levels. For home deliveries survival status was not statistically affected by the presence of a TBA. (authors)

Water-contact patterns and Schistosoma mansoni infection in a rural community in northeast Brazil.

We evaluated the influence of water-related human activities, contaminative behaviour, house location, education and socio-economic status on endemic Schistosoma mansoni infection. The study was conducted in a hilry non-irrigated area of rural northeast Brazil amongst a defined population of subsistence farmers, of whom 93% were infected by age 20. The area was mapped, water bodies were surveyed, and a detailed questionnaire was performed on each household. Infection was assessed by duplicate stool examinations using the sensitive Bell technique to quantify egg excretion. For each household, and index of intensity of infection was computed by grouping individual log-transformed egg counts as an age-sex adjusted Z score. Few households had a sanitary installation or a domestic water supply. However, neither water-contact nor contaminative behavior were indiscriminate. The people made considerable effort to defaecate far from a water source, to obtain household drinking water from the cleanest source, and to bathe only at certain sites where privacy is assured. Land ownership and literacy correlated poorly with the household index of intensity of infection. The key influence on infection status was the relative location of the house and snail-free or snail colonized water sources. In this area, a safe domestic water supply is the critical input needed to achieve definitive control of endemic Schistosomiasis.

A study on health status of school children in rural northeast Thailand--(1). Physical growth status and blood biochemical status

To clarify the health and nutritional status of inhabitants of rural Thailand, a medical survey study was carried out in a farm village with a population of about 1000 in northeast Thailand (near Kohn Kaen: Don Daeng village) in 1984 and 1985. In this report, the physical growth status and biochemical blood status of school children are presented.All physical parameters, i. e., body height, body weight, girth of chest, and skin fold thickness, were poor as compared with recent Japanese children (those of school children in the village are almost the same as those of Japanese from 1950-1955).From plasma and blood examination, the spread of infectious diseases including chronic hepatitis was presumed, and the nutritional status of protein, fat, vitamins and minerals was insufficient as compared to Japanese children. Therefore, it is postulated that there were many marginal nutritional deficiencies, i. e., thiamine, calcium, iron, etc. and that many diseases will be induced by these nutritional deficiencies.

Teacher judgments of first‐graders' reading enthusiasm

Abstract This study was undertaken to investigate teachers’ judgments of first‐graders’ reading enthusiasm. Seven teachers classified 117 first‐graders as having high, average, or low reading enthusiasm. The students, located in a rural northeast Georgia school system, were comparable in sex and racial compositions. The Heathington Primary Scale, Metropolitan Achievement Test and Hollingshead Two‐Factor Social Index were used to assess self‐report attitudes, reading ability, and socio‐economic status, respectively. Three one‐way ANOVAS revealed no statistically significant differences in socioeconomic ratings or self‐report attitude scores. Statistically significant differences (p < 01) were found, however, in reading achievement scores. Teachers’ perceptions of reading enthusiasm do not always match those of young students, and many times may be based simply on reading achievement. Reading attitude and achievement, then, may be two separate entities in the early stages of learning to read, and perhaps should be treated as such in the reading curriculum.

Many Strange Characters: Montana Frontier Tales by James Willard Schultz

266 Western American Literature Many Strange Characters: Montana Frontier Tales. By James Willard Schultz. Edited by Eugene Lee Silliman. (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press. 1982. 143 pages, $10.95.) “In a sense, this volume completes a trilogy,” writes Eugene Lee Silliman in his introduction. The trilogy is tales by James Willard Schultz which Silliman unearthed from old periodicals and has brought to light in Why Gone Those Times (1974), Floating on the Missouri (1979), both also published by the University of Oklahoma Press, and now Many Strange Characters. This time out Silliman has collected not Schultz’s tales of Indians, for which he isnoted, but his portraits of white frontiersmen. Here are wolfers on the trail of a bad bear, a sheriff trying to feather his nest with dubious taxes, soldiers at the Nez Perce retreat, crazy escapes from Indians and grizzlies, woodcutters coming to tragedy. Schultz, an Anglo who came west in 1877 for adventure and stayed to marry a Blackfoot woman and develop particular sympathy with the Blackfeet, sketches all these characters authentically, color­ fully, and with a sharp ear for frontier dialogue. Though nothing here is new, the reader will find some good detail work for the collaborative effort on the gigantic painting called the history of the Old West. WINFRED BLEVINS, Thermopolis, Wyoming A Family Likeness. By Janis Stout. (Austin: Texas Monthly Press, Inc., 1982. 165 pages, $11.95.) In announcing A Family Likeness as winner of the 1982 Frank Wardlow Prize, Texas Monthly Press describes the novel as about “three generations of women whose roots are tied to the harsh, unyielding East Texas soil.” Although it embraces the lives of three McCall women, the prefatory eulogy for Florence McCall, the grandmother, suggests that the novel is primarily her story, or at least the story of her influence on the family. The first section is set in rural northeast Texas, in the general area of William Humphreys’ Home From the Hill, and Likeness can be added to the collection of what Paul Foreman has called “Red-Dirt Texas Fiction.” The East Texas tone of strident morality and “Southern gothic” enigma combined with the populist background of the 30s puts Stout in company with George Sessions Perry and his contemporaries. Stout creates in Florence McCall a heroine who thinks of herself as doing only what has to be done, who suffers setbacks and losses which she has no control over, and who has an unromantic death, viewed at the end by most of her family as a burden or, at the least, an anachronistic embarrassment. Her granddaughter Lori yearns to see her as a hero, although the tobacco juice stains on Florence’s chin are a reminder of her rural, uneducated background. Lori grows up in Ft. Worth, where the middle section of the novel is set, and so feeds on secondhand knowledge of her maternal heritage. ...

The relationship of first graders’ reading attitude to sex and social class

Abstract This study was undertaken to provide additional information concerning first graders’ attitudes toward reading and to determine if after four months of reading instruction sex and SES differentiate reading attitude scores. During the first week in February, the Heathington Attitude Primary Scale was given to three samples of first grade students, two urban and one rural. Study I and Study II students were randomly selected from a SES stratified list of 375 urban first graders in a Northeast Georgian County. Study III students were randomly selected from a SES stratified list of 275 first graders in a rural Northeast Georgian County. In the urban studies disordinal interactions between sex and SES revealed lower SES males and females to differ (p < .05) on attitudes toward reading. Furthermore, average SES males scored higher than average females. Although sex and SES trends were noticed for the rural study, no significant differences were found for the main effects or the interaction. With the low magnitude of effect of sex and SES on reading attitude, other factors need to be investigated, in particular, factors within the lower SES level that may influence lower SES males negative feelings toward reading. Motivational factors and the beginner's understanding of the purpose for reading may be two other areas of exploration.

Failure of Chloroquine Prophylaxis in Plasmodium falciparum From East Africa

IN 1979, four cases of chloroquineresistant Plasmodium falciparum infections were reported from Kenya and Tanzania. 1-4 All four cases were characterized by RI type of resistance 5 (RI in vivo resistance indicates that, following a 1.5-g [base] dose of chloroquine, the parasitemia clears within seven days but recrudesces from persisting blood forms within 28 days of initiation of therapy). These cases represent the only documented evidence of chloroquine-resistant falciparum malaria in East Africa. We report evidence of another manifestation of chloroquine resistance in East Africa, the development of falciparum malaria in two persons despite adequate chloroquine prophylaxis. Report of Cases Case 1.— A 27-year-old white American woman traveled in rural northeast Tanzania from June 15 to July 6, 1980. One week before her departure, she began and reportedly took 500 mg of chloroquine phosphate (300-mg base) weekly. She continued to follow this same regimen after her return to the United

The Effects of Methodology and Level of Development on Children's Animistic Thought

Abstract The present study examined the effects of level of cognitive development and method of E investigation on children's degree of animistic thought. One hundred and eight second and third grade boys and girls were initially tested with two class inclusion tasks to determine their developmental level. Ss were all Caucasian, lower-middle class children from an elementary school in rural northeast Georgia. From this original testing, 30 Ss were randomly selected who functioned at the preoperational level and 30 who performed at the concrete operational level. Ss were then randomly assigned to one of two testing conditions—verbal interrogation or sorting. Results of the study suggest the following: (a) neither level of development nor method of investigation affect children's ability to distinguish animate from inanimate objects; (b) level of development does not affect the number and type of criteria children employ to ascribe life; (c) method of investigation does affect the number and type of criteri...

Health Consequences of Induced Abortion in Rural Northeast Thailand

A very high rural abortion rate of 101 per 1000 women 15-44 was found in Chayapoom Province, Thailand. A closed population of rural women was interviewed to assess the health consequences of various methods of induced abortion. Indigenous abortion practitioners were also identified and interviewed to determine methods used and the size of their caseloads. Among the women sampled, 60% had massage abortions, 32% had uterine injections, and 11% took an oral abortifacient. Levels of abortion and complication rates are presented, and the economic cost of rural induced abortion discussed. Data on incidence of abortion and hospitalization are compared with national figures.

Effect of income and geographic region on the nutritional value of diets in Brazil

The nutritional quality of dietary patterns in Brazil was examined as influenced by income level, region, and urbanization by calculating nutrient to calorie ratios and amino acid scores. In general, income level had only a minor influence on diet quality. Riboflavin and calcium were generally low in the low income groups in all regions, especially in urban areas. Thiamin intake was marginal in urban areas at all income levels. Protein quality appeared to be relatively independent of income, with two exceptions. These were the dietary patterns of the lowest income groups in the rural Northeast and the City of Sao Paulo which were somewhat limiting in methionine and lysine, respectively. In contrast, the total availability of calories and protein was greatly dependent on income and the lowest income families were seriously short of food. Income, therefore, appeared to be more important in determining the total amount of food available to a family in Brazil than in affecting the nutritional quality of the diet.

Isolation and Public Opinion in Rural Northeast Brazil

This study examines and attempts to explain the paradoxical fact that those repondents most isolated from the mass media of communication were also most likely to endorse the radical political symbols of the time.