Patterns of childhood mortality and growth status in a rural Zapotec community

Abstract

Infant and childhood mortality (birth to 14 years), and growth status of 143 schoolchildren (5 to 14 years) are considered for a rural, Zapotec-speaking community (population, 1703) in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. Mortality statistics are based on civil records from 1945 to 1970. Growth status is based on weight and height for age, and weight for weight for height. In the Zapotec community, about 59% of all deaths occur in children under 15 years of age; thus, a considerable percentage of individuals die before reaching reproductive age. Children under 5 years of age, however, account for approximately 54% of all deaths, and mortality in children 1 to 4 years of age is especially high (27% of all deaths). The latter figure suggests chronic malnutrition, frequent disease and generally poor circumstances in the community. This suggestion is supported in the heights and weights of schoolchildren, survivors of the rigorous selection processes of the pre-school years. The majority of children are below the 5th centile for stature in well-nourished American children. Weight for height, however, approximates that of the USA reference data.

The influence of relative age on success and dropout in male soccer players

“…The study of the relationship between seasonality and biological variables has a long tradition in human biology research (e.g., Malina and Himes, 1977;Miura, 1987). In healthy children and adults, it has been shown that birth dates correlate with educational achievement (Shearer, 1967), cognitive development (Williams et al, 1970), university academic performance (Boddi et al, 1996;Azevedo et al, 1995), and scientific creativity (Holmes, 1995).…”

Adult stature and age at menarche in Zapotec‐speaking communities in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, in a secular perspective

“…Crude death and infant mortality rates for San Pablo Villa de Mitla from 1895 through 1973 (Kappel, 1977) and for two of the communities from 1945 through 1970 (Malina and Himes, 1978) and from 1950 through 1978 (Granskog, 1974;Malina and Buschang, unpublished) are consistently higher than those for the state of Oaxaca and of Mexico, although they have gradually come down over the past 80 years or so.…”

“…The growth status of children in two of the communities has been described previously, as have been the general living conditions (Malina and Himes, 1978;Malina et al, 1972Malina et al, , 1980aMalina et al, , 1981. The five communities are subsistence agricultural and strong corporate units (Wolf, 19551, i.e., they are characterized by corporate rights and jurisdiction over the use of resources, restrictions on membership within the community, enforced participation in community political activities, and utilization of traditional technology on predominantly marginal lands.…”

The Influence of Social Activities on Seasonal Variation in Birth Rates in Makurdi Town, Benue State, Nigeria

“…So also is the culture of exhaustive farming activities and over anxiety of the harvest seasons causes human seasonality in birth rates (Stoeckel & Chowdhury, 1972). Based on the postulations of Thompson and Robbins (1973), Malina and Himes (1977) and Ayeni (1986), it is not very imperative to see cultural and social factors of birth rates as mutually exclusive. Rather, we may look at the cultural factors to be related to subsistence ecology that may influence the seasonality of conception.…”