Long-term reductions in mortality among children under age 5 in rural Haiti: effects of a comprehensive health system in an impoverished setting.

Objectives: Evidence regarding the long-term impact of health and other community development programs on under-5 mortality (the risk of death from birth until the fifth birthday) is limited. We compared mortality in a population served by health and other community development programs at the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer (HAS) with national mortality rates among children younger than 5 years for Haiti between 1958 and 1999.

Methods: We collected information on births and deaths in the HAS service area between 1995 and 1999 and assembled previously published under-5 mortality rates at HAS.

Declines in HIV prevalence can be associated with changing sexual behaviour in Uganda, urban Kenya, Zimbabwe, and urban Haiti.

Objective: To determine whether observed changes in HIV prevalence in countries with generalised HIV epidemics are associated with changes in sexual risk behaviour.

Methods: A mathematical model was developed to explore the relation between prevalence recorded at antenatal clinics (ANCs) and the pattern of incidence of infection throughout the population. To create a null model a range of assumptions about sexual behaviour, natural history of infection, and sampling biases in ANC populations were explored to determine which factors maximised declines in prevalence in the absence of behaviour change.

Reducing under-five mortality through Hôpital Albert Schweitzer's integrated system in Haiti.

Background: The degree to which local health systems contribute to reductions in under-five mortality in severely impoverished settings has not been well documented. The current study compares the under-five mortality in the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer (HAS) Primary Health Care Service Area with that for Haiti in general. HAS provides an integrated system of community-based primary health care services, hospital care and community development.

[Survey of infant mortality in Mirebalais, Haiti].

Infant mortality remains high in Haiti, at 74 deaths per 1,000 live births. In this study, we aimed to assess infant mortality in Mirebalais and to identify the associated risk factors. We carried out a census of pregnant women in Mirebalais, at the beginning of the study, over a three-week period.

Arrested pregnancy syndrome in Haiti: findings from a national survey.

This report describes findings from a national survey of pregnant women in Haiti regarding the social epidemiology of pedisyon (perdition), or "arrested pregnancy syndrome," a condition believed to be associated with infertility. Data collected on mortality of respondents' sisters were used to indirectly measure the prevalence of this culture-bound syndrome in the adult female population and to compare its distribution in urban and rural areas. Perdition appears to be a fairly common event that affects a large proportion of Haitian women.

AIDS-related knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and practices in Haiti.

AIDS constitutes an important public health problem in Haiti, where it appears to be spread mainly through heterosexual encounters. The study reported here employed in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, and a national cross-sectional survey of 1,300 men and 1,300 women 15 to 49 years old to assess AIDS-related knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and practices in Haiti. According to criteria established for the study, 38.