{"id":16303,"date":"2010-01-14T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2010-01-14T06:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/?p=16303"},"modified":"2010-01-14T09:40:09","modified_gmt":"2010-01-14T14:40:09","slug":"understanding-haitis-health-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/01\/understanding-haitis-health-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding Haiti&#8217;s Health Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"haitian children\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/01\/understanding-haitis-health-crisis\/\" target=\"_self\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-16306\" title=\"haitian children\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/haitian-children.jpg\" alt=\"haitian children\" width=\"300\" height=\"214\" \/><\/a>While\u00a0DietsInReview.com&#8217;s primary\u00a0focus\u00a0is <a title=\"diets\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diets\/\" target=\"_self\">weight loss<\/a>,\u00a0disease prevention and overall health and wellness, we are switching our\u00a0focal point\u00a0to discuss the other end of the health spectrum &#8211; <a title=\"poverty and diet\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/10\/blog-action-day-poverty-poses-diet-problem\/\" target=\"_self\">poverty<\/a> and malnutrition &#8211;\u00a0two hand-in-hand health issues that affect more than 80 percent of the citizens of\u00a0Haiti, the small island that was\u00a0wrecked by a massive earthquake this past Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>As tens of\u00a0thousands are\u00a0feared dead and\u00a0international\u00a0humanitarian efforts are underway,\u00a0it is important to consider just how serious this disaster is for the nine million citizens of this impoverished country. And in order to do that, a\u00a0glimpse into the health challenges that Haiti faces can provide a subtle background into just how dire the situation is and how serious it may become in the coming days, weeks and months.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->The following statistics are from a report developed by the United Nation&#8217;s Development Programme (UNDP):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, with\u00a0more than half\u00a0of the population living on one dollar or less a day.<\/li>\n<li>The\u00a0country ranks along with Afghanistan and Somalia with the world&#8217;s worst daily caloric deficit per inhabitant.<\/li>\n<li>One out of every three deaths is a child, and Haiti&#8217;s rate of 118 deaths per thousand live births for the period studied\u00a0is by far the highest in the Western Hemisphere and likely to get worse.<\/li>\n<li>Sixty\u00a0percent to 80 percent of the population is at risk of exposure to malaria while the incidence of tuberculosis is endemic and is the sixth-largest cause of death.<\/li>\n<li>At current rates of transmission, 10.5 percent of the population will be infected with HIV\/AIDS by 2026, compared to 6.31 in 2002 and 4.98 in 1996.<\/li>\n<li>According to the World Food Programme, acute undernutrition among children under\u00a0five years of age\u00a0is 9 percent. Chronic undernutrition is 24 percent and 50 percent of pregnant women and two-thirds of children under\u00a0five are affected by anemia.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These statistics are nothing short of daunting. And while it is in our intrinsic human nature to want to reach out to the Haitians and offer what support we can, government officials are encouraging those who want to donate money to do so to reputable and well-known relief agencies. <strong><a title=\"doctors without borders\" href=\"http:\/\/doctorswithoutborders.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Doctors Without Borders<\/a><\/strong> (M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res) and the <strong><a title=\"red cross\" href=\"http:\/\/www.redcross.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Red Cross<\/a><\/strong> are two such organizations. Find them on Twitter @MSF_USA and @RedCross.<\/p>\n<p>In the wake of this humanitarian crisis, the thoughts and condolences of the entire DietsInReview.com team are with those who are directly and indirectly affected by this tragedy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While\u00a0DietsInReview.com&#8217;s primary\u00a0focus\u00a0is weight loss,\u00a0disease prevention and overall health and wellness, we are switching our\u00a0focal point\u00a0to discuss the other end of the health spectrum &#8211; poverty and malnutrition &#8211;\u00a0two hand-in-hand health issues that affect more than 80 percent of the citizens &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/01\/understanding-haitis-health-crisis\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2895,31,2327,173],"class_list":["post-16303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-haiti","tag-health-news","tag-malnutrition","tag-poverty"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16303"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16305,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16303\/revisions\/16305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietsinreview.com\/diet_column\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}