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Science 11 August 1967:
Vol. 157. no. 3789, pp. 651 - 657
DOI: 10.1126/science.157.3789.651
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Articles

Health, Population, and Economic Development

International health programs have an important role in promoting economic development and population control

Carl E. Taylor 1 and Marie-Françoise Hall 1

1 Division of International Health, Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland

Health as a basic human value is particularly important to people in the developing world. Rates of economic development lower than had been hoped for and ever more steeply rising population growth have precipitated a reaction against public health programs. Among economists, agriculturalists, and even health professionals the philosophy arose that one should "hold back" on using modern weapons against disease because they are "too effective." To satisfy the recognized popular demand, simple and relatively ineffective measures of curative medicine could be substituted. It was said that the emphasis should be, instead, on agriculture, community development, education, and industrialization and that family planning should be pushed as a separate program. Documentation presented here sharply challenges such a point of view. No segment of the total development process can be effective without the other sectors.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Human numbers, environment, sustainability, and health.
A J McMichael and J W Powles (1999)
BMJ 319, 977-980
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A Strategy for Implementing Szasz's Recommendations.
S. Mudd (1981)
Journal of Humanistic Psychology 21, 53-65
Improved Nutrition vs. Public Health Services as Major Determinants of World Population Growth.
C. L. Marshall, R. E. Brown, and C. H. Goodrich (1971)
Clinical Pediatrics 10, 363-368
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