Reflections on Malnutrition in Haiti

Analysis

2008-07-22T12:42:00.000-04:00

I am ending my 9th week in Haiti and I finished my work in Fondwa this last week. Of the 215 children on the list I mapped, conducted surveys and collected height and weight data on 210 of them, I could not locate the last 4 on the list. It has been a wonderful experience and while on the surface I have not seen any obvious trends I’m looking forward to looking at the data and learning more about the children in Fondwa. I will probably sit down and calculate the number of miles I walked during my time there and I’m sure it will be a lot so I’m still amazed to think that some children walk up to 3 hours one way each day to get to school. I will be returning to the USA next Sunday bringing back all the surveys and data on my computer with me. I plan on meeting with Dr. Walmer later on in the week and setting out a plan for data analysis. This will be my last update from outside the USA. I will also develop the pictures I took out here when I return to the States and will have electronic copies that I can send to you soon after tha

The Heat and 80%

2008-06-30T13:35:00.005-04:00

Things are going on well. School ended which put a stop to me being able to access the kids there for the rest of the height and weight data, so now I’m carrying a scale, portable Hgb machine and ruler to homes I’m visiting so I can get the information on the 13 remaining kids. I have visited the homes of 80% of the children (thanks to previous GPS mapping of a lot of their homes I was able to find them). I will have to search out the remaining 20% myself by asking around who, so far everyone’s been helpful and I’ve already tracked down some of these “missing” kids. July is the hottest month in Haiti and I am beginning to feel it, I am normally out walking around for 6-9 hours everyday but today I was only out for 3 hours and returned home early because it was so hot. I will probably have to start setting out earlier in the day in the next few weeks to beat the heat.

Daily life is also good, I am staying at the guest house which hosts guests the area and doubles as a house for the Sisters of St. Antoine. They are very supportive and since they help run the school, the orphanage and the guest house here their help has been invaluable. I am getting to know them and my 3 translators from the University of Fondwa very well.

As far as trends in the data, I haven’t noticed anything so far but the major analysis involving examination of the data by region will not be done till I return to the USA since I need help from others to get that set up. I am going to be using the CDC/WHO Anthro program to determine the percentiles for heights for weight, weight for age etc.

Progress in the Rain

2008-06-16T13:06:00.001-04:00

I’ve been in Fondwa for the last 2 weeks as of last Saturday. I returned to the school first and tried to get all remaining data (heights, weights, hemoglobin) for children who were not around during the initial assessment in March. I’m up to 93% of all children in the school and hope to complete all of them this week. After that I started visiting homes where I’ve been doing the community assessment. I’ve visited 40% of the homes so far. It has been raining a lot so that has made some of my days longer as the mountainside is very muddy when it rains but I’ve been visiting 5-6 houses on average everyday which should allow me to get to all of them by the end of my time here though some of them are 2 hours walk away.