Health Sciences

HEALTH SCIENCES Nutrition—Malnutrition, particularly in pregnant women and children, is a leading cause of disease and death and represents a significant threat to any development effort. Health and Epidemiology—Development interventions are ineffective if they fail to address the basic life-and-death issues pertaining to child health, reproductive health, maternal health, infectious disease control (such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis) and non-communicable disease control. As just one example, child mortality rates in the poorest countries are often 30 to 50 times higher than in industrialized countries. Most interventions to reduce this gap require implementation of basic and proven technologies. Population Sciences—Population dynamics must be a key consideration in any long- or short-term development strategy. Understanding the strong connection between high fertility rates and poverty, practitioners must have basic knowledge of reproductive health, family planning and voluntary child spacing strategies, as well as interventions to promote gender equality and health education to enable women and men to make informed family planning decisions.