Howard G Lovell

Heights and weights of adults in rural and urban areas of Jamaica.

Two populations, one rural and one urban, were denned geographically and numerically by a private census. The rural population lived about 16 miles north west of the capital city, Kingston, in an area sur rounding the village of Lawrence Tavern. The terrain is a complex of steep hills intersected by valleys lying between 750 and 2,000 ft above sea level. Agriculture is the main occupation and most of the land is under cultivation, a variety of fruits and vegetables being grown for home consumption or for sale in local markets. The houses are scattered, some of them being situated several miles from the nearest road. The people must in general lead energetic lives, not only when they are working but when they move about the hilly countryside. The diet is low in calories, proteins, and fats compared with that in North America or Britain (Cruickshank and Fox, 1961). The urban population lived in Greenwich Town, a section of Kingston, which is on level ground near the sea. Kingston is the only city of any size, the population of the metropolitan area being 380,000 out of a total Jamaican population of 1,610,000 according to the 1960 census. Employment was varied as is usual in a city. The diet was not investi gated. Almost all inhabitants of both areas were of predominantly African origin with a small varying mixture of European stock; most of their ancestors had come from the western coast of Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries. The populations in both areas were mostly poor. The sur eys were carried out by two of us (WEM and JL) from March to July, 1959, in Lawrence Tavern and from August to December, 1959, in Kingston. A portable bathroom scale was used for weighing. Heights were measured by a horizontal bar sliding on a vertical rod which was fixed to a small wooden platform on which the subject stood upright. Shoes were removed but other clothes were worn.

Haematological investigations of population samples in Jamaica

No large-scale studies of the prevalence of anaemia in the general populations of any of the West Indian territories have been reported previously. Interest in the medical characteristics of West Indian populations is increasing, both within the Caribbean area and in those countries where West Indian immigrants form an important section of the community, and in this paper we report the results of haematological investigations carried out as part of a series of surveys of cardiovascular disease in the adult population of Jamaica.

Heights and Weights of Adults in Rural and Industrial Areas of South Wales

Although surveys of stature, especially of weight, provide useful information on the general health of a population, there is a lack of recent anthropometric publications from Britain. The results of the national survey taken in 1943 (Kemsley, 1950) are unlikely to reflect present conditions. Here recorded are the results of surveys of heights and weights of Welsh adults living in the Vale of Glamorgan, a rural area, in 1956, and in the Rhondda Fach, a coal-mining district, in 1958.