Kenneth L Standard

A longitudinal study of child growth in a rural community in Jamaica.

A longitudinal study of the growth of a cohort of 229 infants born in a rural area in Jamaica and followed to their 4th birthdays is described, and this paper reports analyses of the anthropometric measurements. Moderate impairment of growth affected the majority of children and was most marked between the ages of 3 and 15 months. Severe impairment occurred in boys more often than girls and in this comm unity was rarely attributable to disease. The concept of weight faltering has been investigated in some detail; failure to gain weight for a period of 6 months occurred in almost half the children but was not, by itself, a useful prognostic index of malnutrition; it occurred commonly in children of above average weight whose subsequent growth was normal. The provision of intensive care at specially appointed child welfare clinics did not completely prevent the development of serious malnutrition.

Socio-economic and cultural influences on child growth in rural Jamaica

A semi-longitudinal study of growth in children up to 5 years of age in a rural Jamaican community is described. One of its aims was to investigate the relationship between growth and factors in the social environment such as family structure, parental characteristics, housing and income. A strong relationship between growth and socio-economic variables was found. This apparently masked whatever effects the quality of care or separation from parents may have had upon child growth.

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.

Serological tests for treponemal disease in adults in two Jamaican communities.

Serological tests for treponemal disease are positive in many Jamaicans. Grant (1956) reported that from 1952 to 1954 of 12,820 men applying for farm employment in the United States, 2,869 (22 per cent.) were reactive in either the Venereal Disease Research Laboratory (VDRL) or the Kolmer-Wassermann tests; the ages were not stated but were probably mostly between 20 and 40 years. This reactivity is mainly caused either by syphilis or by yaws, the latter being a disease which used to be widespread in many rural areas but was not transmitted in Kingston, the capital city. The importance of yaws rather than syphilis as a cause of positive serological tests is suggested by the prevalence in different parishes. For example, 39 per cent. of applicants from the rural parish of St. Thomas, where yaws was once common, were positive, but only 15 per cent. of applicants from Kingston. As, however, considerable migration had taken place into the city, it is not certain how many of those from Kingston had lived in rural areas as children, at the age when they were most likely to be infected with yaws. Chambers (1938) in Jamaica found that the incidence of primary yaws lesions reached its peak between the ages of 5 and 9 years, with the next most frequent incidence between the ages of 6 months and 4 years. Tumer and Saunders (1935) reported that 90 per cent. of Jamaican patients with yaws gave a history of infection before the age of 15 years. This paper records the prevalence of serological reactivity to VDRL and Reiter protein complement-fixation (RPCF) tests in surveys of representative groups of adults aged 35-64 years living in a rural area, Lawrence Tavern, where yaws had once been prevalent and also in a population in August Town in the suburbs of Kingston, where a