The Influence of Soclal Factors on Infant Mortality

Abstract

In order to get a better understanding of the social factors involved in the multiple and complicated social ethology of infant mortality, two counties with equal number of population in Bosnia and Hercegovina have been selected and thoroughly studied. During the last 10 years preceding the date of investigation the county of Trebinje had low infant mortality, while the county of Kljuc rated very high.

The study was conducted during the summer months were calculated for the past 10 years, and the causes of infant deaths during the last year preceding the survey were established trough doctors’ records and family information’s. Ali available informations about the economics, social relations etc in counties were collected and analysed.

To find out the social environment into which the infants were born in both counties, a survey of the families with new-born children was conducted. 49 of such families, i. w. 18 percent of the families in question were selected by random and visited and interrogated in the county of Trebinje. The number of such families in Kljuc was 58, i. e. 16 percent.

The tables in the report contain the numerical information about the data collected.

The authors found that the economic situation in the county of Kljuc, as well as the concomitant level of environmental sanitation was slightly, bout not sufficiently better in the county of Trebinje to give a satisfactory explanation for such an enormous difference in infant mortality rates (23.2 per thousand in Trebinje versus 167 per thousand in Kljuc in 1957).

A quest into the culture of the “population in both counties has discovered the extraordinary important role of certain cultural factors in the process of infant mortality. Among the most favourable customs from the point of view of infant protection in Trebinje have been found: population control, maturity of parents at the time marriage, tradition of economic emigration, very intensive relations and mixing of the rural population with their urban relatively, appreciation of good nutrition, high responsibility of the family for the future of their children etc.

In the county of Kljuc a quite opposite value system was found: higher illiteracy, economic and social isolation, no emigration, no birth, no artificial abortion, fatalistic attitude, indifference for the fate of children, immaturity of the parents at the marriage and a great ignorance in the questions of infant care.

In conclusion, the authors are discussing the most important lessons to be learned from their study, indicating several possible approaches to the control of infant mortality. The extraordinary role of the culture in the whole process opens the most promising approach to the health education.