Between World Aids day and 16 days of domestic violence awareness – anyone who follows media in Belize has been “statisticated” to death. And there’s more tonight.
The new numbers are contained in not one, but two weighty tomes called Health In The Americas. It’s the flagship publication of the Pan American Health Organization and trust us, it’s got a lot of statistics – literally thousands - for 46 countries in the Americas – dealing with everything from population growth rates to the number of pit latrines in a country.
But behind all those numbers, all that data, are the lives of men and women, boys and girls. And we found out what it says about the people of Belize.
Dr. D. Beverley Barnett, PAHO/WHO Country Representative
“The people are the resource, no? If you only had buildings and trees that would be very nice, but without the people, healthy people, there is no development.”
Jules Vasquez, Reporting
And health planners say the key to development is in here. If you like statistics, this document is the mother lode. It’s produced every 5 years, and it analyses the region’s health situation, with an in depth analysis of each country. It collates endless streams of numbers for 45 member states. In Belize’s country report alone, we counted over 200 statistics in just 11 pages. The main trend shows that:
Dr. D. Beverley Barnett, PAHO/WHO Country Representative
“The non communicable diseases are the main causes overall of death and illness and as you heard in the session they are very much tied to environmental factors, but also to lifestyle and the interplay of the two is where we need to see action.”
But Belize also needs to see action in its progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. The book outlines each of its members country’s performance against the MDG’s as they are called. What it shows is a country making two steps forward and two steps back.
For example, Belize is doing well with enrollment in primary school, well above 95%. But the literacy rate of 15 to 24 year olds is at 85%, only Guatemala and Haiti are lower.
And that’s bad because that literacy rate went down 12.5% in the 14 years between 1990 and 2004, the only country in the Americas where the literacy figure decreased.
But again to the upside, Belize is right in the middle of the pack with women who are employed in non agricultural sectors – a positive growth of over 10%.
And it’s even better for child deliveries attended by skilled health personnel, where Belize is right at the top of the list.
Bu worryingly, Belize is right at the top of the list for HIV AIDS prevalence rate, an alarming 20% increase between 2001 and 2005.
A mixed bag, but since the bad concerns the most productive sector of the population those between 15 and 49 years old, we’d say that overall it’s not encouraging. The question though, isn’t how bad it is, but what are health planners and policy makers going to do about it?
Dr. D. Beverley Barnett, PAHO/WHO Country Representative
“This publication provides statistics. Statistics if not used are useless. Data must always be collected for a purpose, and if the data are not going to be used, then frankly, there’s no point collecting them.”
Hon. Joe Coye, Minister of Health
“There are those who still today – within our very bureaucracy and even our private sector – who spend the days collecting data and never know why they are doing it and that might be the end of the work because the data was never translated into relevant information.”
Now, the hope is that with the health reform programme, all these numbers will produce something beneficial
Dr. D. Beverley Barnett, PAHO/WHO Country Representative
“The idea is to move to a situation where you budget according to the results you wish to achieve.”
Following up on the findings of this document, the countries of the Americas have agreed to a new health agenda for 2008 to 2017.
