The Children of Honduras- Health

Overview
There are many factors that you must take into account when you talk about the health of children in Honduras.

Inconsistent diet
Sleeping location
Lack of proper hygiene
Exposure to natural elements
Inability to seek or follow medical care

Lack of social support networks to help out in times of illness, and lack of health care due to poverty are the biggest factors in the rapid deterioration of physical well being in street children.

Infants
Honduras had an infant mortality rate of 32 infants per 1000 live births and an under five years- old mortality rate of 40 children per 1000 live births in 2000. The high rates are due because teenage mothers have the highest mortality rate, then mother 35 years old and older, and finally mothers 20 to 34 years of age. Closely spaced births can lead to premature and underweight babies. If infants were born less than a year after their siblings, they have a higher risk of dying. Because of these high mortality rates, and to ensure that a certain amount of children survive, women must give birth to many children. Honduras has a high birth rate: 204 000 births annually. The majority of fecund women will have on average four children during their reproductive years.

Contraceptives
One of the reasons why Honduran women give birth to so many children is that most women do not use contraceptives. In a family health survey, researchers interviewed 10,141 women in Honduras about family planning, family health, fertility, and child care. Researchers found that 56.88% of women had never contraceptives. Another reason why women don't use contraceptives is that children are very useful to the Honduran family because they can help contribute economically to the family. Children provide extra money to the family income. They can help the mother with her work or take care of their siblings.

Children
Due to the great poverty of people in the cities, many children in Honduras are undernourished and sick. Based on the data of “Project Alternativos”:

16% of the children had adequate and inferior mental health
36% had adequate and inferior physical health
40+% had substantial dietary deficiency
5% of the children had not seen a doctor beforehand
51% had not seen a doctor in a year
33% ate two meals and 8% ate one meal
6% of the street children ate three meals per day
28% were undersized
3.8% were gravely undersized
24% were underweight
1% were seriously underweight

Malnutrition factors

Mother/caretaker’s and father's schooling
Source of water
Geographic location in which the child lives
Ownership of items such as

radio
television
refrigerator
stereo system

Living in the poor conditions, even a minor sickness, can become a serious illness. Chronic diarrhea is another problem for children that often leads to death . Diarrhea can be cause by a number of things, including an inconsistent diet. Once children get diarrhea, it can dehydrate them to make them even sicker and can often lead to death if nothing is done because the children's bodies can not get the nutrients they need.

Sex
Sex is a large part of the lives of many of the street children, prostitution and STD's led to the decline of physical and mental health.

	Street Children	Market Children
Sexually active	51%	5%
Treated for STDs	70.9%	44%
Prostituted themselves	33.3%	4.2%

Information for this page came from the following sources:

Ministerio de Salud Pública y Asistencia Social, Management Sciences for Health, Family Health International and Association for Family Planning in Honduras. 1989. “Epidemiology and family health survey, Honduras, 1987: final report.” Tegucigalpa, Honduras: Honduran Ministry of Public Health, Association For Family Planning in Honduras, Management Sciences for Health, and Family Health International.

Nestel, Penelope, Alejandro Melara, Jorge Rosado, and Jose O. Mora. 1999. “Undernutrition among Honduran children         12-71 Months Old.” Pan American Journal of Public Health 6: 256-265.

UNICEF. 2002. “Statistical Data: Honduras.” Retrieved October 30th, 2002.
(http://www.unicef.org/statis/Country_1Page74.html).

Wittig, Martha. 1994. “Culture of Poverty or Ghetto Underclass?: Women and Children in the Streets of Honduras.” Ph.D.         dissertation, Department of Sociology, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA.

Wittig, Martha, James D. Wright, and Donald C. Kaminsky. 1997. “Substance Use Among Street Children in Honduras.”         Substance Use and Misuse 32: 805-827

Wright, James D., Donald C. Kaminski, and Martha Wittig. 1993. “Health and Social Conditions of Street Children in                Honduras.” American Journal of Diseases of Children 147: 279-283

This website was created by Jeremy Hall, Michael Lewis, and Chrystelle Zweidler.

This is a project for Prof. April Brayfield’s Children and Society, a first year English writing seminar at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. We are not, nor claim to be, experts on Honduras. This project was completed with limited resources and in a limited time frame.