UNDERSTANDING HUNGER AND MORTALITY THROUGH SOCIAL EPIDEMIOLOGY

Abstract

Mortality due to hunger is historically a common public health event and pertinent even in current context. The modern approach of public health views it under the narrow bio-medical thinking ignoring the entire social realities. Social epidemiology as a public health tool has enormous potency in defining such public health phenomenon using historical trends, contextual factors and human body conditions.

The paper develops a ‘Hunger-Mortality’ skeletal diagram to depict how hunger as a root cause gets formed because of unavailability of food and accordingly the human body is being affected and succumbed to death or disease. Mortality appears under the simplified but non-negotiable ‘hunger chain’: food unavailability – undernutrition – compromised immune system – susceptibility to infections – higher risk of morbidity/mortality.

The paper further takes the reference of study conducted by Sheila Zurbrigg in the context of Punjab, India to explain causes of malaria mortality in colonial India during 1868–1940. This study delineates the thinking of social epidemiology to trace the causality of malaria mortality.

The paper uses the perspective of social epidemiology to explain the importance of food in relation to hunger and mortality and critical to the popular practice of micronutrient level intervention to address hunger.

References

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