Sistema de Valores, la Salud y el Tercer Mundo.

• Main Author: Alberto G. Pradilla
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: Editorial Kimpres 1999-08-01
• Series: Medicina
• Subjects: Salud y el Tercer Mundo, Salud Pública, Historia de la Medicina, Morbimortalidad
• Online Access: http://revistamedicina.net/ojsanm/index.php/Revistamedicina/article/view/722

<p><em><strong>“I sit on a man’s back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to easy his lot by all possible means — except by getting off his back” Tolstoi</strong></em></p><p>A pesar de que es aparente que los seres humanos, las sociedades y los países son diferentes entre si, investigadores, planificadores y políticos tienden a ignorar las diferencias y pretender que la diversidad pueden ignorarse, darles un valor o un nombre y crear grupos de conveniencia.</p><p>La revisión de tendencias de causas de muerte en el mundo y en Colombia indica lo obvio. La morbimortalidad de los países del tercer mundo no es exclusivamente infecciosa ni la del primer mundo cardiovascular. Existen diferencias claras entre y dentro de los países no solo en las manifestaciones sino en los factores asociados que se modifican de año en año. Existen poblaciones en países del primer mundo con características de salud de tercer mundo y viceversa.</p><p>Se hace necesario ignorar los prejuicios e identificar los problemas de cada lugar, sus factores para desarrollar programas adecuados para el contexto del lugar. Debe evitarse caer en el pensamiento simplista de que somos tercermundistas y por lo tanto nuestros problemas son iguales con los otros países clasificados como tales.</p><p><strong>Summary.</strong></p><p>It is obvious for everyone that human beings, societies and countries are significantly different from each other. Even within a single region of a country it is possible to locate groups with value systems, languages, religion differences. This difference creates problems for researchers, for planners and policy makers. It is simple to ignore differences, give them an statistical value and pretend that diversity can be dealt by ignoring confounding variables and divide humans, social groups and countries into convenient groupings such as developed, developing, East, West, peasants, jet set, etc.</p><p>The evidence indicate the obvious. Health problems and its manifestations, associated factors, basic causes and the solutions for the same problem are not universal. The prevalent diseases of the so called third world countries are not exclusively infectious nor the diseases of the first are cardiovascular. A discussion on the trends of mortality by age and cause globally and in Colombia indicate that there are great differences between and within countries both in causes of death and in the associated factors year by year. Problems of third world can be found in the first world and those of the first can be found in the third.</p><p>It is necessary to ignore value judgements and identify the problems, its causes to design programmes suitable to the characteristics of the country or region. Universal solutions are not any longer appropriated.</p>