Role of poverty must be emphasised

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7461.352-d

BMJ 2004;329:352 (7 August), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7461.352-d

Letter

Role of poverty must be emphasised

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Malnutrition in children is the end point of acomplex chain of causation, including infectious disease, traditionalweaning practices, maternal (and paternal) knowledge of childdevelopment, standards of hygiene, and much more. Underlyingall of these is the real root cause—the unjust distributionof wealth and other resources both within and between countries.Government health workers are commonly the only professionalsactively interested in children's malnutrition, and yet theyare hampered by the health service's paradigm, which tends tosee only the proximate causes and does not see a role for itselfin tackling the deeper problems. A study such as the one byPowell et al might come about in two ways.¹ It might be partof a community development process, in which parents and carersare in the process of identifying the factors preventing theirchildren from developing their full potential and are takingsteps to . . . [Full text of this article]

Jim Black, head, epidemiology

Victorian Infectious Diseases Service, Grattan Street, Parkville, Victoria 3050, Australia james.black@mh.org.au

Bebe Loff, head, Helen Potts, lecturer

Human Rights and Bioethics Unit, Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Central and Eastern Clinical School, Monash University, Alfred Hospital, Prahran, Victoria 3181, Australia

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