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LETTERS:
Rodrigo Guerrero, Michel Jancloes, John D Martin, Andrew Haines, Dan Kaseje, and Martin P Wasserman
How the cycle of poverty and ill health can be broken
BMJ 1998; 316: 1456 [Full text]
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[Read Rapid Response] Long overdue.
Paul Appleton   (13 May 1998)
[Read Rapid Response] Women in poverty
Alain Marcoux   (7 July 1998)

Long overdue. 13 May 1998
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Paul Appleton,
A@E Registrar
Nepean Hospital, Penrith Australia

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Re: Long overdue.

Great to read in a firstclass journal a long overdue attack on poverty,economic globalisation etc.as a root cause of illth.I love working in emergency medicine but we've got to get upstream of the swelling flood of disasters before we all drown! More strength to your arms!
Women in poverty 7 July 1998
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Alain Marcoux,
Senior Officer, Population Programme Service, Food and Agriculture of the United Nations (FAO)
FAO, Rome

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Re: Women in poverty

In their highly valuable contribution, Dr Guerrero and his colleagues write that, among the "people living in absolute poverty ... [s]even out of 10 ... are women". This figure has never been substantiated, and has now been proved wrong.

Those interested may refer to the article "The feminization of poverty: claims, facts, and data needs": Population and Development Review, Vol. 24 No. 1 (March 1998), pp. 131-139, in which I draw attention to a United Nations sponsored study that finds a percentage of females of about *53-54* percent in poor households actually surveyed, and I show that a 70 percent proportion is a sheer imposibility on demographic grounds.

In my view exaggerations such as the "70 percent slogan" should never be used. They discredit their users - and, regrettably, the rest of their arguments - in the eyes of the professional and governmental community (although, of course, the general public, and apparently some journalists, may very well "buy" them).

The same topic is examined in depth from the data collection viewpoint in a forthcoming article on the next issue of the Brown Journal of World Affairs ("How much do we really know about the feminization of poverty?").

Best regards.