Impact of - IDL-BNC @ IDRC - International Development Research ...

analysis, and engaging in various types of activities. In the process, tensions
and difficulties created by competing perspectives and beliefs were clearly
evident.
For example, epidemiology has as its central objective of study the prevalence
of sickness in a population. Biological and other factors condition the manner
in which sicknesses manifests itself in a given population. Occupation, earnings,
education, norms, values, beliefs, and habits, for example, influence the
prevalence of sicknesses. These variables can be interdependent, but analysis
strives to determine the degree of association of each as an independent factor
with respect to a particular health problem.
In epidemiology the interaction of factors that determine the health-sickness
process is perceived as multicausal. Epidemiology favours statistical analysis
as an instrument, which requires the use of precategorized and precoded
surveys to collect information.
In contrast, the social sciences have understanding of the social system as their
central objective. Socioeconomic and cultural factors are perceived asa system
in themselves and as a set of dynamic interconditioned elements. Such an
orientation makes epidemiologic analysis more difficult, given that some
variables (e.g., occupation and size of farm) are conditional factors and may
be conditioned reciprocally. In seeking to understand all elements of the
multicausal social relation, nonquantitative aspects (values, beliefs, interests,
etc.) are considered equally important.
The joint participation of all researchers in the education process plays a
decisive role in overcoming disciplinary barriers and prejudices. As a result,
the successful demonstration of health surveillance or exposure-monitoring
activities, as integrated functional elements of the services offered to farmers
at the most peripheral levels of the health-care system, will be of considerable
interest to other Third World countries searching for solutions to the problem
of providing appropriate preventative health care to their rural populations.
Acknowledgment - This project (3-P-88-0186-02) is supported by the
International Development Research Centre, Canada.
Worthing, C.R.; Walker, SB., ed. 1987. The pesticide manual: a world compendium
(8th ed.), British Crop Protection Council, Croydon, Surrey, UK. Pp. 326-327.
IOCU (International Organization of Consumers' Unions). 1986. The pesticide
handbook: profiles for action (2nd ed). IOCU, Penang, Malaysia.
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