Vital statistics, maternal and foetal mortality

Abstract

The vital statistics in any community reflect not only the quality of medical and nursing care, but also its nutritional and environmental state. World comparisons will usually show that the most advanced nations can produce the most favourable figures; on the other hand, the activities of such agencies as the World Health Organization have produced the most striking improvements in some of the most primitive countries, and paradoxically this has in many cases led to a worsening of problems of overpopulation and consequent malnutrition.