Perspective from Latin America

Author(s):  
Eduardo Cazap ◽  
Gilberto Schwartsmann

Abstract: A lack of epidemiological data and political commitment was the conclusion of a study about breast cancer in Latin America. The available data show a 5-year survival rate in Latin America fluctuating around 70%. Healthcare coverage is expanding, although not across all dimensions. There remain vast differences in access to care. The economic burden is significant, while countries allocate insufficient resources to tackle the disease. Many Latin American countries (LACs) have no formal national cancer control programmes in place to define the critical processes. Guidelines exists, but the challenge is implementation. A big issue in LACs is the having in place the right policies and control mechanisms to ensure compliance and applicability for the entire population.

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-120
Author(s):  
Yousef M. Aljamal ◽  
Philipp O. Amour

There are some 700,000 Latin Americans of Palestinian origin, living in fourteen countries of South America. In particular, Palestinian diaspora communities have a considerable presence in Chile, Honduras, and El Salvador. Many members of these communities belong to the professional middle classes, a situation which enables them to play a prominent role in the political and economic life of their countries. The article explores the evolving attitudes of Latin American Palestinians towards the issue of Palestinian statehood. It shows the growing involvement of these communities in Palestinian affairs and their contribution in recent years towards the wide recognition of Palestinian rights — including the right to self-determination and statehood — in Latin America. But the political views of members of these communities also differ considerably about the form and substance of a Palestinian statehood and on the issue of a two-states versus one-state solution.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricio Lopez-Jaramillo ◽  
Jose Lopez-Lopez ◽  
Daniel Cohen ◽  
Natalia Alarcon-Ariza ◽  
Margarita Mogollon-Zehr

: Hypertension and type 2 diabetes mellitus are two important risk factors that contribute to cardiovascular diseases worldwide. In Latin America hypertension prevalence varies from 30 to 50%. Moreover, the proportion of awareness, treatment and control of hypertension is very low. The prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus varies from 8 to 13% and near to 40% are unaware of their condition. In addition, the prevalence of prediabetes varies from 6 to 14% and this condition has been also associated with increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. The principal factors linked to a higher risk of hypertension in Latin America are increased adiposity, low muscle strength, unhealthy diet, low physical activity and low education. Besides being chronic conditions, leading causes of cardiovascular mortality, both hypertension and type 2 diabetes mellitus represent a substantial cost for the weak health systems of Latin American countries. Therefore, is necessary to implement and reinforce public health programs to improve awareness, treatment and control of hypertension and type 2 diabetes mellitus, in order to reach the mandate of the Unit Nations of decrease the premature mortality for CVD.


2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernanda Bruno ◽  
Paola Barreto ◽  
Milena Szafir

This on line curatorship presents a selection of 11 works by Latin American artists who incorporate in their creations technologies traditionally linked to surveillance and control processes. By Surveillance Aesthetics we understand a compound of artistic practices, which include the appropriation of dispositifs such as closed circuit video, webcams, satellite images, algorithms and computer vision among others, placing them within new visibility, attention and experience regimes. The term referred to in the title of this exhibition is intended more as a vector of research rather than the determination of a field, as pointed by Arlindo Machado under the term “surveillance culture”. (Machado 1991) In this sense, a Latin America Surveillance Aesthetics exhibition is a way to propose, starting from the works presented here, a myriad of questions. How and to what extent do the destinies of surveillance devices reverberate or are subverted by market, security and media logics in our societies? If, in Europe and in the USA, surveillance is a subject related to the war against terror and border control, what can be said about Latin America? What forces and conflicts are involved? How have artistic practices been creating and acting in relation to these forces and conflicts? Successful panoramas of so called Surveillance Art already take place in Europe and North America for at least three decades, the exhibition “Surveillance”, at the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions being one of the first initiatives in this domain. In Latin America however, art produced in the context of surveillance devices and processes is still seen as an isolated event. Our intention is to assemble a selection of works indicating the existence of a wider base of production, which cannot be considered eventual.The online exhibition can be accessed here.http://www.pec.ufrj.br/surveillanceaestheticslatina/


Author(s):  
Kuldeep Tiwari ◽  
Dinesh Kumar

The right classification for diabetes mellitus (DM) allows a more adequate treatment and comprises four categories: type 1 DM, type 2 DM, other types, and gestational diabetes. Assigning a type of diabetes to an individual often depends on the circumstances present at the time of diagnosis, and many diabetic individuals do not easily fit into a single class. Diabetes mellitus and lesser forms of glucose intolerance, particularly impaired glucose tolerance, can now be found in almost every population in the world and epidemiological evidence suggests that, without effective prevention and control programmes, diabetes will likely continue to increase globally. These findings were confirmed in a similar study in India, in which the FPG and 2-h PG were each strongly and equally associated with retinopathy. For both the FPG and the 2-h PG, the prevalence of retinopathy was markedly higher above the point of intersection of the two components of the bimodal frequency distribution (FPG = 129 mg/dl [7.2 mmol/l] and 2- h PG = 207 mg/dl [11.5 mmol/l]). In the NHANES III, 2,821 individuals aged 40-74 years received an OGTT, a measurement of HbAlc, and an assessment of retinopathy by fundus photography.


1990 ◽  
Vol 22 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 353-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Grugel ◽  
Monica Quijada

In December 1938 an alliance of the Radical, Communist and Socialist parties took office in Chile, the first Popular Front to come to power in Latin America. A few months later, in Spain, the Nationalist forces under Generalísimo Franco occupied Madrid, bringing an end to the civil war. Shortly after, a serious diplomatic conflict developed between Spain and Chile, in which most of Latin America gradually became embroiled. It concerned the fate of 17 Spanish republicans who had sought asylum in the Chilean embassy in the last days of the seige of Madrid, and culminated in July 1940 when the Nationalist government broke off relations with Chile. Initially, the issue at the heart of the episode was the right to political asylum and the established practice of Latin American diplomatic legations of offering protection to individuals seeking asylum (asilados). The causes of the conflict, however, became increasingly obscured as time went on. The principles at stake became confused by mutual Spanish– Chilean distrust, the Nationalists' ideological crusade both within Spain and outside and the Chilean government's deep hostility to the Franco regime, which it saw as a manifestation of fascism. The ideological gulf widened with the onset of the Second World War. This article concentrates primarily, although not exclusively, on the first part of the dispute, April 1939–January 1940. In this period asylum, which is our main interest, was uppermost in Spanish–Chilean diplomatic correspondence.


Proceedings ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 121
Author(s):  
Natália Spitz ◽  
José J. Barros ◽  
Kycia M. do Ó ◽  
Carlos E. Brandão-Mello ◽  
Natalia M. Araujo

The hepatitis C virus (HCV) has remarkable genetic diversity and exists as eight genotypes (1 to 8) with distinct geographic distributions. No complete genome sequence of HCV subtype 2b (HCV-2b) is available from Latin American countries, and the factors underlying its emergence and spread within the continent remain unknown. The present study was conducted to determine the first full-length genomic sequences of HCV-2b isolates from Latin America and reconstruct the spatial and temporal diversification of this subtype in Brazil. Nearly complete HCV-2b genomes isolated from two Brazilian patients were obtained by direct sequencing of long PCR fragments and analyzed together with reference sequences using the Bayesian coalescent and phylogeographic framework approaches. The two HCV-2b genomes were 9318 nucleotides (nt) in length (nt 37–9354). Interestingly, the long RT-PCR technique was able to detect the co-circulation of viral variants that contained an in-frame deletion of 2022 nt, encompassing E1, E2, and p7 proteins. Spatiotemporal reconstruction analyses suggest that HCV-2b had a single introduction in Brazil during the early 1980s, displaying an epidemic history characterized by a low and virtually constant population size to date. These results coincide with epidemiological data in Brazil and may explain the low national prevalence of this subtype.


2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastián M. Saiegh

In this article, I use joint scaling methods and similar items from three large-scale surveys to place voters, parties, and politicians from different Latin American countries on a common ideological space. The findings reveal that ideology is a significant determinant of vote choice in Latin America. They also suggest that the success of leftist leaders at the polls reflects the views of the voters sustaining their victories. The location of parties and leaders reveals that three distinctive clusters exist: one located at the left of the political spectrum, another at the center, and a third on the right. The results also indicate that legislators in Brazil, Mexico, and Peru tend to be more “leftists” than their voters. The ideological drift, however, is not significant enough to substantiate the view that a disconnect between voters and politicians lies behind the success of leftist presidents in these countries. These findings highlight the importance of using a common-space scale to compare disparate populations and call into question a number of recent studies by scholars of Latin American politics who fail to adequately address this important issue.


2018 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Diana Mendoza-Cervantes ◽  
Isabel Otero ◽  
Jo Anne Zujewski ◽  
Jorge Ferrandiz Salazar ◽  
Gabriela López Córdova ◽  
...  

Purpose Cancer mortality is approximately twice as high in Latin American countries than in more developed countries. In particular, the countries of the high Andean region of Latin America carry a double burden of breast and cervical cancers. In these countries, there are disproportionately higher mortality to incidence ratios compared with other regions in Latin America. The US National Cancer Institute’s Center for Global Health, the Pan American Health Organization, and the Ministry of Health in Peru collaborated to design and execute an education and advocacy workshop in Lima, Peru. The workshop was convened to discuss regional challenges and practices, as well as to support the implementation of Plan Esperanza, Peru’s national cancer control plan. Methods Workshop participants included local and international experts to present the state of the science, health practitioners, and advocacy groups to discuss unique barriers that women in the region experience. Results Inequalities in access to and distribution of medical expertise, lack of continuity of cancer control plans, and the need for sustained public buy-in emerged as obstacles. Conclusion The workshop provided a forum to discuss key issues regarding breast and cervical cancer control among health professionals and advocates in Peru and the region. This article outlines the resulting recommendations.


2005 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 134-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Miller

The life and work of Gabriela Mistral, the first Latin American writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1945, is examined as an example of how difficult it was for women to win recognition as intellectuals in 20th-century Latin America. Despite an international reputation for erudition and political commitment, Mistral has traditionally been represented in stereotypically gendered terms as the ‘Mother’ and ‘Schoolteacher’ of the Americas, and it has been repeatedly claimed that she was both apolitical and anti-intellectual. This article contests such claims, arguing that she was not only committed to fulfilling the role of an intellectual, but that she also elaborated a critique of the dominant male Latin American view of intellectuality, probing the boundaries of both rationality and nationality as constructed by male Euro-Americans. In so doing, she addressed many of the crucial issues that still confront intellectuals today in Latin America and elsewhere.


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