Poverty, Hunger, Malnutrition, Prematurity, and Infant Mortality in the United States
In the underdeveloped world it is not difficult to establish cause-and-effect relationships between unemployment and underemployment, poverty, inadequate diets, chronic hunger, undernutrition and malnutrition, low birth weight, high infant and preschool child mortalities, and growth stunting among the survivors.1 Early in the 20th century, when millions of Europe's poor migrated to this country and crowded into inadequate and unsanitary urban settings, such relationships were clearly present.2 Whether the mass migrations, during World War II, of the South's rural poor into the industrial centers of the North created a similar problem is doubtful, as progress was being made simultaneously in the control of diarrheal diseases and other infections, and in assuring the quality, safety, and low cost of our food supply. Trends in infant and child mortality and in the growth of children revealed continued improvement in health and nutritional status.