Health and nutrition state in younger than 18 population from Providencia and Santa Catalina

Abstract

Obligatory report contagious illnesses still have asignificant prevalence in the community. The presentstudy evaluates the health and nutrition status ofProvidencia and Santa Catalina Island’s childrenpopulation. Methodology: A health campaign wascarried out over a period of 6 days. Children between0 and 18 years were medically evaluated. Patientswere classified according to frequent pathologies,age groups, nutritional status, and affiliation to socialsecurity. Results: 366 patients were evaluated,164 girls and 202 boys. Respiratory acute diseasewas the third cause of consult among childrenyounger than 4 years. The predominant conditionof malnutrition was overweight. More than half ofthe children population belongs to the subsidiarysystem. Fruit and vegetable intake is deficient.Conclusions: Public health strategies inProvidencia’s population must be directed towardsreduction of contagious diseases and overweightprevalence trough basic attention programs.

Keywords

• Malnutrition
• public health
• rural health
• child health
• Colombia