Prospective Community Studies in Developing Countries

Prospective community studies are concerned with the understanding of the incidence of birth, disease, and death. They are epidemiological studies of particular communities which involve substantial data collection and are long in duration. This book is the first synthetic presentation of the most important of these surveys to date.

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This book presents an overview of the leading prospective studies in developing countries in population and health research. Prospective community studies are concerned with the understanding of the incidence of birth, disease and death. The leading practitioners in this field present the methodologies they have developed and summarize the major findings of their studies. Since many of these methodologies have never been documented and the results are scattered in different publications, the volume provides a great deal of valuable information which is difficult to locate. Thus it will be an indispensable guide to researchers in the field of prospective studies and will also be helpful as a teaching aid. It is a unique compendium of reflective accounts of prospective research, which has been so fundamental to many major innovations regarding the way demographic behaviour is observed, monitored and analysed. It also provides a comprehensive account of the substantive contribution of prospective studies, which include some innovative and seminal findings on community health. The debate on the most efficient kinds of surveys is still ongoing, and some of the surveys are still in progress too. The book will be of great interest for demographers, public health researchers, family planners and survey specialists.