Health research in developing countries

The health of the people in the developing world is a major concern of Tropical Medical Societies of the temperate zones. Tropical medicine as an applied science has been dealing mainly with «tropical diseases.» But health and diseases have many dimensions, some of which so far have not found sufficient attention of the scientific world, e. g. planning of adequate health care, medical-anthropological and socio-cultural factors operating between a health care system and the populations to be served, or the very basic problem of nutrition and its interaction with health and development. Therefore, it was felt that European tropical societies should once join forces and organize a meeting for the discussion of particularly those issues. The topics were: Health care utilization, coverage and cost of primary care, medical pluralism and concepts of diseases in traditional societies, which all are linked at the level of the provider of primary care and his clientel. Concepts of nutrition particularly during child bearing are the root of many health problems and interact with certain diarroeal and other infectious diseases.