FERTILITY AND MORTALITY TRENDS ON COLONIAL KILIMANJARO

Harvard University (Sch Of Public Hlth), Boston MA

Investigators

Abstract

From the surprisingly complete and broadly representative records now in spreadsheet form of 6 Catholic and 5 Lutheran missions on Kilimanjaro, detailing 605 multi-generational families and greater than 11,000 deaths, from 1897 to Tanzanian Independence in 1961, a database will be constructed, verified and analyzed. The analysis will entail the calculation of fertility, infertility, and mortality parameters and the situation of the calculations within an earlier delineated social and economic history of the region. From the situated demographic history of colonial Kilimanjaro, it will be possible to better understand when and why the current hopeful decreases in fertility and desired family size have occurred and to incorporate the current mortality patterns within the sweep of regional history. Furthermore, with the delineation of fertility and mortality at different periods for colonial Kilimanjaro and the situation of those changes within the history of colonial health development programs, it may be possible to assess the relative success or failure of those programs and provide some insight for health and family planning programs for the Tanzania s people today, a significant percentage of whom were alive prior to independence and remember the colonial health interventions and read the present through the lens of the past.