WHICH of our 126 cities tracked birth, growth,schooling, jobs, even marriages of 3,080 kids, for 27 years now?
Cebu City did, says the British weekly “The Economist.” In that process, University of San Carlos’s “Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey” (LHNS) recast policy and research programs.
“Cebu study findings shaped the first World Bank health financing strategy,” University of North Carolina Barry Popkin writes. Cebu research was “instrumental” in Unicef policy on breast-milk substitutes and Asian Development programs on early child development.
A Harvard University team sifted through two long-term vaccination programs, one of them in Cebu. Their conclusions anchored the $13-billion Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization program. This seeks to vaccinate children in 75 of the world’s poorest countries against childhood diseases.
“The Regional Central American Institute matched Cebu data with those of Guatemala villages,” Inquirer added. “Egypt applied Cebu’s methodology to gauge effects of water and sanitation on children. Russian demographers used findings to assess married women’s resource problems."
A self-effacing priest-demographer, Fr. Wilhelm Flieger SVD, spark-plugged LHNS until his death in 1999. “It follows the lives of 3,327 mothers and those of their children, born 1983-1984” in 33 Cebu barangays, the British opinion magazine wrote.
At USC’s Office of Population Studies, Filipino demographers like Soccoro Gultiano--trained by Fr. Flieger—tracked outcomes. LHNS study children are now adults, they note. Some are school dropouts. Others are parents and hold down jobs. One works in Iceland.
This sample makes rare inter-generation analysis possible. Using LHNS data, University of North Carolina’s Linda Adair found “a large potential for catch-up-growth” when kids--marginalized by chronic hunger in infancy—-reach pre-adolescence.
Scientists today use other work by Fr Fleiger: from mortality tables to upland population analysis. In “The Mountains of Cebu,” OPS studies mine the LHNS lode, as shown by studies completed before New Year.
Diarrhea and respiratory illnesses during infancy lowered scores in math and English performance in the first two years in school. They jacked up absenteeism, USC’s Tita Lorna Perez and Marilyn Cinco found.
Kids stunted by malnutrition at age 2 often ended up with a lower number of years of schooling, USC’s Isabelita Bas reports. It whittled down “likelihood of completing high school and college for females.”
Paulita Duazo and Perla Hamoy analyzed 1,888 LHNS adults entering the labor force. “Those who had high height-for-age scores, as kids, tended to have higher labor productivity. What happens early in life has an effect on later life.”
All document a crucial policy window of opportunity for “investing in early child health programs.” Mayor Tomas Osmeña's administration slammed that window shut. It siphoned resources instead for political projects, e.g. handguns and motorcycles for barangay lackeys, basketball courts, etc.
Parochial Cebu officials coasted along, unaware of this valuable asset under their noses over the years, Sun.Star noted in October 2005.
Prophets are ignored in their own countries.
Thus, Osmeña’s one-man choices for Cebu Charter Day awards ignored LHNS. It didn’t match “achievements” of Charter Day awardee: like Osmeña's personal bodyguard SPO3 Adonis Dumpit, necklaced with murder charges? (juanlmercado@gmail.com)