1. Cynthia Lewis
26 April 2013
"Taking Down the Trends:
Bio-Cultural Factors of Contraceptive Health in Belize"
No single issue of cultural impact will necessarily have significance to everyone. Yet
anthropologists make it a habit to learn about and address situations that arise throughout the
developing world, and as the board of directors of the PeaceCorps, it is not too large an
assumption to presume you might as well. The project I am proposing will encompass the lack of
contraceptive health in one up-and-coming country in Central America and is aimed at
increasing knowledge that will help to improve access for rural women to advanced health care
throughout Belize. In these modern times, much of the first world is removed from the everyday
lives of citizens in less-developed nations unless they are constantly confronted and bombarded
by television ads asking for charity donations. It is very possible that the gathering of this data
will not only add to the academic world, but--if published--will help to bridge some of the gap
between the developed and developing sectors as more attention is brought to this region.
After some initial research, I was amazed to find that the average use of contraceptives
among married women ages 15-49 years in Belize was only 34.3% in 2006. To be honest, I was
even more astonished that this was the ONLY year that a WHO census was taken on
contraceptive use. Double-checking, I found that IndexMundi also confirms this percentage.
However, it appears that a rather large and obvious category has gone undocumented. This
percentage only accounts for MARRIED women, and only those who actually filed a census. It
does not account for the thousands of unmarried women who must constantly face the
consequences of sexual activity, warranted or not.
This information should be used to advance funding to sexual education programs and
clinic outreach support to the 92,620 total Belizean women ages 15-54. This project is aimed to

2. be all-inclusive, and any data reported should go into programs that increase contraceptive access
for all females (and males) who desire assistance. Many of the women in rural areas have very
little access to forms of birth control that could protect against pregnancy and
sexually-transmitted infections, and limited access to natal vaccinations and anti-retrovirals that
could reduce the spread of AIDS, HIV, and other diseases from mother to child.
In-depth surveys on mother and infant health in Belize began in 1980 with Carolynn
Jenkins, and research looked promising as Central American children first entered the world's
charitable radar. However, the pressure on research in this region trickled down to Deborah
Crooks in the 1990's until mention of the dire straits of Belizean pre-natal circumstances was lost
in the overwhelmingly publicized flood of African health concerns. Information regarding
contraceptive health in Belize became most often documented as unexplained floating statistics.
These stand-alone figures were published as data reports in the World Hunger Series and State of
the World's Children. Now, statistics are spottily reported in the World Health Organization fact
books, and then largely forgotten by the general public. Children in Central America have been
shunted to the side of global concern in favor of images of scantily clad, dark-skinned babies
with distended bellies in regions of Central Africa, cared for by sickly mothers. It would seem
that the consequences of poverty on conception are not quite as shocking in regions like Belize,
and I aim to correct some of the dearth of that knowledge.
Having done extensive research on child mortality in Uganda, and having lived in Belize
during the summer of 2012 and during my two-year service within the PeaceCorps, I have a
wealth of experience with the determinants of such data. My recently published paper, "Child
Mortality in Uganda: The Death of Generations," stands as a testament to my research on child
and mother health in rural third-world areas since many of the factors of infant health are similar
between the two regions. Researching further into the subject of Belizean contraceptive health, I

3. discovered that as of 2011, an estimated 55% of pregnant women living with HIV did not receive
anti-retrovirals to prevent mother-child transmission. However, government expenditure on
health in comparison to the total government expenditure in 2011 was 13.4%, which admittedly
was a drastic change from the 7.4% in 2002. This shows an acknowledgement by the
government of Belize that health is an issue that deserves more time, energy, and resources. But
strangely, while the Belizean government has been addressing the overall status of the country's
health services post-birth, an emphasis has yet to be placed on reducing the number of births or
administering medications to pregnant women.
While living in Belize, I became close to the family of Maria Suelos in Dangriga, and
was kindly offered a place to stay during my year of data collection. Maria is also the head of a
local women’s support group and a nurse at Magdalena Clinic, which caters to the health needs
of families from the surrounding towns and villages. One of my goals is to conduct an in-person
survey with as many of the women of Dangriga as possible from all socioeconomic classes and
age ranges in order to record a non-skewed sample representative of the greater population.
During this ethnographic research, I hope to use several case studies of neighborhoods
that have limited access to contraceptive resources and sexual education programs so as to best
document the need for such services. Since this project is of a sensitive nature, there is the
possibility that many women will not wish to speak of sexual activities to an outsider. If these
situations arise, my connections within the community among the nurses of the health clinic and
my access to the women’s support groups will be advantageous. After six months, I aim to have
gathered data on personal contraceptive use from at least 1,000 individuals. These results will be
used to devise petitions to various education districts and medical centers; my calling will be to
increase awareness of the need for community knowledge of reproductive resources such as birth
control and anti-retroviral medications. As this research takes shape I will also bring it to the

4. attention of government officials who could assist with funding and could incorporate this data
into a more comprehensive census.
Please consider this proposal as a worthwhile benefit to humanity, and thank you for your
time.