Session 4

1. Session 4: Population Geographies
1) Meet your participant observation assignment
group
2) Population geography (Chapter 4: 4.3): How
does the geography of health and influence
population dynamics?
3) Population geography (Chapter 4: 4.4): How do
governments effect population change?
New York, NY
January 23, 2015
Fouberg, E. H., Murphy, A. B., De Blij, H. J. and C. J. Nash (2012). Human Geography: People,
Place, and Culture. John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd., Mississauga.
Fishing village
festival, Japan

2. Participant Observation Groups
Groups 1-3: March 13; Groups 4-6: March 20
1. Commerce: Laura, Tracy, and Jolene
2. Health: Brenda and Francine
3. The Arts: Belinda and Katie
4. Family: Mik; Amanda
5. Sports and Gaming: Audrey, Ben, and Josh
6. Knowledge: Willie, Monica
Today’s objective: Meet with your group member(s) to discuss the places
that you will conduct your participant observations, and discuss some initial
ideas for your presentation.

3. Section 4.3 - How does the geography of health influence
population dynamics?
• Important to consider the welfare of the people with relation to
place
• Access to: health care, clean water, healthy food, good
sanitation, education, etc.
Factors that geographers look at:
Infant mortality rate (IMR): A figure that describes the number of
babies that die within the first year of their lives in a given
population.
Number of deaths for every 1000 births

4. Child mortality rate (CMR): A figure that describes the number of
children who die between the first and fifth years of their lives in a
given population.
Infant and child mortality are reflections of the overall health of a
society
Major threats to infant and child health: #1 is malnutrition, also
poor sanitation
IMRs and CMRs generally correlate with poverty
Countries with the lowest IMR:
Japan - 3.0 deaths per thousand
Singapore – 3.0
Sweden – 2.9

5. Canada’s IMR: 5.0 on average
Depends on province and how location of populations – rural vs.
urban

6. Counties with high IMRs, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan: 165
Globally, IMRs are declining
Within countries, different populations can have different IMRs
Example: South Africa – the black population has a higher IMR,
which is similar to the African average
Child mortality (CMR) remains high in Africa and Asia – this is
related to the lower amounts of available protein in these regions
Kwashiorkor – term for protein malnutrition in early life
Marasmus – inadequate protein and calories

7. In Canada, CMR is dropping: 8 per 1,000 in 1990 to 6 per 1,000 in
2007
The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) is a major
agency that focuses in many development areas, including
reducing CMR.
- Children and Youth Strategy
- claim that CMR can be reduced by providing immunizations,
micronutrient supplementations, HIV/AIDS prevention and
treatment, malaria control, etc.
Organizations meeting micronutrient needs:
Canadian Foodgrains Bank:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZnZk2Xd3Ik

8. Organizations working with CIDA towards meeting nutrition needs:
World Food Programme
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh80hOssSHY
Canadian Foodgrains Bank
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZnZk2Xd3Ik

9. Community Food Security: ‘exists when all community residents
obtain a safe, personally acceptable, nutritious diet through a
sustainable food system that maximizes healthy choices,
community self-reliance and equal access for everyone’ (Hamm
and Bellows, 2003)
Food desert: an urban area in which it is difficult to buy affordable
or good-quality fresh food.
Many poor people live in food deserts where they have plenty
of food but none of it is healthy.

12. Community Food Security Assessment (CFSA): approach ideal for
informing the future development of programs and policy – is
meant to be a collaborative and participatory process that
systematically examines a broad range of community food issues
and assets so as to inform and build capacity for collaborative
change (Cohen, 2002)

13. Source: international Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, 2006

15. Questions in the Health Canada Household Food Survey Security
Module (HFSSM)
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-
an/surveill/nutrition/commun/income_food_sec-sec_alim-
eng.php#appa

16. Break

17. Community Food Security Group Work: Reflect on your community and
answer the following questions:
1. What kinds of food options do you have access to in your community?
2. Would you consider these options to be healthy? Why or why not?
Explain.
3. What kinds of distances do you need to travel in order to obtain food? Is
this distance different for food options that you consider to be healthy?
4. How does the cost of food in your community compare with other costs
of living and earnings? Is there a difference between the cost of healthy
and non-healthy food options?
5. What kinds of improvements do you think would benefit your
community?

18. Some local solutions to community food insecurity
• community gardens
• food buying clubs
• food cooperatives
Examples/Videos
1. Al Jazeera: Indian community tackles food security issue
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPIFrYAukrk
2. Fighting Food Insecurity in Detroit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlBBbv2kzIc

20. Life expectancy: A figure indicating how long, on average, a person
may be expected to live. Normally expressed in the context of a
particular state.
• generally a longer life expectancy for women
• life expectancy can drop quite drastically under certain
circumstances

22. Geography’s Influence on Health and Wellbeing
• Health and wellbeing are closely related to location and
environment
• Medical geographers study diseases
Categories that describe the risk that diseases pose:
Infectious disease: Diseases that spread by bacteria, viruses, or
parasites. Infectious diseases diffuse directly or indirectly from
human to human.
Chronic or degenerative disease: Generally, long-lasting afflictions
now more common because of higher life expectancies.

24. Infectious diseases can be vector borne or non-vector borne
e.g. of vector borne: malaria. With malaria, the vector is the
mosquito.
non-vector borne is transmitted directly from the host to the
victim – e.g. HIV / AIDS
Geographic terms used to describe the spatial extent of a disease:
Endemic: When a disease prevails over a particular locality or
region.
Epidemic: Regional outbreak of a disease.
Pandemic: An outbreak of a disease that spreads worldwide.

25. • Are of particular interest to medical
geographers because they are
transferred from one generation to
the next
• Display clustering patters
• Raise questions about environment
and long-term adaptation
Example: Sickle-cell anemia – causes
many health problems, but also
prevents malaria infection
Genetic or inherited diseases: Diseases caused by variation or
mutation of a gene or group of genes in a human.

26. AIDS
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS): Immune system
disease caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) which
over a period of years weakens the capacity of the immune system
to fight off infection so that weight loss and weakness set in and
other afflictions such as cancer or pneumonia may hasten.
• Rapid diffusion worldwide in the 1980s, is a pandemic
• Canada’s first known case in 1982
• medical geographers estimated 200,000 people worldwide
• by 2007, 33.2 million (68% of cases in Sub-Sahara Africa)
• Botswana, in 2006, 24% people 15-49 yrs of age were infected

27. • Education has been important for curtailing AIDS
• Uganda used intensive government-sponsored campaigning –
primarily the distribution of condoms

28. Section 4.4 - How do governments effect population change?
Expansive population policies: Government policies that
encourage large families and raise the rate of population growth.
• increase the RNI (Rate of Natural Increase) of a nation
• Example: in Russia birth rates plummeted after the collapse
of the Soviet Union
• Putin calls the demographic problem “Russia’s greatest
current problem”
• Russian government offers cash subsidies of $10,000 to
women who give birth to a second or third child

29. Eugenic population policies: Government policies designed to
favour one racial sector over others.
• Nazi Germany is a drastic example
• Policies can be practiced covertly through:
• discriminatory taxation
• biased allocation of resources
• other forms of favoritism

30. Restrictive population policies: Government policies designed to
reduce the rate of natural increase.
One-child policy: A program established by the Chinese
government in 1979 to show population growth in China. Under
the policy, families having more than one child were penalized
financially and denied educational opportunities and housing
privileges.
• 1970s: growth rate of 3%
• 1980s: growth rate of 1.2%
• today: 0.7%
Video: The unintended consequences of China’s One Child Policy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0BPWFnL_jY