BACKGROUND Famine early warning systems clearly identified the risk of famine in South Central Somalia in 2010-2011 but timely action to prevent the onset of famine was not taken. The result was large scale mortality, morbidity, and population displacement. DISCUSSION The main factor that turned a drought-related food crisis into a famine was the war that afflicted southern Somalia and the ta...

Between 1958 and 1961, China experienced one of its worst famines in history. Birth rates plummeted during these years, but recovered immediately afterwards. The famine-born cohorts were relatively scarce in the marriage and labor markets. The famine also adversely a¤ected the health of these cohorts. This paper decomposes these two e¤ects on the marital outcomes of the famine-born and adjacent...

ruled Egypt, and after Joseph interpreted his dreams, " famine was over all the face of the earth." The old empires of the Euphrates, Assyrian and Babylonian, were not free from the scourge. Imperial Rome itself suffered from famine. Parts of Europe in the Middle Ages were frequently famine-stricken. At more recent dates, China, especially in the north, has experienced famines. Famines in India...

Using retrospective mortality records for three cohorts of newborns (1956-1958, 1959-1961, and 1962-1964) drawn from a large Chinese national fertility survey conducted in 1988, this article examines cohort mortality differences up to age 22, with the aim of identifying debilitating and selection effects of the 1959-1961 Great Leap Forward Famine. The results showed that the mortality level of ...

Shortages in medicine supply are usually associated with the now well-known representation of impoverished, underdeveloped countries suffering famine, episodes of vast epidemics, and accounts of immeasurable morbidity and mortality. However, it has become alarmingly clear that medicine shortages are now occurring in the most developed countries in the world and for several reasons. 1 Media head...

culture, colonialism and a hybrid political system, and lastly Marxism with a mixed culture and racial base. The author has drawn on a computer bank of references covering some eight thousand observations on famines over the past six thousand years. The extreme difficulties inherent in recording and analysing famines are recognized. Ten pages of various definitions of famine are given, a good w...

.................................................................................................................................................. 220 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................................... 220 EFFECTS OF FAMINE AND DIETARY RESTRICTION ....................................................