Guyana

Drs. Tista Ghosh and Priya Krishnamurthy traveled to Georgetown, Guyana to study food security and nutritional transitions in developing countries.

Guyana is an ethnically divided, South American country that is currently poised in the midst of an epidemiologic transition, a shift from a high rate of communicable diseases to that of chronic, non-communicable diseases. Certain segments of its ethnically diverse population are now more prone to chronic diseases (such as the East Indians and the Afro-Guyanese), while other segments are still plagued with infectious diseases (like the indigenous Amerindians). Similarly, while certain parts of Guyanese society suffer from acute or chronic under-nutrition, other segments have an increasing rate of obesity. A recent Inter-American Development Bank profile of the country found that 20% of Guyanese women between the ages of 20 and 30 have a BMI less than 18.5. At the same time, however, the report found that close to 40% of Guyanese adults suffer from obesity, particularly women.

As part of an international health rotation in internal medicine and infectious disease, Dr. Tista Ghosh and Dr. Priya Krishnamurthy spent a month working with physicians at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC). The residents' clinical responsibilities included rounds on both the chronic disease and infectious disease wards, as well as participating in the weekly HIV clinic. A 620-bed hospital, GPHC acts as the main referral hospital for all of Guyana. Financed by the Government of Guyana and run by an autonomous board, the hospital contains departments of general surgery, pediatric surgery, OB/GYN, internal medicine, pediatric medicine, opthamology, radiology, laboratory, pathology, dermatology, anesthesia, psychiatry, HIV/AIDS, and audiology.

While in Guyana, Drs. Ghosh and Krishnamurthy conducted a research project on nutrition in Guyanese women, collecting information on the relation ship between nutrition, food security, body mass index (BMI) and race/ethnicity. The project was conducted in Region 6, the most populated province of Guyana, and included sampling from rural, suburban, and urban populations. To gather the necessary information, Drs. Ghosh and Krishnamurthy traveled up the Demerara River, a tributary of the Amazon, to indigenous Guyanese villages, as well as to land reservations, known as missions, where many of the indigenous peoples of Guyana live today. They also completed a survey of many neighborhoods in the capital city of Georgetown, with assistance from physicians from the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation.