Since Hurricane Mitch there have been many humanitarian efforts to provide health care to the poor and needy of Honduras. Unfortunately there is little information available regarding the specific health needs in this country. The purpose of this project was to analyze data collected during a recent mission trip to Honduras for trends in health symptoms, diagnoses and health care practices to assist in the planning of future trips. Health Intake forms were created by Drs. Holcomb and Crigger and were filled out by 500 patients at the time of their visit to both rural and urban clinics. The forms included information on the patient's health history, current symptoms, diagnosis and treatment as well as their health habits and living conditions that might affect their health. Descriptive statistics revealed the clinic population to be primarily women and children. The most common presenting symptoms were gastrointestinal, non specific (i.e. fever, malaise . .. ) and pulmonary. Common diagnoses included intestinal parasites, arthritis and upper respiratory infections. The most frequently prescribed medications were over the counter medications (i.e. vitamins, and Tylenol) as well as antibiotics. Chi-square analysis revealed few differences between the urban and rural populations. It was discovered that many of the population continue to drink unpurified tap water, which may contribute to their gastrointestinal complaints and the frequent occurrence of intestinal parasites.

The World Health Organization (WHO) in 1979 declared a global goal of, "Health for all by the year 2000." Lesser-developed countries, including Honduras, struggle to meet the most basic health needs of their people. Problems of meeting health care needs in Honduras include uneven distribution of health services, inadequate numbers of trained health care workers, and lack or awareness of those in need of healthcare. Natural disasters such as Hurricane Mitch, which struck Honduras in November of 1998, have exacerbated the problems. The purpose of this educational project was to develop, implement, and evaluate an educational program taught by nurses to lay community health care workers in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. These lay health workers will be called 'Community Health Promotores' (CHP) The CHPs will voluntarily work with their neighbors to improve health promotion, increase self care abilities for minor health problems, monitor growth in children and identify serious health problems for referral to their nurse of physician supervisor. The CHP will assist to improve the self-care abilities of community members and finding those in need of health care. An instructional manual includes information on nutrition, hand-washing, first aide, disease states (hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, diarrhea, problems common in pregnancy and childhood, mental health), and skills in measuring blood pressure, temperature, pulse and respiration. Teaching strategies used in this project and pre and post course evaluation are discussed. The initial class was offered in March 1999. Eleven students completed the course and are volunteering in their communities.

The Valle de Catacamas forms a major basin along the central portion of the Guayape fault, the most prominent tectonic element of the Chortís block. The Guayape fault extends 290 km southwest from the Caribbean coast to the region of El Paraíso, Honduras, and may continue to the Pacific coast along a related prominent topographic feature, the Choluteca linear. Basins presently forming along the Guayape fault indicate that the fault is currently experiencing right-slip. The active features of the Valle de Catacamas displace older folds and reverse faults which apparently formed during an earlier period of sinistral shear. Thus, the Guayape fault has undergone at least two phases of movement, post-Cenomanian left-slip followed by the present right-slip. The geology of the valley suggests multiple stages of evolution. These include at least one period of thrust and reverse faulting, possibly associated with sinistral shear along the Guayape fault, and a recent episode of normal faulting associated with dextral shear on the Guayape fault. Thrusting of basement rocks over Jurassic strata on the south side of the valley was the earliest deformation to affect Mesozoic or Cenozoic rocks. The event can only be dated as post-Jurassic in age. The Cretaceous rocks of the Sierra de Agalta on the north side of the Valle de Catacamas are much more strongly deformed than similar rocks in central Honduras. In this range, the Aptian-Albian Atima Limestone commonly has a pervasive pressure solution cleavage which has not been reported from other locations on the Chortís block. The cleavage is apparently axial planar to the folds. The age of this deformation is constrained only as post-Cenomanian. SIR data indicate that these folds are deflected in sinistral shear near the Guayape fault. In addition, a major structural contact has a large left-lateral separation. The folds in the Sierra de Agalta are cut by the range-bounding normal fault of the Sierra de Agalta. Younger rocks are placed on older rocks by this normal fault, and fault slip data from small fault planes in the footwall block indicate normal faulting. The N 65° E strike of this normal fault, the N 35° E strike of the Guayape fault, and stress orientations inferred from fault slip data indicate that the present movement on the Guayape fault is right-slip. Fault slip data from the Guayape fault zone is heterogeneous as would be expected if two stage slip has occurred. / text

There is growing concern that the accelerated pace and increasing complexity of environmental change may be challenging people's ability to test, refine, and adjust livelihood strategies. This would be particularly challenging for poor households in hazardous environments, generating greater vulnerability to disasters. The context for this concern was examined in four rural communities from two different cultural realms along the Caribbean coast of Honduras. An ethnographic approach was used to understand how women household managers, community leaders, and elderly residents from Garifuna and Mestizo communities perceive and respond to hazards and other challenges in their environment. The analysis revealed how economic pressures combine with political context to contribute to an intensification of local land and resource use in the four communities. The consequent matrix of environmental hazards generates troubling uncertainties for these small-scale socioecological systems, particularly as the local ecological resources once available for livelihood adjustments become scarce. To make matters worse, institutional efforts to resolve environmental and economic challenges generating vulnerabilities for some rural communities are perceived as authoritarian, superimposed, and even culturally inappropriate. Confused or frustrated by so many uncertainties, households from both cultural realms try to adjust by increasing their dependence on an evolving web of political and financial resources beyond their communities, indeed from outside Honduras. / text

The Río Pláttano Biosphere Reserve, a tropical rainforest reserve in the northeastern corner of Honduras, is home to several subsistence-based indigenous groups, including the Miskito, Pech and Garifuna, as well as the non-indigenous Ladinos. Communities within the reserve depend on forest resources, swidden agriculture, marine resources and/or small-scale ranching as the foundations for local economies. Regulations placed on these subsistence practices, after establishment of the biosphere reserve in 1980, have created unique and new pressures and resulted in a blend of traditional and innovative resource use. A notable result is the promotion of ecotourism as a solution for meeting the economic needs of local populations while conserving local resources. This thesis documents current resource use in the Miskito and Ladino communities of Banaka, Brans, and Fuente de Jacob, in the Río Pláttano Biosphere Reserve and the potential of ecotourism to maintain both local economies and consumption of tropical rainforest resources in these communities. Analysis suggests that a community-based approach to ecotourism can result in economic benefits and maintain local culture. This thesis documents current resource use (agricultural crops and trees, gathered and cultivated plants, tree-use, and hunting), resident perspectives on ecotourism development and industry, and provides the foundation for long-term monitoring and analysis on the effects of ecotomism on forest resource and land-use in the greater Banaka region.

La réforme dans le domaine de la santé amorcée au début des années 1990 en Amérique latine reposait sur une volonté clairement exprimée d'améliorer la qualité, l'équité et l'efficacité des systèmes de santé. La présente étude visait l'analyse des changements introduits par cette réforme au Honduras, en considérant le contexte de mondialisation. Plus concrètement, on a étudié comment ces changements ont eu un impact sur les déterminants sociaux de la santé et l'équité, dans le but d'apprécier la situation du droit à la santé dans ce pays suite à plus de 10 ans de réformes. Un premier article présente les résultats d'une revue critique de la littérature sur les réformes de la santé en Amérique latine où nous proposons une analyse qui prend en compte les processus provoqués par la mondialisation, l'évolution du rôle des États et les relations entre les échelles globale, nationale et locale en regard des changements observés. Nous y identifions différents processus de transnationalisation de la santé, qui se sont manifestés sous quatre formes de mondialisation portées par un réseau d'acteurs globaux qui ont promu un projet réformiste orienté vers le marché. Le deuxième article porte sur une recherche action participative menée pour documenter le cas hondurien avec une combinaison de techniques : entrevues en profondeur, groupes de discussion, observation participante, analyse de données secondaires. À partir de cette analyse, une série d'actions a été mise en place : réunions avec des organisations, forum public, interventions dans les médias (presse, radio et télévision). Cette démarche méthodologique a aussi permis l'émergence d'une organisation toujours active trois ans après la fin de la recherche, la Iniciativa Hondurena por el Derecho a la Salud (Initiative Hondurienne pour le Droit à la Santé). Finalement, dans le troisième article, nous présentons les résultats empiriques du travail et nous concluons que les changements observés s'insèrent dans deux types de transnationalisation de la santé combinés avec deux modes de globalisation, s'inscrivant dans une logique contradictoire avec le droit à la santé et l'équité.

The small businessman in an undeveloped country often finds himself isolated from formal, institutional credit sources, either through ignorance or by his non-acceptability as a credit risk. Both his lack of credit and lack of education can limit his participation in national development, and in fact, such development might even work against him as it makes his competitors' easier access to these resources even more important. It was concluded that the educational level achieved by the small businessman in Santos Guardiola is roughly the sixth grade, that the lack of business and financial content in their formal education does not prevent their learning about business and finance, and that a large majority of them use credit in their business. It was further concluded that the loan officers with the four lending institutions have adequate education and training to administer the loans made, that business credit needs are generally satisfied without resort to an informal credit market, and that while the deposits and business loans are expanding for all four institutions the credit union has been able to expand most rapidly by attracting the small saver and the small borrower. In addition, it was concluded that development banks are primarily interested in large industrial projects that are generally not suited to Santos Guardiola.

The Roatan Spiny-tailed Iguana (Ctenosaura oedirhina) is endemic to the 146-km2 island of Roatn, Honduras. Harvesting for consumption, fragmentation of habitat, and predation by domestic animals threaten this lizard. It is currently listed as Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), as threatened by the Honduran government, and is on Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). This species has been geographically fragmented and genetically isolated into small subpopulations that are declining in density. With data gathered from use/availability surveys, resource selection functions were used to identify habitats and environmental variables associated with their presence. Results indicate that protection from harvesting is the most important factor in determining their distribution. These high-density populations are currently restricted to ~0.6 km2. Organisms living in small, isolated populations with very restricted ranges are at higher risk of extirpation due to various direct and indirect forces. Mark-recapture-resight surveys and distance sampling have been used to monitor the populations since 2010 and 2012 respectively. The data show that the high-density populations are declining. The current population size is estimated to be 4130-4860 individuals in 2015. A population viability analysis (PVA) was conducted to identify the most pressing threats and specific life history traits that are affecting this decline. The analysis estimates that if current trends persist, the species will be extinct in the wild in less than ten years. Adult mortality is a main factor and female mortality specifically characterizes this decline. In order for this species to persist over the next fifty years, adult mortality needs to be reduced by more than 50%. A lack of enforcement of the current laws results in the persistence of the main threat, poaching for consumption, thus altering the species distribution and causing high adult mortality. This is complicated by social customs and a lack of post primary education. Management changes could mitigate this threat and slow the population decline. Recommendations include an education campaign on the island, increased enforcement of the current laws, and breeding of C. oedirhina in situ and ex situ for release into the wild. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1968. / Typescript. Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 276-287).

The goal of this report was to assess current prevention strategies that attempt to reduce HIV prevalence among female sex workers (FSW) in Honduras. This analysis was based on the difference between behavioral change and structural approaches; that is, while behavioral change theories are based on risk reduction through promoting individuals’ change, the structural approach addresses the factors in the environment that make individuals vulnerable to HIV. In order to analyze prevention strategies in Honduras, I carried out an analysis of the structural conditions at the country level and, at the sex workers population level. The structural factors that make Honduras a country vulnerable to HIV are political instability, migrations, poverty and socio-economic conditions, and gender inequality. As a consequence of those macro-environmental conditions, sex workers face the following micro-environmental factors that increase their vulnerability to HIV: violence and male domination; large families and single parenthood; low income and poor education; and public policies against sex work, such as police abuse and closure of brothels. This report is based on an analysis of the Sonagachi Project in India, 100% Condom Use in Thailand, and the intervention in the Dominican Republic, programs that successfully address structural conditions and decrease women’s vulnerability to HIV. This report showed that in Honduras, the prevention strategies currently implemented are limited because they are based on behavioral change theories, failing to address environmental barriers that increase vulnerability to HIV among FSW. I give some specific recommendations about how to improve prevention strategies in this country reducing women’s vulnerability by addressing the structural factors they face. / text