Reflexiones sobre un aniversario: la Escuela de Salud Pública de Chile en su cincuentenario / Reflections on an anniversary: the Public Health School of Chile in its 50th years

ABSTRACT

This is the speech pronunced by Dr. Abraham Horwitz, Emeritus Professor of the University of Chile and Honorary Director of PAHO, during the academic act that celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the Chilean Public Health School endowment. The school had a doctrinal and technical impact on Chilean health and decisively influenced the National Health Service School, therefore naming this school "little Hopkins". Its creation was stimulated by the chilean health profile of the forties. Chile had 5.273.000 inhabitants and a 28.2 percent of iliteracy. General mortality was 19.5 percent, infant mortality 18.1 and newborn mortality 73.3 percent. At the present time, forty years later, the figures are 14.000.000 inhabitants (85 percent in urban areas), less than 10 percent iliteracy, a general mortality of 5.6 percent, infant mortality of 14.6, newborn mortality 7.9 percent and a life extancy of 72 and 75 years for men and women. Almost all labors are attended by professionals in institutional settings and only 5.6 percent of newborns have a low birth weight, one of the lowest figures in the world. To say that health in the Americas is in crisis and the population health needs are not satisfied, is a dangerous generalization and chilean health evolution seems to disprove this assertion. This does not mean that some reforms are needed that can be accomplished with the help of School of Public Health