Haiti Overpopulation Case Study

Haiti has the highest incidence of HIV/Aids in Latin America and the Caribbean - 90% of the HIV/AIDS cases in the Caribbean belong to Haiti.
Consequences
Overpopulation has created many problems in Haiti destroying families and causing great damage to the country’s political and financial state, as well as diminishing the health and vitality of the population. One of the biggest problems in Haiti currently is the spread and containment of disease within the country. Currently due to high densities of people living in poor conditions disease can easily spread and contaminate many. HIV/AIDS is a very prominent disease with a prevalence of 2.1% in adults one of the highest in the world it is currently thought there are 120,000 Haitians testing positive for HIV. Also cholera has also been extremely fatal and easily spread. This is due to lack of an established sanitation system and access to clean water. This has led to 8231 deaths from August 2012 to August 2014.However the leading cause of death has been tuberculosis and within its hemisphere Haiti has the highest rates. TB is the country’s greatest infectious cause of mortality in both youth and adults, 6,814 deaths in 2007, there was also an estimated 29,333 new cases in 2007 alone. A massive proportion of children don’t even reach their twelfth birthday with almost 12% dying before this date. This is a result of poor living conditions caused by cramped conditions and overcrowding. As a result there is a lack of food and many children suffer with malnutrition and starvation in many cases. This has resulted in communities making mud cookies and selling them as a last resort. There isn’t even a particularly large food shortage it is because people are so poor as they are working for little money as they will take any job opportunities available. Due to high inflation within the country food has been made almost unattainable for the poor therefore the mud cookies have become the alternative as they are cheap and fill you up. Overcrowding has led to having to live and build on any land available. This has meant that the little fertile land Haiti had has been built upon reducing farming and potential crops and export the country could have used. Only about 20% of Haiti’s land is arable yet nearly 20% of Haiti’s population live on this land. This overpopulation is putting great pressure on the countries resources and facilities currently. Haiti currently only spends $83 a year on its health services and has only 25 doctors and 11 nurses for every 100,000 people, this shows the obvious strain these services are facing. Only ¼ of births are monitored by at trained specialist resulting in a high infant mortality rate. It is only just coping as it is and the country’s population is expected to double in 50 years at the current growth rate of 2.5%.

1/3 of their children die before they reach the age of 5.
Poor health care infrastructure - Only one in every 10,000 Haitians have access to a physician/doctor.