UNAM develops Atlas of Health in Mexico

• April 20, 2024

The world has experienced an epidemiological transition and our country has been part of it. Some decades ago the most common diseases, which caused the highest number of deaths among Mexicans, were infectious.

Currently this has changed, the most common diseases are chronic degenerative diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and cancer, which have the highest number of cases of morbidity and mortality.

The Atlas of Health in Mexico , developed by specialists from Institute of Geography (IG) and the Faculty of Medicine (FM) of the UNAM , in collaboration with members of the Faculty of Geography of the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico , allows us to approach the evolution of the most common diseases of our country through time and space.

In this cartographic document, health information was collected since 1800, with the purpose of articulating the epidemiological situation of the Mexican population with the world context and its trends; It also aims to show the geographical distribution of the most common diseases, deaths, health systems and health campaigns over two centuries.

The maps that make it up allow us to determine the areas that stand out due to the incidence of one or the other pathology, the causes, distribution of morbidity and mortality rates, as well as its relationship with the health care infrastructure and human resources.

As of May 2010, work began on the conformation of the Atlas of Health in Mexico , which has its first antecedent in 1973. The Dr. María del Carmen Juárez Gutiérrez, from IG , commented that the intention of this document is to show the evolution of health in the Mexican, for which information has been compiled from various sources and from previous atlases.

The specialist highlighted the collaboration of Dr. Carlos Viesca, from the Department of History and Philosophy of the FM , who provided information for the period from 1800 to 1970; With this, a sequence of public health in Mexico could be developed.

In turn, the Dr. Malaquías López Cervantes of FM , said that this period is key in Mexican medicine, since it covers the long configuration of the Mexican State, the expansion and spatial redistribution of our population; and it is fundamental because of the history of communicable diseases.

Until now, this information allows us to reflect on the decision-making in health matters in the country, since the situation in the north is very different from that in the south; Diseases and opportunities for access to health are different in each region.

López Cervantes recalled that this last work compiles the sanitary evolution in the historical panorama; "It has allowed us to know how this national problem has changed and how the previous atlases have served to make decisions about it."

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