Abstract

BILBAO RAMIREZ, Jorge. Water supply and mortality in Barranquilla 1920-1940, from social imaginary to an empirical reality: A glance throughout the history and Public Health. Salud, Barranquilla [online]. 2009, vol.25, n.1, pp.33-46. ISSN 0120-5552.

Objective: To understand how, during the process of urbanization initiated by the Compañía Urbanizadora el Prado in 1920, a social imaginary in Barranquilla was constructed. One that presented the high levels of wellness in the city in the 30s, as a result of the 1929 implementation of a modern aqueduct, in spite of empirical evidence which showed that the new water service had not had a positive impact on infantile mortality and general mortality due to water diseases during the decade after its inauguration. Materials and methods: From the perspective of the Total Research, a descriptive study was realized integrating the methodological perspectives from the History and the Epidemiology, using primary and secondary sources of historical type and primary of epidemiological type. Results: The empirical results on the behavior of the mortality showed that the aqueduct inaugurated in 1929 did not produce any positive impact in the rates of general, infantile and specific mortality for water diseases, whereas the revision of historical documents character, allowed to construct arguments to describe the reasons that gave origin to the social imaginary of the increase of wellness as consequence of the implementation of the new aqueduct. Conclusion: The historical myth of good levels of wellness in Barranquilla during the 30s as consequence of the water supply from the aqueduct inaugurated in 1929 turns out to be unacceptable from a Total Research point of view that brings together the historical and epidemiological vision.

Keywords : Social imaginary; rates of mortality; total research; public health; urban development process.

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