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The causes and impacts of famine and desertification in Umm Ruwaba district, Kordofan Region, Sudan, are examined.. This eastern extension of the Sahel is a semi-arid area inhabited largely by sedentary cultivators. The drought of 1983-1984 led to severe famine in the district, largely because the local inhabitants had conformed to the government policy of commercializing a substantial fraction of their crop production (a component of which was to encourage regional specialization), that had led to a partial abandonment of their traditional land-use and food-storage practices. Desertification in the district has been attributed largely to a shortening of the soil-renewing fallow period, carried out in an attempt to make up for declining crop yields per unit area; and also to overexploitation of the protective tree cover, largely for the making of charcoal, as a source of needed cash income.

The study of the history and dynamics of the migration of the Danagla to Port Sudan proves that they belong to the most active groups in the Sudan. Though they have completely dropped their agricultural background and adopted an entirely urban character they still have close contacts both to each other in town and to their home land. Their migration is, nontheless, a permanent one.

The 1988 good rainy season in the Sudan raised the hopes that desertification/land degradation and shortage of food so markedly observed in Western Sudan have been elevated. This was particularly so as large quantities of grains were produced in the mechanized rain-fed agricultural schemes in the clay plains of Eastern Sudan. But the field work carried by the author in the Umm Ruwaba district of Kordofan region in July/August 1989 shows that, although there has been some improvement in the crop production situation, desertification/land degradation and shortage of food produced locally are still prevailing in the district. The people are still living below the poverty line, but they are able to cope because of remittances from members of the families working abroad and because of donations of food by some world organizations.

A variety of life table models were used for the analysis of the (1984-86) Kuwaiti cause-specific mortality data. These models comprised total mortality, multiple-decrement, cause-elimination, cause-delay and disease dependency. The models were illustrated by application to a set of four chronic diseases: hypertensive, ischaemic heart, cerebrovascular and diabetes mellitus. The life table methods quantify the relative weights of different diseases as hazards to mortality after adjustment for other causes. They can also evaluate the extent of dependency between underlying cause of death and other causes mentioned on death certificate using an extended underlying-cause model. I dati sulla mortalità per causa del Kuwait (1984-86) vengono analizzati mediante alcuni modelli di tavole di mortalità. Vengono presentate: tavole di mortalità generale; tavole a decrementi multipli; tavole costruite eliminando l'effetto di qualche causa, supponendo ritardi nella manifestazione di qualche causa e, infine, supponendo l'esistenza di interrelazioni fra alcune cause. I modelli vengono illustrati mediante l'applicazione all'insieme dei dati di mortalità per quattro malattie croniche: ipertensione, malattie ischemiche del cuore, malattie cerebrovascolari e diabete mellito. I modelli presentati permettono di misurare i pesi relativi delle diverse malattie come rischi di mortalità dopo aver tenuto conto delle altre cause. Essi possono anche permettere di valutare l'esistenza di interrelazioni fra causa di morte principale e altre cause menzionate sul certificato di morte, utilizzando in modo estensivo un modello concepito per la causa principale. Les données de mortalité par cause au Kuwait (1984-86) ont été analysées avec un grand choix de modèles de table de survie; notamment table de mortalité générale, table à plusieurs types de sortie, table en écartant l'effet d'une cause particulière de décès, table en supposant un retard dans l'intervention d'une certaine cause, et en supposant une interaction entre quelques causes. Ces méthodes sont illustrées en traittant un sous-ensemble de quatre maladies chroniques: hypertension, maladies ischémiques du coeur, maladies cérebrovasculaires, diabète. Les méthodes expriment de façon numérique le poids relatif de chaque maladie dans le risque de mortalité, en tenant compte de l'effet des autres causes. Elles permettent aussi d'évaluer le degré d'interaction entre la cause principale et l'intervention des causes concomitantes, déclarées sur le certificat de décès; on utilise alors de façon plus large la méthode d'étude de la cause principale.