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This report described the version of the Human Resources Analysis and Estimation Method (MAERH) that was specially devised for analyzing maternal and child health and family planning personnel (the MAERH/AMI/1 version). The general features of the method are presented and its ability to analyze health programs and to estimate the human resources needed is emphasized. In addition, the operation and use of the method, its advantages and short-comings, as well as its development and possible adaptation to wider-ranging or more specific problems are described. Finally, the results obtained in the maternal and child health area of the State of Pernambuco, Brazil, are presented to exemplify the use of the method.

One aspect that is difficult to evaluate in the performance of graduates of nursing and health technician training centers is their acceptance by the establishments that employ them. Even though in Cuba the Ministry of Public Health is responsible for both the training and employment of these personnel, differences arise between the qualifications of the graduates and the needs of the services. The Office of the National Director of Intermediate Medical Education was instituted in order to solve this problem; it operates under the guidance of the Ministries of Education and of Public Health. After a brief review of the steps leading to the establishment of an efficient and effective educational subsystem in this field, the article enumerates the various polytechnic institutes and schools comprised in that system, and the methods by which study plans and programs are drawn up. The authors also describe the procedure used in Cuba to evaluate the efficiency of manpower training in relation to the graduate's educational and occupational profile and the needs of the services.

The cost of extending health care to rural areas in developing countries has hindered efforts to bring cosmopolitan or "western" medicine into those areas. As a cost-effective and realistic strategy for expanding the services needed in the countryside-in a context of finite resources-the writer proposes making women agents of health care in the rural care system and giving them training that includes both formal and traditional practices. The process offers the woman, as a mother, the opportunity to play a leading part in evaluating the health status of her children and other members of her family. Based on the experience acquired in a rural health project carried out in the Altiplano of Bolivia, specific recommendations are made for application of this approach, which is based in the community itself, and the difficulties encountered in its practical application are cited.