Poverty & health

Poverty reduction, improvement of health and minimizing socioeconomic inequities has been the major focus of development strategies during recent years. Poverty and ill health are interrelated as poverty results in ill health and ill health leads to poverty.

The health and poverty situation in Bangladesh is typical of that of a poor country. Nearly half of the population lives below the poverty line. The life expectancy at birth is around 60 years and is characterized by high infant and childhood mortality. The maternal mortality ratio is around 380 per 100,000 live births. Under-nutrition remains a major problem.

Despite improvement in health outcomes in the recent past, socioeconomic, gender, and geographical differences in health and in utilization of health care services still persists. The health of the disadvantaged (economically, gender, or otherwise) segment of the population is still worse than the more advantaged sections of society and research suggests that this trend is likely to continue.

Public health services are believed to have a significant positive role in the improvement of health in developing nations. Thus, ensuring equitable access to health services is a way towards achieving equitable health. Socioeconomic development programmes on the other hand may also have positive health impact by empowering participants in terms of purchasing power, education, mobility and awareness about and openness to modern health services. An understanding of the barriers faced, particularly by the most disadvantaged, in accessing health and development services is imperative for planning more effective programmes for improving health, reducing poverty and inequities.

It is important to monitor progress in health and development in terms of reaching the poor or disadvantaged compared to the more advantaged. This necessitates identification of the poor and establishment of effective monitoring systems. This may only be accomplished if the necessary information is obtained for analysis by socioeconomic status or other relevant indicators of poverty. The poverty and health research programme at ICDDR,B has been designed to enable work towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals, particularly those directly and indirectly related to health issues.

ICDDR,B - located in Bangladesh - is in a unique position to generate knowledge to improve the health of the poor and reduce poverty and inequities. Its various rural and urban field sites, where data is regularly collected and analyzed, not only provide a rare opportunity to monitor progress in terms of improving health, especially of the poor but, they also serve to assess the equity impact of public health and development programmes.