BRAC-ICDDR,B Joint Research Project

Socioeconomic Development and Human Well-being

Empirical evidence point to a causal relationship between the socioeconomic status of individuals and communties and their health. Indeed improvements in health is expected to follow socioeconomic development. Yet this hypothesis has rarely been tested; at least it has not undergone the scrutiny of scientific enquiry. Even less understood are the processes and mechanisms by which the changes are brought about.

The Rural Development Programme (RDP) of BRAC is a multisectoral integrated programme for poverty alleviation directed at women and the landless poor. Iit consists of mobilisation of the poor, provision of non-formal education, skill training and income generation opportunities and credit facilities. The programme is the result of 20 years of experiences through trial and error. However evaluation of its impact on human well-being including health has not been convincingly undertaken.

The Matlab field station of ICDDR,B is an area with a population of 200,000, half of whom are recipients of intensive maternal and child health and family planning services. The entire population is part of the Centre's demographic surveillance system where health and occasionally socioeconomic indicators ahve been collected prospectively since 1966.

A unique opportunity arose when BRAC decided to extend its field operations (RDP) to Matlab. ICDDR,B and BRAC joined hands to seize this golden opportunity . A joint research project was designed to study the impact of BRAC's socio-economic interventions on the well-being of the rural poor, especially of women and children, and to study the mechansism through which this impact is mediated.