Malaria still claims a heavy human and economic toll, specifically in sub-Saharan Africa. Even though the causality between malaria and poverty is presumably bi-directional, malaria plays a role in the economic difficulties of the region. This article provides an analysis of the economic consequences of malaria (with an emphasis on human capital accumulation and productivity), and a discussion of policies aimed at reducing its incidence.
A major initiative has been the distribution of insecticidal bed-nets at a highly subsidized price. An economic-epidemiology model is used to explain why such policy is doomed to fail in presence of a very high poverty incidence, as observed in the African region.
To attract greater levels of foreign direct investment into their gold mining sectors, many mineral-rich countries in sub-Saharan Africa have been willing to overlook serious instances of mining company non-compliance with environmental standards. These lapses in regulatory oversight and enforcement have led to high levels of pollution in many mining communities.The likelihood is high that the risk of pollution-related sicknesses, such as skin infections, upper and lower respiratory disorders, and cardiovascular diseases, will necessitate increasingly high healthcare expenditures in affected communities.
In this study, we propose and estimate a hedonic-type model that relates healthcare expenditure to the degree of residents’ exposure to mining pollution using data obtained on gold mining in Ghana. The empirical results confirm that, after controlling for factors such as current and long-term health status, increased mining pollution leads to higher healthcare expenditure.
Anthropogenic climate change and anticipated adverse effects on human health as outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are taken as givens.
A conceptual model for thinking about the spectrum of climate-related health risks ranging from distal and infrastructural to proximal and behavioural and their relation to the burden of disease pattern typical of sub-Saharan Africa is provided. The model provides a tool for identifying modifiable risk factors with a view to future research, specifically into the performance of interventions to reduce the impact of climate change.
Refugees are increasingly migrating to urban areas, but little research has been conducted to compare health and wellbeing outcomes of urban refugees with those based in camps. This analytic cross-sectional study investigated differences in health-related quality of life (QoL) for urban and camp-based refugees in sub-Saharan Africa, and assessed the influences of both the environment and the perceived environment on refugees’ health-related QoL using the WorldHealth Organization’s Quality of Life scale (WHOQOL-BREF.) Data for urban refugees were drawn from an administrative database used by an international agency that serves refugee populations in South Africa.
Data for camp-based refugees were collected via surveys conducted at two refugee camps in sub-Saharan Africa. Refugees in urban environments reported significantly higher satisfaction with overall health, physical health and environmental wellbeing than refugees placed in camps. In multivariate analyses, urban environments were associated with better physical health for refugees,
Throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, the human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) pandemic is having devastating and tragic social, economic, and political impacts. HIV/AIDS is both a health issue and a development problem, with complex links to rural livelihoods, human capacity, and natural resource conservation. As the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Sub-Saharan Africa has spread, it appears that increased pressure has been placed on the already dwindling forest resources on which vulnerable populations depend.Evidently, forests and the products that they provide may well decrease the vulnerability of rural people by increasing their resilience to HIV/AIDS. Yet, despite decades of research regarding the impacts of HIV/AIDS on rural livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa, the links between HIV/AIDS, vulnerability, resilience, and wild natural capital has largely gone unexplored.
Research on the interactions between the use of forest resources and contemporary epidemics in general, and on the environmental dimensions of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in particular,
This toolkit for integrated vector management (IVM) is designed to help national and regional programme managers coordinate across sectors to design and run large IVM programmes. It is an extension of earlier guidance and teaching material published by the World Health Organization(WHO): Handbook for integrated vector management (1), Monitoring and evaluation indicators for integrated vector management (2), Guidance on policy-making for integrated vector management(3) and Core structure for training curricula on integrated vector management (4).The toolkit provides the technical detail required to plan, implement, monitor and evaluate an IVM approach.
IVM can be used when the aim is to control or eliminate vector-borne diseases and can also contribute to insecticide resistance management. This toolkit provides information on where vector-borne diseases are endemic and what interventions should be used, presenting case studies on IVM as well as relevant guidance documents for reference.The diseases that are the focus of this toolkit are malaria,
Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, the human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) pandemic is having devastating and tragic social, economic, and political impacts. HIV/AIDS is both a health issue and a development problem, with complex links to rural livelihoods, human capacity, and natural resource conservation. As the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Sub-Saharan Africa has spread, it appears that increased pressure has been placed on the already dwindling forest resources on which vulnerable populations depend. Evidently, forests and the products that they provide may well decrease the vulnerability of rural people by increasing their resilience to HIV/AIDS. Yet, despite decades of research regarding the impacts of HIV/AIDS on rural livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa, the links between HIV/AIDS, vulnerability, resilience, and wild natural capital has largely gone unexplored. Research on the interactions between the use of forest resources and contemporary epidemics in general, and on the environmental dimensions of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in particular,
More than 70 million people died in famines during the 20th century. This paper compiles excess mortality estimates from over 30 major famines and assess the success of some parts of the world – China, the Soviet Union, and more recently India and Bangladesh – in apparently eradicating mass mortality food crises. This is contrastes with the experience of sub-Saharan Africa where famines precipitated by adverse synergies between natural triggers (drought) and political crisis (civil wars) have become endemic since the late 1960s.
The paper also examines the evolving discourse around famine causation during the century, and finds that despite the proliferation of demographic, economic and political theories, each embodies the reductionist perspective of disciplinary specialisation. The paper concludes by arguing that if famine is to be completely eradicated during the 21st century this requires not just technical (food production and distribution) capacity but substantially more political will,
The paper discusses strategies for meeting the needs of the poor in a pluralist health sector. It argues that the first step in defining such strategies must be a realistic assessment of the complex and unregulated market for health services that exists in many parts of Africa. It suggests that simplistic calls for government and donors either to cease or substantially increase funding for existing public health services are misguided in a situation where even the labels ‘public’ and ‘private’ require careful analysis. Instead it proposes that governments should use their resources and influence to promote the substantial changes required to establish effective health services.
It also calls for a fundamental reassessment of the relationship between government, health services providers, civil society organisations, communities and households in the health sector. It concludes that a new vision for pro-poor health services will emerge from a process of listening to the needs of the poor,
This paper examines the evidence on access to conventional schooling for children and young people affected by HIV and AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa and makes recommendations for the further development of the SOFIE Project. The findings reveal the highly complex and context specific nature of the educational impact. In some areas broad adaptive capacities are emerging that may enable households to support a larger number of orphans whilst in other areas households are reaching the limits of their capacity to cope. In HIV-stressed households children have reduced educational access and attainment and maternal orphans are a particularly disadvantaged group in terms of schooling, even relative to other poor children. At the same time schools in high HIV prevalence areas are increasingly challenged to meet the educational and emotional needs of the children who walk in through their door and are unlikely to reach out to the young people who cannot attend regularly.
Global risks of zoonotic disease are high on policy agendas. Increasingly, Africa is seen as a ‘hotspot’, with likely disease spillovers from animals to humans. This paper explores the social dynamics of disease exposure, demonstrating how risks are not generalised, but are related to occupation, gender, class and other dimensions of social difference.