Health and vulnerability
There are strong linkages between ill-health, vulnerability and poverty. This message comes through very strongly in consultations with the poor. Sickness influences individuals and households in many ways. Sick people are less able to work productively and require assistance from other people. They may also have to pay for medical care. Many poor people do not have insurance against serious illness and have great difficulty in borrowing money, sometimes having to sell assets to cope with major illness. This reduces their future ability to deal with crisis. Prolonged illness and major epidemics can seriously affect whole households and wider communities.
This section provides documents that link these dynamics through the livelihoods approach, and helps policy-makers identify specific and general entry points for health strategies.
See the Livelihoods Connect website for more information on sustainable livelihoods.
- Paying out-of-pocket for health care in Asia: catastrophic and poverty impact
-
This Equitap paper analyses the extent of out-of-pocket (OOP) payments for healthcare in 14 countries in Asia, and the impact of these payments on household’s income and resources and vulnerability to poverty. It finds that the heavy reliance on OOP financing for healthcare has important consequences for living standards
Recommended readings
- The body [chapter in ‘Voices of the poor: crying out for change’]
- ( D. Narayan; R. Chambers; M. K. Shah; P. Petesch / World Bank , 2000)
- While it is recognised that poverty and poor health are closely linked, it is rare that the poor have the opportunity to voice their own experiences with respect to health issues. Poor people from acr...
- Sustainable livelihoods guidance sheets
- ( Department for International Development, UK , 2003)
- The Sustainable Livelihoods (SL) approach is a framework developed by the Department for International Development (DFID) to help ensure that people and their priorities are at the centre of developme...
Latest Additions
- Dual policy focus on prevention and escape is needed to combat poverty
- ( A. Krishna / World Development , 2005)
- This article, published in World Development, develops a Stages of Process methodology to analyse pathways in and out of poverty in Andhra Pradesh, India. It finds that fourteen percent of households ...
- Analysing the impact of out-of-pocket financing for healthcare on poverty in Asia
- ( E. van Doorslaer; O. O’Donnell; A. Somanathan / Equitap , 2005)
- This Equitap paper analyses the extent of out-of-pocket (OOP) payments for healthcare in 14 countries in Asia, and the impact of these payments on household’s income and resources and vulnerability to...
