The triad of poverty, environment and child health in Nairobi informal settlements

This paper explores how community members from Nairobi’s informal settlements understand the linkages between urban poor environments and childhood illnesses.

Key findings include:

• children’s illnesses is mainly due to their impoverished status and environment rather than mothers’ lack of biomedical conceptualization of disease processes
• community’s knowledge of their children’s illness and the link between environment and child health outcomes create opportunities to design and implement effective and sustainable child survival programs
• the long term implications on child growth and development and overall immunity against the infection-malnutrition interaction dynamics are well established

The principal recommendations of the paper are:

• for any changes in morbidity and mortality to be realized, there is a need to address the mushrooming informal settlements which are an indication of the inability of the government to provide housing for the urban residents; and in the least to provide services in these settlements
• diverting family resources to provide care to a sick child may have implications on the provision of other basic necessities such as food, which results in a vicious cycle of poverty-illness-poverty
• the crowding of people in marginal urban areas, the movement of populations into new environments, the increased use of chemicals that pollute soils, water and air and growing malnutrition all contribute to the increase in diseases among children

The authors conclude that the upgrading of informal settlements is an important beginning because this would impact on morbidity and mortality as evidenced in other countries with low per capita gross national product.