BACKGROUND Out-of-pocket expenditure to pay for health services could result in financial catastrophe. The purpose of this study was to identify the incidence and determinants of catastrophic out-of-pocket payments for healthcare in Colombia. The underlying hypotheses are that low-income and non-insured population in Colombia, and households living in isolated and high level of rurality regions...

Food insecurity, as a multi-faceted problem with far-reaching health and societal consequences, is prevalent among disadvantaged households. Household food insecurity has made the notion operationally useful in the design, implementation, and evaluation of programs and policies. This study was to investigate the socio-demographic associates contributing to severity of food insecurity among vuln...

OBJECTIVE The present paper investigated the impact of the 2008 financial crisis on food security in Mexico and how it disproportionally affected vulnerable households. DESIGN A generalized ordered logistic regression was estimated to assess the impact of the crisis on households' food security status. An ordinary least squares and a quantile regression were estimated to evaluate the effect o...

The emergence of child-headed households (CHH) is considered an indicator of the erosion of the traditional safety nets in sub-Saharan African countries and a direct consequence of the increasing number of orphans in the region. Using four available waves of the Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Surveys (1988, 1994, 1999, 2005/2006), we find that the proportion of households with no adults remain...

background: lack of nutritional knowledge is one of the most important reasons of nutritional problems and consequently im­proper practice, which can lead to several complications. this study has been designed in order to compare knowledge, at­ti­tude and practices of the urban and rural households regarding iron deficiency anemia (ida) in boushehr, golestan and sis­tan & balouchestan provinces...

The efficacy of supplementation of vitamin A in child survival has been well-demonstrated. However, the effectiveness of a programme of vitamin A supplementation at the population level has been rarely examined. Understanding how programmes reach disadvantaged children can help improve the design of initiatives of vitamin A supplementation. The differentials in receipt of vitamin A by socioecon...

OBJECTIVE To develop a household-level diet quality indicator (HDQI) using the Salvadorian dietary guidelines to assess the dietary quality of households in vulnerable communities in El Salvador. DESIGN The Salvadorian dietary guidelines were reviewed and eighteen HDQI components were identified (nine foods and nine nutrients). The components were evaluated using a proportional scoring system...

This paper considers the support networks of older people in populations with a preponderance of multigenerational households and examines the most vulnerable network types in terms of loneliness and isolation. Current common typologies of support networks may not be sensitive to differences within and between different cultures. This paper uses cross-sectional data drawn from 590 elders (Gujar...

Fuel poverty is a growing concern in France. Following the hike in energy prices that started in 2004, the problem of energy affordability for low-income households entered the political debate with the “Grenelle de l’environnement” in 2007. According to the standard UK definition (10% ratio) 3.4 million households were subject to fuel poverty in France in 2006. We question the way fuel poverty...