The paper examines, taking into account the urban-rural divides, the changes and welfare implications of income diversification in Zimbabwe following macroeconomic policy changes and droughts of the early 1990s. Data from two comparable national income, consumption and expenditure surveys show that the percentage of households earning income from private and informal sources grew considerably w...

Household point-of-use (POU) water treatment technologies targeted at vulnerable populations are microbiologically effective and, in small trials, improve health. We do not understand the factors that influence preference for and adoption of these technologies by target end-users. We cycled 400 rural subsistence farm households in western Kenya through three randomly ordered two-month trials of...

We assessed the microbiologic effectiveness of sodium dichloroisocyanurate (NaDCC) tablets used on a routine basis at the household level by a vulnerable population. In a 4-month trial in Dhaka, Bangladesh, one half of the 100 participating households received NaDCC tablets and instructions on how to use the same; the other one half received a placebo and the same instructions. Monthly samples ...

BACKGROUND Households from vulnerable groups experiencing epidemiological transitions are known to be affected concomitantly by under-nutrition and obesity. Yet, it is unknown to what extent this double burden affects refugee populations dependent on food assistance. We assessed the double burden of malnutrition among Western Sahara refugees living in a protracted emergency. METHODS AND FINDI...

Antipoverty policies in developing countries often assume that targeting poor households will be reasonably effective in reaching poor individuals. We question this assumption. Our comprehensive assessment for Sub-Saharan Africa reveals that undernourished women and children are spread quite widely across the distribution of household wealth and consumption. While the expected positive househol...

Until now, only income factors were considered for empowerment. But in contemporary times, most nonprofit and non-advocacy approaches, such as social capital and its components, have been taken into consideration. The World Bank has identified social capital as one of the pillars of the empowerment process. Hence, the main purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of social capital and its...

BACKGROUND The Haiti earthquake in 2010 resulted in 1.5 million internally displaced people (IDP), yet little is known about the impact of displacement on health. In this study, we estimate the impact of displacement on infant and child mortality and key health-behavior mechanisms. METHODS We employ a difference-in-differences (DID) design with coarsened exact matching (CEM) to ensure compara...

BACKGROUND Policy interventions have been taken to protect households from facing unpredictable economic changes that may cause catastrophe in China. This study aims to estimate the change of overall proportion of households incurring catastrophic health care expenditure (CHE) and its income-related inequality in the rural areas of Shaanxi Province from 2008 to 2013. METHODS The data were dra...

Introduction The challenges related to the preservation of Mongolia’s pastureland, its quality and condition are key concerns for the livestock sector. However, scientists, researchers and government agencies tend to focus solely on rangeland ecology and livestock. All too often, herders are overlooked and omitted from the discourse. This is the main reason I want to talk about people of the M...