The relationship between health and poverty along with diagnosing the effects

The relationship between health and poverty along with diagnosing the effects

Introduction

The relationship between poverty and health and how they affect each other is one of the most complicated social issues that most researchers have been trying to establish. This is because not only poverty affects health since poor health, on the other hand, has a more significant implication on poverty. For instance, individuals languishing in poverty are unable to seek for quality health services. Nonetheless, if an individual suffers from health complications, they may end up losing their employment that causes deepening of poverty within the society. At the same time, if a person gets sick for long, the health services might end up toiling on their financial status, thus causing poverty to such families. In this regard, the poor are commonly concerned with the health of their family members who are breadwinner as they understand the consequences of such a person is sick or require costly treatment (Gounder & Xing, 2012). Additionally, poverty affects health not only on accessing quality health care services but also through other factors. To begin with, low-income families are not able to get a balanced diet, thus ending up being malnutrition. Also, they do not have proper sanitation, and they end up getting infectious diseases like cholera. Since most of the low-income families tend to live in slams and congested areas, they lack proper sanitation, housing, and clean water to drink, which puts them in danger of contracting different diseases that are related to the consumption of dirty substances. According to Gounder and Xing (2012), the effects of poverty and health are evident not only to individuals and their families but also to the nation. Once the country has a high rate of poverty or does not have quality healthcare services, its development tends to drag behind since individuals are not productive, do not contribute to the countries income through revenues. In such cases, the government is forced to incur the little it has in providing basics like food, shelter, clothing, and education to the poor. The major discussion of this paper is to establish the relationship between health and poverty as well as their effects.

Uses of sources

In research, sources are the materials, either books, articles, or journals that are used as secondary materials by the researcher or sample that are the primary sources. In any research, it is significant to deploy sources that are related to the topic at hand as they are used for two purposes. First, it is deployed to collect ideas and data that help a researcher to expand and enrich their knowledge and understanding toward the topic, subject, or discipline at hand. At the same time, it provides adequate information about the topic to the readers. Second, the sources are used in identifying, building, and supporting the central argument or study, which shows the knowledge that the researcher has acquired.

Research problem

The relationship between poverty and health and their effects on individuals has turned out to be a global issue. The level of those living under the poverty level has increased significantly, where over 1.2 billion individuals worldwide are living in extreme poverty.  According to WHO, poverty and health are directly related, and unless poverty is eradicated, quality health cannot be achieved. This is because poverty is both the contributor and a consequence of poor health. As a contributor, individuals living below the poverty line are forced to live in congested areas where they lack basics like shelter, clothing, food, and education. Due to lack of the basic, they tend to contract different diseases that are related like malnutrition because of a lack of a balanced diet. Moreover, they lack sanitation and clean water to drink, which causes them to get diseases that emanate from a dirty environment like cholera due to waste products dumped everywhere and malaria due to stagnating water, among others. The transmission of diseases like HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis is high in nations with a high rate of poverty. In a statement that was issued during the World Health Assembly in 2001, UN Secretary Kofi Annan indicated that Poverty had been the greatest enemy of health in developing nations. During this statement, he sinuates that developing countries are experiencing poor health care services or are having particular illnesses due to poverty.

On the other hand, it has been established that poor health has been contributing to the rise in the rate of poverty all over the world. This is caused by individuals being unable to work once they fall ill, thus languishing in poverty. At the same time, if an individual has been falling sick from time to time, they end up losing their employment as they tend to be absent from work. This increases the levels of unemployment in a country, which is a primary contributor to poverty. Again, it is established that there has been an issue regarding the lack of quality health care services in most nations. Most countries lack qualified healthcare providers, and individuals are not provided with quality services, thus being in and out of hospitals always, or they seek treatment in nations with qualified practitioners, which is costly. Therefore, due to the cost incurred in treatment, individuals end up using all their wealth and start to suffer in poverty.

Nevertheless, WHO indicates that a close relationship between health and poverty leads to some effects on society. To begin with, they cause death to the children and young adults who are beneficial to the nation in terms of the future workforce. This has resulted in most individuals, especially in developing countries, to have a workforce that comprises old individuals. Furthermore, the increased mortality rate reduces the population of the country. Therefore, it is worthy of indicating that poverty and health are related, and their effects have turned out to be a social problem all over the world, and effective measures should be adopted to ensure it is curbed down.

Research question

This study will be seeking to answer a question that is related to the relationship between health and poverty. Therefore the research question will be: What is the relationship between health and poverty and the effects they have on the community and country at large?

Purposes

The primary purpose of conducting this study is to establish the relationship that exists between health and poverty as the two are indicated to be closely and directly related. Different researchers and WHO believe that in areas where poverty is high, individuals’ health is at stake due to the living conditions associated with poverty. Additionally, they think that health plays a significant role in the development of poverty. In case a community is suffering from a particular illness, they are unable to work, thus using all their wealth on treatment. At the same time, the lack of proper healthcare within a community contributes to poverty as individuals will always seek healthcare elsewhere, which is expensive. Another purpose of the study is to establish the effects that both the health and poverty has. According to WHO, poverty and health are known for increasing mortality rates due to lack of funds to seek quality health services, and individuals living under the poverty line tend to fall sick from time to time. Health results in loss of employment that increase poverty. Besides, they both drag behind the development of a country, reduce the population, result to emerging of different severe illnesses as well as the spread of infectious diseases that are not common in healthy and rich community.

Literature Review

According to Walraven (2011), the level of poverty has been increasing all over the world, and it has raised an alarm that requires swift action. The same study indicates that it has been established that health has been playing a part in contributing to poverty, and poverty has been affecting an individual’s health. This is because most individuals living in poverty earn less than a dollar daily, thus forcing them to live in environments that make them sick due to lack of proper shelter, clean water, and sanitation. Finances make them lack knowledge on how they can maintain their cleanliness. Most of the slum dwellers do not go to school, and they spend their time working towards getting food.  These factors make them acquire illnesses like pneumonia, cholera, Malaria, and HIV/AIDS, among others. On the other hand, even if individuals are earning good money, but they have long-lasting illnesses, they spend all their money on treatment, thus being left poor. At the same time, illness’ costs some individuals their employment, which increases unemployment that acts as a contributor to poverty. More so, poverty hinders individuals from accessing quality healthcare as they are not able to pay for the services. Therefore, individuals from poor backgrounds are prone to suffering from chronic diseases that are hard to be experienced by the rich.

As per Liddell & Morris (2010), billions of individuals living under poverty lack enough food to provide to their families. Due to the lack of food, there are billions of individuals suffering from malnutrition, which is dangerous and lethal. The condition affects children before they are born as their mothers are undernourished and give birth to underweight babies. In most cases, those children who are born underweight die within the first year of life, experience time to time hospitalization, neurological disorders, and undergrowth. This factor makes the country have a weak society and government is forced to incur some cost when trying to provide supplements to such children. Malnutrition contributes to the rapid spread of some diseases like kwashiorkor among individuals living in poverty because their bodies lack the components that are needed to protect the body from illnesses. Again poor people tend to eat one type of food which lacks some vitamins and minerals that are necessary for body immunity. For instance, in the United States, individuals living under the poverty line take fast foods as they are cheap and readily available.  In 2000 about 133,000 individuals living in poverty lost their lives as a result of being malnutrition.

Another study by Yoshikawa, Aber & Beardslee (2012), states that poverty causes psychological disorders like stress and depression among poor individuals. These disorders cause premature deaths within the community if not well treated, and since the poor individuals lack financial support, they end up not get quality health care. Haushofer & Fehr (2014) shows that about 40% of children aged 11 years from families that are poor exhibit aggression compared to about 25% of children from well up families. Additionally, about 12 % of children from impoverished families are anxious, thus showing that the income of a family plays a significant role in causing psychological disorders. Subsequently, chronic poverty results in a society with Asthmatic children who are said to develop this condition due to underweight births, lack of enough breastfeeding, and lack of accessing healthcare services. Also, individuals living in poverty live in poor housing structures that expose children to pollutants and lack proper ventilation hence promoting Asthma. For instance, in Canada, the level of Asthma cases has recently increased among individuals living in poverty.

Healy (2017) indicates that overcrowding and poor living status experienced by those living in poverty can result in to spread of airborne illnesses like pneumonia and tuberculosis. The houses they live in are not well ventilated, which reduces the circulation of fresh air. The use of traditional stoves or open fires that are not used by the rich leads to air pollution. This shows that a lack of air circulation contributes to health complications among the poor. The research by Lund et al. (2011) shows that the relationship between poverty and mental health is weak in developing nations because of the flexible nature of employment within the informal industry that is less stressful hence reducing the capability of developing psychological disorders. In developing countries, individuals are involved in jobs that require less attendance, like agricultural activities and self-employment. Anakwenze and Zuberi (2013) indicate that mental illnesses are less experienced in developing nations due to family and community support that people provide to each other despite being poor.

According to Olowa (2012), poverty is directly connected to poor health, although poor health among most individuals all over the world is related to economic, social, and political injustices. Poverty is indicated to be a cause and consequence of poor health as it increases the chances of being provided with improper healthcare services. On the other hand, Walraven (2011) demonstrates that poor health among individuals results in families being trapped in poverty. This is because some illnesses that people are suffering result in them selling their properties children dropping from school to earn a living for the families, losing employment, and using all their savings as they pay for health services. School dropping among children does not solve the problem for the family, but it instead deepens poverty. This is because, in the future, such children will not be in a position to secure employment. The study by Olowa (2012), indicates that the regions that the poor lives are underdeveloped and lack proper health facilities that will cater for their wellbeing. This makes the poor to seek such services far away from their areas where they lack the interest to seek for them. Gounder and Xing (2012) also indicate that the poor lack enough resources to support them to eat a balanced diet after falling sick. This is because they cannot afford to incur more expenses rather than providing basics to their families. Some individuals are at the same time held in the hospital, or their families’ neglect them due to a lack of finances to pay for their medical bills. Such individuals sometimes contract other illnesses that might be more severe as their immune system is weak.

The study conducted by Corbett and Fikkert (2014) indicates that different global community leaders have come together to ensure that most prevalent infectious diseases that affect the poor are eradicated. For instance, it states that the WHO has declared HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and malaria to be a global disaster that requires urgent action. The reduction of these infections is essential in ensuring that the poor do not incur the little they earn in their treatment. This action is also meant to ensure that individuals do not spend everything they have on treatment hence suffering in poverty. Again the measure will ensure that the life expectancy of a country has increased and the mortality rate caused by these diseases has been prevented. As per Corbett and Fikkert (2014), the government and private institutions have been working hard to ensure they improve nutrition among the poor through providing relief foods to slum dwellers to reduce malnutrition within the society. To the malnutrition children, they are given supplements that promote their health.

Theory

The theory that fits well in this research is the Classical and neoclassical theory of poverty. Classical traditions indicate that people are responsible for their achievements and selecting the effect to be reduced (Martins, 2011). It states that poverty may go on for sometimes due to lack of role model since poor individuals do not have time to interact with others. Therefore it advocates for the government to intervene in changing people’s attitudes and capabilities through empowering them.  Neoclassical theory, on the other hand, recognizes the causes of poverty to be beyond an individual’s ability. It states that poverty is caused by a lack of social and private assets where the poor are denied access to some services or facilities that are accessed by the rich. For instance, the poor are denied the opportunity to access loans that can be beneficial in helping them have more income. The two theories are significant as they use monetary standards to measure poverty and how it can be eradicated. Consecutively, they portray the effects of incentives on people’s behavior and the connection between productivity and income (Davis & Sanchez-Martinez, 2015). In this regard, the theories can be used in this research to show how the poor fail to access health services compared to the rich. It will as well show how the government and society have been unable to empower the poor by limiting the resources they should obtain. At the same time, it will show how and why poverty is related to poverty.

Conclusion

From the above discussion, it is evident that health and poverty has a direct relationship as they each affect each other. First, it is worth stating that if an individual or society is not healthy, the level of poverty is likely to rise. This is because individuals are not able to work and provide for themselves and their families. At the same time, poor health results in individuals to lose their employment, thus increasing the level of unemployment that is regarded as a contributor to poverty. In such cases, if an individual is a breadwinner, the family starts to languish in poverty, and over time, they begin to look for shelter in areas where they can afford, and in most cases, they end up in slums. Moreover, health can drain a family’s wealth if one of its members is suffering from chronic disease as they are expensive to treat. Most families end up being poor and living in poverty if one person of the family is infected with diseases like cancer as it is expensive to treat. On the other hand, individuals living under the poverty level find themselves suffering from certain illnesses like Cholera, Malaria, HIV/AIDS, asthma and psychological disorders due to the environments and kind of life they live. In most cases, they live in slums that are congested and lack some necessary facilities like shelter, sanitation, and clean water to drink.  Also, they do not have access to quality healthcare since healthcare facilities around them are not equipped with the necessary equipment and practitioners. Therefore, they have to seek such services in the neighborhood, which is expensive and they do not have health covers or money to cater for the cost as most of them earn less than a dollar daily. Therefore, researchers are calling for governments all over the world to ensure that they upgrade the slums where low-income families live. The government should be to ensure they have access to quality health services, housing, and have proper sanitation and clean water to drink. Also, health should be affordable to all individuals without considering their financial status

References

Anakwenze, U., & Zuberi, D. (2013). Mental health and poverty in the inner city. Health & Social Work, 38(3), 147-157.

Corbett, S., & Fikkert, B. (2014). When helping hurts: How to alleviate poverty without hurting the poor… and yourself. Moody Publishers.

Davis, E. P., & Sanchez-Martinez, M. (2015). Economic theories of poverty. Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Gounder, R., & Xing, Z. (2012). Impact of education and health on poverty reduction: Monetary and non-monetary evidence from Fiji. Economic Modelling, 29(3), 787-794.

Haushofer, J., & Fehr, E. (2014). On the psychology of poverty. Science, 344(6186), 862-867.

Healy, J. D. (2017). Housing, fuel poverty and health: a pan-European analysis. Routledge.

Liddell, C., & Morris, C. (2010). Fuel poverty and human health: a review of recent evidence. Energy policy, 38(6), 2987-2997.

Lund, C., De Silva, M., Plagerson, S., Cooper, S., Chisholm, D., Das, J., … & Patel, V. (2011). Poverty and mental disorders: breaking the cycle in low-income and middle-income countries. The lancet, 378(9801), 1502-1514.

Martins, N. (2011). The revival of classical political economy and the Cambridge tradition: from scarcity theory to surplus theory. Review of Political Economy, 23(1), 111-131.

Olowa, O. W. (2012). Concept, measurement and causes of poverty: Nigeria in perspective. American Journal of Economics, 2(1), 25-36.

Walraven, G. E. L. (2011). Health and poverty: Global health problems and solutions. Routledge.

Yoshikawa, H., Aber, J. L., & Beardslee, W. R. (2012). The effects of poverty on the mental, emotional, and behavioral health of children and youth: implications for prevention. American Psychologist, 67(4), 272.