The impact of poverty on the health of rural communities in Ghana: a case study of the Amansie West District, Ashanti Region
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Date
2008-08-05
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Abstract
Many rural Ghanaian communities are saddled with major social problems that undermine efforts towards rural development in the country. In the Amansie West District, poverty and ill health are major problems that militate against many households in the rural communities. However, the impact of poverty on health among households in the District has attracted little concern over the years. The survey analyses the poverty situation and how poverty impacts ill health in the rural communities in the District. Hypotheses tested were that, poverty is the root cause of poor health; and that, adequate income and knowledge ensure better health for the rural communities of the Amansie West District. Focus group discussions, participant observation, questionnaires and in-depth interviews were the methods employed for data collection from a sample of three hundred and six (306) heads of household randomly selected from deprived rural communities for a thorough analysis of the relationship between poverty and health in the District. Relevant data obtained were analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Percentage and frequency charts, cross tabulation and multivariate regression using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) were the methods used to analyse the data. The results from the study clearly justified the hypotheses set for the study. Poverty was found to be the major cause of poor health. Respondents with adequate income experience relatively better health conditions in the rural communities in the District. Further, majority of the low income earners within the rural communities either do not often or not at all use the very few healthcare facilities available in the District because of inability to pay for the service cost. Generally, poverty was found to have a significant influence on some of the highly prevalent diseases in the rural communities in the District which included malaria, whooping cough, skin and diarrhoeal diseases, measles and intestinal disorders. It is concluded that any strategy or recommendation aimed at tackling poverty and health decay in the rural communities in the Amansie West District needs to focus on equipping the poor households with adequate and regular income as well as adequate level of health education. These could be achieved through the introduction of mechanized farming practices, effective implementation of government’s youth employment programme (YEP), intensification of rural community health education, extension of village infrastructure projects and promotion of the national health insurance scheme. With adequate and regular income coupled with adequate health education, the poor would be able to satisfy their basic needs to improve their quality of life and health conditions very significantly. The difficulty in quantifying some of the poverty indicators such as hygiene using conventional measuring tools was an analysis problem which was corrected by the use of the qualitative approach. The study has provided a framework for the study of the linkages between poverty and health with both qualitative and quantitative methodologies which, in some cases, were often studied independent of each other. It has further provided a philosophical base for defining and measuring poverty. It is recommended that further research be directed to examine factors other than poverty which affect rural health for a holistic strategy to reduce health decay in rural Ghana. The key methodological innovations for the study included the use of both income and knowledge poverty in relation to health , the relationship established between the indirect effects of poverty and health and the use of both qualitative and quantitative techniques in analyzing poverty and health.
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A thesis submitted to the Department of Geography and rural development, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.