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At least 235 records · Page 13Linked to original sources
PubMed1989

Poverty, disease, responsibility: Arthur Newsholme and the public health dilemmas of British liberalism.

As the understanding of poverty changed in the first part of the twentieth century, British government officials were forced to reexamine assumptions about the relation between poverty and disease. In contrast to the predominant Victorian view that disease caused poverty, Arthur Newsholme argued that poverty and disease were interrelated. Yet, analysis of the social components of disease was complex and often self-contradictory: Were individuals responsible for behavior that placed them at risk, or were they massive victims of social circumstances? For Newsholme the ethical evolution of society and the moral reform of individuals were not substitutes for social reform; rather, they were essential components of it.

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed1989

The perception of poverty and wealth among teenage university students.

This study is concerned with the perception of poverty and wealth among teenage university students. Two hundred twenty students completed a questionnaire which probed their perceptions of the attributions and consequences of poverty and wealth, requested them to estimate the job prospects of a school leaver with and without a certificate qualification, and also requested that they estimate the income for both a specified "poor" and "rich" man. The students also provided information about their economic preferences, religious position, and family financial position. Results indicate that the sample emphasized the significance of the family and placed little weight on luck when dealing with poverty and wealth. The sample emphasized the economic consequences of poverty and wealth, and did not rate their psychological consequences as being of much importance. Certain groups within the sample showed some deviations in their perceptions. The most substantial group differences were between the capitalist-religious and socialist-religious groups.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1988

The timing of falls into poverty after retirement and widowhood.

A major concern of workers, even those financially prepared for retirement, is that a small risk of poverty may grow over time. Cross-sectional data showing that older cohorts have higher poverty rates substantiate this concern. Using data from the Retirement History Study, we analyze changes in the hazard of entering poverty as a cohort of elderly couples retire and age and the wives are widowed. The initial fall into poverty among those who were not poor before the husband retired is more closely linked to the event of retirement or widowhood than to the slowly eroding household income over the period of retirement and widowhood. The death of her retired husband puts a wife in economic jeopardy whether this shock occurs one year after his retirement or some years later.

Aged↗
PubMed1994

Employment, race and poverty in West Virginia: implications for practicing physicians.

Since West Virginia became a state in 1863 and slavery was abolished, poverty has been a persistent problem for black Americans. Although blacks have become increasingly a part of the total workforce, moving from the lowest level, lowest paid jobs to higher level, better paying ones, unemployment, poverty, and their common sequelae still persist and significantly differentiate black from white Americans. While racial discrimination has been a factor in black poverty for many decades, another critical factor responsible for black poverty today and in the past, is something which both blacks and physicians can help to change--unplanned parenthood.

Black or African American↗
PubMed1996

Trajectories of poverty and children's mental health.

Using data from three waves of the Children of the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth data set (1986, 1988, 1990), we examine the dynamic relationship between children's family histories of poverty and their developmental trajectories of mental health. Children who were poor in 1986 or who had prior histories of poverty had higher levels of depression and antisocial behavior in that year. Furthermore, subsequent poverty histories were also related to children's mental health trajectories. The number of years that children were poor between 1986 and 1990 correlates significantly with changes in children's antisocial behavior during those years. Finally, rates of increase in antisocial behavior were substantially higher for children with histories of persistent poverty during those years than for transiently poor or nonpoor children. These results demonstrate the accelerating behavioral disadvantages faced by persistently poor children.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Values underpinning poverty programs for children.

Values create a framework through which the American public gives meaning to particular concepts and events. To better understand the values underlying public support for poverty programs for children, this article examines public attitudes toward children, poverty, and government. Although Americans continue to view helping children as a top policy priority, there is ambivalence with regard to poor children because of their inevitable connection to poor adults and the public's expectation that adults be self-sufficient. Rather than choosing between extreme ideological views of the causes of poverty and the ideal role of government in curbing poverty, the American public takes an integrative perspective that both values individual initiative and supports opportunities for all Americans. Favored are government programs fitted to the practical needs of everyday life. Such programs should support personal efforts but not assume responsibility for individual or particular group outcomes.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

Life-cycle aspects of poverty among older women.

This article focuses on the relationship between women's economic status earlier in their lives and their poverty status in old age. Previous research on the determinants of poverty among aged women has documented the socioeconomic and demographic correlates of the poor, and has examined the financial impact of adverse later-life events such as widowhood, deterioration of health, and loss of employment. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Mature Women (NLSMW), we find that most women who experience these types of adverse events in their later years do not become poor and that a large majority of older NLSMW respondents who were poor in 1991-92 were poor earlier in their adult lives. Whether women are impoverished by adverse later-life events depends on their economic resources just prior to the event. But, the financial resources available in old age, in turn, depend very much on their long-term economic status throughout much of their adult lives. This article underscores the fact that for most older women, these adverse events do not appear to precipitate poverty spells--at least not within the first couple of years--and directs attention at longer term circumstances that make some women more vulnerable to poverty.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1997

Vaccination coverage by race/ethnicity and poverty level among children aged 19-35 months -- United States, 1996.

The Childhood Immunization Initiative (CII), implemented in 1993, is an intensive program to increase vaccination coverage among preschool-aged children and to reduce or eliminate vaccine-preventable diseases. In 1996, national coverage goals were achieved for 2-year-old children for the most critical doses of each routinely recommended vaccine. Disparities in vaccination coverage have been documented previously among different racial/ethnic groups. This report presents findings from CDC's National Immunization Survey (NIS), which document progress toward achieving the 1996 CII vaccination coverage goals by racial/ethnic group and by level of poverty. The findings indicate that, for each of five racial/ethnic groups, most of the national CII vaccination coverage goals were met and that, based on poverty level, all the goals were met for children living at or above the poverty level, and two of the five goals were met for children living below the poverty level.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Child health, poverty and the environment: the Canadian context.

In Canada, there has been little research exploring the link between child poverty and exposure to environmental contaminants. However, children living in poverty are more likely to grow up in neighbourhoods adjacent to polluting industries and heavily used transportation corridors. They are also more likely to live in improperly designed or maintained buildings where levels of contaminants and toxic residuals may be high, and indoor air quality poor. Risk factors such as exposure to cigarette smoke and poor nutritional status, together with the above living conditions during growth and development, create conditions that make children living in poverty more vulnerable to the effects of environmental contaminants. In Toronto, the South Riverdale Community Health Centre is developing grassroots techniques to build awareness and protect citizens. Given the growing levels of child poverty in Canada and decreasing environmental protection, the author suggests increased community action and health research for use in advocating for appropriate policy changes.

Canada↗
PubMed1999

Placing poverty on the agenda of a primary health care team: an evaluation of an action research project.

The period of the last Government in the UK was marked by increases in poverty and social exclusion, with the gap widening between rich and poor, and differentials being associated with, and further entrenched by, inequalities in health. In 1994, the Audit Commission pointed to the potential contribution which proactive and well coordinated health and welfare services could make to meeting the needs of vulnerable families, and suggested the setting up of local demonstration projects. This paper reports on the achievements and limitations of Nottingham's 2-year Strategies for Practice in Disadvantaged Areas (SPIDA) Project which tested a model of team learning about poverty in relation to those registered with an inner-city doctor's practice. Members of a primary health care team engaged in a self-directed development programme which, despite numerous staff changes, enabled them to learn how to learn together, enhanced their understandings of what it means to live in poverty, and facilitated the establishment of collaborative and productive interagency working relationships at a neighbourhood level. It is suggested that staff in health and welfare organizations wishing to implement anti-poverty strategies could usefully consider adopting this model of team learning to promote collective action and change.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2003

The Elimination of Lymphatic Filariasis: A Strategy for Poverty Alleviation and Sustainable Development - Perspectives from the Philippines.

BACKGROUND: Within the Philippines areas endemic for lymphatic filariasis are in regions with the highest incidence of poverty. Out of a total of 79 provinces, 39 have a higher poverty incidence than the national average and 30 of these 39 provinces are endemic for lymphatic filariasis. DISCUSSION: Recognizing that provinces endemic for lymphatic filariasis (LF) are also the poorest provinces, the elimination of lymphatic filariasis in these areas presents significant opportunities to reduce poverty and inequalities in health. The implementation of an effective national programme for the elimination of lymphatic filariasis will provide means for sustainable development at national, local and community levels. SUMMARY: The elimination of lymphatic filariasis as a public health problem is a 20-year strategic plan for the world community, with the vision of all endemic communities free of transmission of lymphatic filariasis by 2020 and with the commitment to ensure the delivery of quality technologies and human services to eliminate lymphatic filariasis worldwide through a multi-stakeholder global alliance of all endemic countries. This global goal of elimination of lymphatic filariasis is a significant opportunity for partnerships - a world with less poverty through sustainable development and free from the scourge of lymphatic filariasis.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1989

[Struggling against poverty or its effects ? Early intervention programs.].

This article looks at poverty from the point of view that it does not necessarily correspond to the widespread image of chronic despair and resignation, acquired and transmitted from one generation to the next. The author argues such an image is produced by the fact that social and mental health services deal mainly with families at grips with multiple, long-standing problems. However, for most of these poor families, their condition is temporary. In fact, insufficient revenue is what distinguishes them from families that are not poor. While preventive programs show that early intervention is a proven approach towards considerably improving the psycho-social development of underpriveledged children and parents, little can be said about the effect of these programs on lowering, even less on eliminating, poverty itself. For the most part, these programs emerged from a clinical approach that encouraged poverty-stricken individuals to acquire new abilities and skills. The author concludes by promoting the need for more collaboration between those people offering the programs and those people who work towards changing the conditions at the root of poverty.

English Abstract↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Relationship between the degree of poverty and the IgE response to Ascaris infection in slum children.

We examined a group of urban slum children in Caracas, Venezuela, and demonstrated the relationship that exists between poverty, conditions of hygiene and the prevalence of helminth infection. Concordant with the high prevalence of helminth infection in these children, the total serum levels of immunoglobulin E (IgE) and blood eosinophilia were elevated and were directly related to the degree of poverty and lack of sanitary facilities. However, in contrast, the reverse pattern was observed for the specific allergic response to these parasites. Thus, the immediate hypersensitivity skin test reactivity to Ascaris antigens, and the serum levels of specific anti-Ascaris IgE antibody, were lowest in the poorest children, who had the highest prevalence of helminth infection and the highest total IgE levels. As allergic-type reactions may participate in protective mechanisms against helminths, these results suggest that poverty and poor sanitary conditions may, by influencing the IgE response, compromise the resistance of such children to parasitic infections.

Animals↗
PubMed1986

Poverty, disability and use of services by the elderly: analysis of the 1980 General Household Survey.

Poverty is one of the most distinctive features of old age in Britain. At least half the population aged over 65 live in, or on the margins of, poverty. Old age is also characterized by a decrease in functional capacity and an increase in use of statutory social and health services. However the inter-links between poverty, disability and use of services have not been well researched. In this paper we examine these inter-relationships using data derived from the 1980 General Household Survey.

Aged↗
PubMed1990

[Urbanization, poverty and health in Columbia].

A rapid process of urbanisation is recognisable all over the world today. Already 80% of the world's big cities are located in underdeveloped countries. 60% of their city inhabitants are slum-dwellers living under more or less miserable conditions in shanty towns. This paper documents the reality of life of a 60,000-inhabitants shanty town population in Columbia as well as the implications on health by poverty-linked social environment. In addition to disastrous conditions of housing and nutrition, chronic individual and collective psychological stress seem to be the most important risk factors for the health of the population. The international linkups between wealth, poverty and poverty-conditioned disease make it necessary that physicians of industrial nations also become aware of the world's disparity and injustice in order to help in overcoming miserable living conditions by thinking in global terms.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1987

Women and poverty: the effects on reproductive status.

National surveys, over the years, have provided evidence of relationship between poverty and health. In the United States, access to health care is generally dependent on the ability to pay for it. As a consequence, poor women are dependent upon government-funded social-welfare programs to attain access to health care. This paper examines the relationship between poverty and several indicators of reproductive status, and concludes that there is a relationship between poverty and poor reproductive status. The health gap between poor and nonpoor women is related to the absence of financial and other resources that dictate lifestyle.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

Relationships between poverty and psychopathology: a natural experiment.

CONTEXT: Social causation (adversity and stress) vs social selection (downward mobility from familial liability to mental illness) are competing theories about the origins of mental illness. OBJECTIVE: To test the role of social selection vs social causation of childhood psychopathology using a natural experiment. DESIGN: Quasi-experimental, longitudinal study. POPULATION AND SETTING: A representative population sample of 1420 rural children aged 9 to 13 years at intake were given annual psychiatric assessments for 8 years (1993-2000). One quarter of the sample were American Indian, and the remaining were predominantly white. Halfway through the study, a casino opening on the Indian reservation gave every American Indian an income supplement that increased annually. This increase moved 14% of study families out of poverty, while 53% remained poor, and 32% were never poor. Incomes of non-Indian families were unaffected. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Levels of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, psychiatric symptoms in the never-poor, persistently poor, and ex-poor children were compared for the 4 years before and after the casino opened. RESULTS: Before the casino opened, the persistently poor and ex-poor children had more psychiatric symptoms (4.38 and 4.28, respectively) than the never-poor children (2.75), but after the opening levels among the ex-poor fell to those of the never-poor children, while levels among those who were persistently poor remained high (odds ratio, 1.50; 95% confidence interval, 1.08-2.09; and odds ratio, 0.91; 95% confidence interval, 0.77-1.07, respectively). The effect was specific to symptoms of conduct and oppositional defiant disorders. Anxiety and depression symptoms were unaffected. Similar results were found in non-Indian children whose families moved out of poverty during the same period. CONCLUSIONS: An income intervention that moved families out of poverty for reasons that cannot be ascribed to family characteristics had a major effect on some types of children's psychiatric disorders, but not on others. Results support a social causation explanation for conduct and oppositional disorder, but not for anxiety or depression.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1993

On opulence driven poverty traps.

"We opt in this study to endogenize the growth rate of the population in such a way that it stresses the empirically supported negative relation between fertility and per capita income. Fertility declines as per capita income rises." The authors conclude that "the less developed economy can get stuck in a variant of the 'Malthusian trap', also called the poverty trap. The only way out of the poverty trap is through an injection of capital (a large transfer) from abroad. Our model therefore, supports...[the] view that aid from the developed countries to the less developed countries has to be increased dramatically...to overcome the poverty trap...."

Birth Rate↗