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The global distribution of risk factors by poverty level
Tony Blakely1, Simon Hales, Charlotte Kieft
1Department of Public Health, Wellington School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Otago, Wellington, New Zealand. tblakely@wnmeds.ac.nz
Bulletin of the World Health Organization
|March 4, 2005
Summary
Poverty is strongly linked to poor health outcomes like malnutrition and unsafe water access. Eradicating poverty and implementing public health actions are crucial for global health improvements.
Area of Science:
- Global Health
- Public Health
- Socioeconomic Determinants of Health
Background:
- Income poverty is a significant global challenge with diverse health implications.
- Understanding the association between poverty and various health risk factors is essential for targeted interventions.
- Previous research has highlighted links between poverty and certain health issues, but a comprehensive individual-level analysis across multiple risk factors and regions is needed.
Purpose of the Study:
- To estimate the individual-level association between income poverty and key health risk factors.
- To analyze the relationship between poverty and being underweight, tobacco use, alcohol consumption, unsafe water and sanitation access, indoor air pollution exposure, and obesity.
- To assess the potential impact of poverty reduction on the prevalence of these risk factors.
Main Methods:
- Utilized survey data from numerous countries across 11 World Health Organization (WHO) medium- and low-income subregions.
- Estimated relative risk associations between income/assets and risk factors at the individual level.
- Analyzed WHO and World Bank data on risk factor prevalence and income poverty (defined by daily income thresholds: < US$1.00, US$1-2.00, > US$2.00) to impute poverty-risk factor associations.
Main Results:
- Strong associations were found between poverty and child malnutrition, unsafe water/sanitation, and indoor air pollution exposure (2-3 times higher risk for those earning < US$1.00/day vs. > US$2.00/day).
- Associations between poverty and obesity, tobacco, and alcohol use varied across subregions.
- Eliminating poverty (< US$2.00/day) could potentially avoid 51% of unimproved water/sanitation exposures, 37% of child malnutrition, and 38% of indoor air pollution exposures.
Conclusions:
- Significant global health gains necessitate both poverty eradication and robust public health interventions.
- The study's methodology can be valuable for monitoring progress towards pro-equity goals, such as the Millennium Development Goals.
- Addressing poverty is a critical pathway to reducing the burden of various health risk factors and improving overall population health.