Ageing and poverty in rural Kenya: community perception

Poverty is widespread among rural African elderly and associated with poor health and unsatisfactory access to health care. The purpose of this study was to determine community perception of the poorest in a community in rural Kenya, more specifically to identify factors considered by community members as associated with poverty in their midst. There is need to protect the aged members of the society from payment for health care and to include them in decision-making process. This study was undertaken in seven sites in Kisumu and Homa Bay districts in western Kenya where the Bamako Initiative was first launched, in 1987, calling on UNICEF and WHO to help accelerate the implementation of primary health care at district level, giving priority to women and children. Two household interview baseline surveys comprising 210 and 87 households, respectively, corroborated by the more qualitative approaches of participatory rural appraisal (PRA) and focus group discussions were conducted. This article analyses the importance of ageing as perceived by the communities as a factor associated with poverty.