The Impact of Adult Deaths on Children's Health in Northwestern Tanzania
The AIDS epidemic is dramatically increasing mortality of adults in many Sub-Saharan African countries, with potentially severe consequences for surviving family members. Until now, most of these impacts had not been quantified. The authors examine...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2015
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2000/01/439016/impact-adult-deaths-childrens-health-northwestern-tanzania http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22264 |
| Summary: | The AIDS epidemic is dramatically
increasing mortality of adults in many Sub-Saharan African
countries, with potentially severe consequences for
surviving family members. Until now, most of these impacts
had not been quantified. The authors examine the impact of
adult mortality in Tanzania on three measures of health
among children under five: morbidity, height for age, and
weight for height. The children hit hardest by the death of
a parent or other adult are those in the poorest households,
those with uneducated parents, and those with the least
access to health care. The authors also show how much three
important health interventions--immunization against measles,
and rehydration salts, and access to health care--can do to
mitigate the impact of adult mortality. These programs
disproportionately improve health outcomes among the poorest
children and, within that group, among children affected by
adult mortality. In Tanzania there is so much poverty, and
child health indicators are so low that these interventions
should be targeted as much as possible to the poorest
households, where the children hit hardest by adult
mortality are most likely to be found. (Conceivably, the
targeting strategy for middle-income countries with severe
AIDS epidemics, such as Thailand, or countries with less
poverty and better child health indicators might be different.) |
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