Progress towards millennium development goal 1 in northern rural Nicaragua: Findings from a health and demographic surveillance site

Abstract

BackgroundMillennium Development Goal 1 encourages local initiatives for the eradication of extreme poverty. However, monitoring is indispensable to insure that actions performed at higher policy levels attain success. Poverty in rural areas in low- and middle-income countries remains chronic. Nevertheless, a rural area (Cuatro Santos) in northern Nicaragua has made substantial progress toward poverty eradication by 2015. We examined the level of poverty there and described interventions aimed at reducing it.MethodsHousehold data collected from a Health and Demographic Surveillance System was used to analyze poverty and the transition out of it, as well as background information on family members. In the follow-up, information about specific interventions (i.e., installation of piped drinking water, latrines, access to microcredit, home gardening, and technical education) linked them to the demographic data. A propensity score was used to measure the association between the interventions and the resulting transition from poverty.ResultsBetween 2004 and 2009, poverty was reduced as a number of interventions increased. Although microcredit was inequitably distributed across the population, combined with home gardening and technical training, it resulted in significant poverty reduction in this rural area.ConclusionsSustainable interventions reduced poverty in the rural areas studied by about one- third.

Livelihoods, precarity, and disaster vulnerability: Nicaragua and Hurricane Mitch

“…Longitudinal analysis of long-term recovery reveals an overall positive narrative of household and community recovery in the years following Hurricane Mitch. Past scholarship identifies the period from 2000 as one of economic growth and poverty reduction in Nicaragua (Pérez et al, 2012); the results of this study show that this trend encompassed communities and households affected by Mitch. In addition, they highlight an increase in the household condition from 1998 to 2009, represented by a rise in the asset index, across all household livelihood categories, whether or not they experienced damage owing to the hurricane.…”

Adulthood transitions in health and welfare; a literature review

“…The “health‐illness transition” type (Meleis, ; Schumacher & Meleis, ) included care transitions such as moving from one care setting to another (Bryant, Young, Cesario, & Binder, ; Kuchenbuch, Chemaly, Chiron, Dulac, & Nabbout, ; LaRosa, Glah, Baluarte, & Meyers, ) as well as transitons in health status from health to illness and vice versa (Lally & Underhill, ; Söderlund, ). “Organizational transitions” represented transitions in social, political or economic environments (Schumacher & Meleis, ) characterized as transitions in meso and macro levels, such as programs and political and societal structures (Bobić, ; Christensen, ; Perez, Blandon, Persson, Pena, & Kallestal, ).…”

“…"Organizational transitions" represented transitions in social, political or economic environments (Schumacher & Meleis, 1994) characterized as transitions in meso and macro levels, such as programs and political and societal structures (Bobić, 2012;Christensen, 2013;Perez, Blandon, Persson, Pena, & Kallestal, 2012).…”

Comparing progress toward the millennium development goal for under-five mortality in León and Cuatro Santos, Nicaragua, 1990–2008

“…In this area poverty is widespread but with some decline from 67% in 2004 to 55% in 2009 [37]. Investment has been made in the area, like improved roads that may improve commerce and reduce poverty and there is also improved access to health services.…”