PHA-Exch> Food for a non-money-metric thought (3)

[Claudio Schuftan]

From: Rajesh Sood drrksood at gmail.com

Poverty may be understood as a condition in which a person or community is
deprived of, and or lacks the essentials for a minimum standard of
well-being and life. Poverty is a determinant of health and equity and has
various implications:
•         Not having two square meals a day- going to bed hungry.
•         Not having a roof over the head- landless.
•         Child labor in farm, dhabas ( food shops) or as domestic servants:
unable to send children to school and being deprived of minimum, basic
education.
•         Being sick and not taking medicine till the problem aggravates for
not being able to afford a doctor.
•         Being in debt and at the mercy of the village moneylender.
•         Not having a livelihood/ loss of livelihood and insecurity and
fear about the future.
•         Caste dimension and social exclusion
•         Lack of a voice and self-esteem and not being able to struggle for
rights.

Mortality on the other hand is an outcome and we should not wait for
children to die, but rather attempt to pre-empt at the level of deprivation
and risk. In the context of MDG we need to have better estimates of
measuring poverty as this is a major determinant of equity and deprivation
(in addition to other surrogate measures).


Dr RK Sood
Researcher, National Institute of Epidemiology, Chennai, India
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