Child health in the Sundarbans: How far mutually reinforcing shocks act as contextual determinants?
Abstract
Childhood chronic undernutrition and common childhood illness is highly prevalent in the Sundarbans delta region of West Bengal, India. The present work tested the hypothesis whether frequent climatic shock is likely to predispose chronic and transient health shocks through behavioural responses of households in the presence of inaccessibility, inadequacy and acceptability barriers which act in the economy as long wave shocks. The work is based on a household and facility survey primary data collected in 19 blocks of the Sundarbans. The results highlight that transient climatic shock make the child health worse through the pathway of chronic poverty, low resilience, physical and social barriers to health seeking as well as ineffective service delivery system. Further in depth research is required to understand multiple vulnerabilities, related coping of households and ways to improve the service delivery mechanism to have healthy children in the Sundarbans in the near future.
Citation
Mukherjee, M.; Kanjilal, B.; Barman, D.; Mazumdar, P. G. Child health in the Sundarbans: How far mutually reinforcing shocks act as contextual determinants? (2011) 35 pp.
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