Self-Reported Serious Illnesses in Rural Cambodia: A Cross-Sectional Survey

Por Ir, Chean Men, Henry Lucas, Bruno Meessen, Kristof Decoster, Gerald Bloom and Wim Van Damme

PLOS ONE, 2010, vol. 5, issue 6, 1-12

Abstract: Background: There is substantial evidence that ill-health is a major cause of impoverishment in developing countries. Major illnesses can have a serious economic impact on poor households through treatment costs and income loss. However, available methods for measuring the impact of ill-health on household welfare display several shortcomings and new methods are thus needed. To understand the potential complex impact of major illnesses on household livelihoods, a study on poverty and illness was conducted in rural Cambodia, as part of an international comparative research project. A cross-sectional survey was performed to identify households affected by major illness for further in-depth interviews. Methodology and Principal Findings: 5,975 households in three rural health districts were randomly selected through a two-stage cluster sampling and interviewed. 27% of the households reported at least one member with a serious illness in the year preceding the survey and 15% of the household members reported suffering from at least one serious illness. The most reported conditions include common tropical infectious diseases, chronic diseases (notably hypertension and heart diseases) and road traffic accidents. Such conditions were particularly concentrated among the poor, children under five, women, and the elderly. Poor women often reported complications related to pregnancy and delivery as serious illnesses. Conclusions and Significance: Despite some methodological limitations, this study provides new information on the frequency of self-reported serious illnesses among the rural Cambodia's population, which serves as a basis for further in-depth investigation on ‘major illnesses’ and their economic consequences on poor households. This can in turn help policy makers to formulate appropriate interventions to protect the poor from the financial burden associated with ill-health. Our findings suggest that every year a considerable proportion of rural population in Cambodia, especially the poor and vulnerable, are affected by serious illnesses, both communicable and non-communicable diseases.

Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0010930 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 10930&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0010930

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0010930

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().