The Correlation Between Food Insecurity And Malaria In Haiti
Over half of Haiti’s population lives in extreme poverty, making it one of the most food insecure countries in the world. Vector-borne diseases that are being spread and transmitted through mosquitos are becoming a public health crisis across the globe. This is especially true in developing countries, where malarial parasites specifically are becoming an epidemic. It has been shown that there is a strong correlation between food insecurity and Malaria in Haiti. The average life expectancy in Haiti is sixty-one years old, and the average person living in Haiti is expected to be healthy until the age of forty-four. The infant mortality rate in Haiti is sixty per one thousand live births. There are many reasons as to why Haiti struggles as a country, first being the geographical location exposing the country to many severe earthquakes. As well as Haiti’s poor geographical location, the country has a very weak economy and practically no infrastructure. Haiti has limited access to agricultural equipment such as water, fertilizers, pest controls, agriculture machinery and high-quality soils. Haiti also lacks physical infrastructure such as fishing equipment, roads and the technology and vehicles used to transport agricultural commodities. There is a high correlation between food insecurity and malaria in Camp Perrin Haiti. There is an increased risk of malaria affiliated with micronutrient deficiencies, some examples of these would be zinc and vitamin A deficiencies. Families in Haiti have a lack of access to nutritious and healthy food because of its poor economy and lack of resources. Families consuming lower dietary quality meals causing micronutrient deficiencies are more likely to have weaker immune systems making them more susceptible and at risk of malaria. In Camp Perrin the main source of food was crops such as potatoes, beans, fruit, peppers, cassavas and coffee. Food insecurity has also been associated with household mental stress and psycho-emotional behaviour. Stress on the mind and body are another factor that may compromise a child’s immunological system and the ability to prevent malaria.
The people in Haiti have little to no access at all to malaria prevention, like insecticide treated nets and preventive treatment for pregnant women. Malaria is responsible for one million annual deaths worldwide and is a major cause of death among children aged five and under in developing countries. The children in Haiti are more susceptible to malaria because of their compromised and weak immune systems from lack of food security. A cross-sectional on this issue was done in Camp Perrin, located in the southern peninsula of Haiti. Camp Perrin is an extremely poor area in Haiti and has an estimated population of forty thousand six hundred and fifty people living there. The sample gathered one hundred and fifty-three mothers from the three districts of Camp Perrin. The two-week survey determined the food insecurity in these households using the “Latin American and Caribbean Household Food Security Scale”. The survey consisted of nine questions directed at the adults in the household, and seven directed for the children living in the household. All the questions were answered for the three-month time frame before surveys were taken. In addition, there were scores used to rank the severity of the household’s food insecurity. Food secure scored zero, food insecure scored one to five, very food insecure scored six to ten, and severely food insecure scored eleven to sixteen. Women were questioned on the overall health of themselves and their children, they were asked if they had had malaria in the past two months or diarrhea in the past two weeks. It was observed that a majority of adults and children living in Camp Perrin were very familiar with malaria and had it more than once in their lifetime.
The results of the surveys showed that almost two out of every three households were living in extreme poverty conditions. Only fifteen percent of these households had savings in the bank, a majority of them making less than one US dollar a day. Approximately eighty percent of the household heads were employed, most of them with farming jobs. Thirty eight percent of the people working on farms were in a sharecropping system, as to this was the only main resource for food. Almost none of the households had sewage and plumbing, and the vast majority of the households were overcrowded. Eighty percent of the households had five or more family members living there, with only twenty three percent of these houses having more than three bedrooms. Only sixteen percent of the people surveyed finished high school, and the majority of children surveyed were born at home. Approximately two out of every three children surveyed the mother reported that they have bad diarrhea over the past two weeks and malaria over the past two months. About forty percent of these households were managed by the mother or grandmother, and about half of the women surveyed and four children. About twenty percent of the children surveyed were not fed colostrum in the first few days of birth. These high numbers are from the lack of infrastructure in Camp Perrin, and lack of education. The results have shown that the risk of developing malaria in the two months after the survey were higher in the children who lived in food insecure households. It has been shown that the odds of having malaria are seventy seven percent lower if fed colostrum in the days after birth, which a large portion of the children in Camp Perrin were not due to lack of education. The odds of having malaria were higher in the children that were reported of having poor health. It was also learned that receiving vitamin A was strongly associated with the lower risk of malaria in children, yet another nutrient that the children in Haiti do not have access to. Only two percent of households were food secure, seventeen percent of households in Camp Perrin Haiti were food insecure. Thirty eight percent of households were very food insecure, and fifty six percent of households in Camp Perrin were severely food insecure.
Children living in extreme poverty experiencing food insecurity are likely of developing micronutrient deficiencies which put them at a higher risk of having malaria due to their weak immune systems. Malaria is a huge risk factor for children five and under living in rural Haiti. The results from the survey taken in Camp Perrin are very extremely devastating, these results really show the severity of the situation of poverty in Camp Perrin Haiti. Due to the lack of food security children are at a higher risk of developing malaria, and in result many children die each day. It’s very sad to see the state that the country Haiti is in, and the unfortunate situation of not being able to help the millions of adults and children that die from starvation and illness. Observing the results of the survey done in Camp Perrin, there is a strong correlation between food insecurity and malaria. Haiti has many factors that contribute to the country’s extreme poverty situation. The geographical location of Haiti exposes the country to many severe earthquakes making it very hard for the country to have a sound and structured environment. Haiti also has a lack of infrastructure, and very minimum resources. With the lack of resources, it is very hard for the poepl living in Haiti to access food to maintain the proper nutritional diet needed to stay healthy. Many adults and children living in Haiti cannot even afford enough food to satisfy their hunger on a daily basis let alone the proper nutrients and vitamins. If the adults and children living in Camp Perrin cannot afford and do not have access to proper meals on a daily basis it is very hard for them to maintain healthy immune systems. The immune systems of the people suffering in Camp Perrin are not strong due to the lack of nutrients and vitamins that are absorbed through food. With weak immune systems it is very hard to fight off illness, and many people have a higher risk of having malaria. The overall factor that contributes to the malaria crisis in Haiti is the major food insecurity problem.
