IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v16y2019i20p3948-d277386.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Environmental Correlates of Health-Related Quality of Life among Women Living in Informal Settlements in Kenya

Author

Listed:
  • Samantha C. Winter

    (Columbia School of Social Work, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA)

  • Lena Moraa Obara

    (Department of Sociology and Social Work, University of Nairobi, Nairobi 00100, Kenya)

  • Francis Barchi

    (Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning & Public Policy, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA)

Abstract

Informal settlements (slums)—defined as residential areas lacking durable housing; sufficient living and public spaces; access to basic infrastructure, water, sanitation, and other services; and secure tenancy—are presumed to be poor health environments. Research in Kenya suggests that residents of these settlements have the worst health outcomes of any population, yet there is a paucity of research focused on the health and well-being of these residents. Even less attention is given to the role played by environment in health in these settings. The present study addresses these gaps by examining potential environmental correlates, specifically access to water and sanitation, of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among 552 women in Mathare slum in Nairobi, Kenya. A Kiswahili version of the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) measured HRQOL. Results suggested that access to a toilet at all times was associated with every subscale of the mental health and general well-being domains of the SF-36. Primary water source was also associated with women’s HRQOL. Despite increasing efforts to expand sanitation and water access in informal settlements, more attention should be given to whether the interventions being introduced, which likely affect women’s psychosocial health, are appropriate for all residents, including women.

Suggested Citation

  • Samantha C. Winter & Lena Moraa Obara & Francis Barchi, 2019. "Environmental Correlates of Health-Related Quality of Life among Women Living in Informal Settlements in Kenya," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(20), pages 1-19, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:20:p:3948-:d:277386
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/20/3948/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/20/3948/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. United Nations UN, 2015. "The Millennium Development Goals Report 2015," Working Papers id:7097, eSocialSciences.
    2. Crow, Ben D & Odaba, Edmond, 2010. "Access to water in a Nairobi slum: women’s work and institutional learning," Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, Working Paper Series qt7h52n89v, Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, UC Santa Cruz.
    3. Sahoo, Krushna Chandra & Hulland, Kristyna R.S. & Caruso, Bethany A. & Swain, Rojalin & Freeman, Matthew C. & Panigrahi, Pinaki & Dreibelbis, Robert, 2015. "Sanitation-related psychosocial stress: A grounded theory study of women across the life-course in Odisha, India," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 80-89.
    4. United Nations UN, 2015. "The Millennium Development Goals Report 2015," Working Papers id:7222, eSocialSciences.
    5. Lucy S. Tusting & Donal Bisanzio & Graham Alabaster & Ewan Cameron & Richard Cibulskis & Michael Davies & Seth Flaxman & Harry S. Gibson & Jakob Knudsen & Charles Mbogo & Fredros O. Okumu & Lorenz Sei, 2019. "Mapping changes in housing in sub-Saharan Africa from 2000 to 2015," Nature, Nature, vol. 568(7752), pages 391-394, April.
    6. McGranahan, Gordon, 2015. "Realizing the Right to Sanitation in Deprived Urban Communities: Meeting the Challenges of Collective Action, Coproduction, Affordability, and Housing Tenure," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 242-253.
    7. Ziersch, Anna M & Baum, Fran E & MacDougall, Colin & Putland, Christine, 2005. "Neighbourhood life and social capital: the implications for health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 71-86, January.
    8. Crow, Ben & Odaba, Edmond, 2010. "Access to water in a Nairobi slum: women's work and institutional learning," Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, Working Paper Series qt4xh4c7q4, Center for Global, International and Regional Studies, UC Santa Cruz.
    9. Matthew French & John Gardner, 2012. "The Health of Informal Settlements: Illness and the Internal Thermal Conditions of Informal Housing," Springer Optimization and Its Applications, in: Stamatina Th. Rassia & Panos M. Pardalos (ed.), Sustainable Environmental Design in Architecture, chapter 0, pages 157-171, Springer.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kamrun Nahar Koly & Md. Saiful Islam & Daniel D Reidpath & Jobaida Saba & Sohana Shafique & Md. Razib Chowdhury & Farzana Begum, 2021. "Health-Related Quality of Life among Rural-Urban Migrants Living in Dhaka Slums: A Cross-Sectional Survey in Bangladesh," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(19), pages 1-13, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Venkata Santosh Kumar Delhi & Ganesh Devkar & Sriharini Narayanan & Reeba Devaraj & Akshaya Ayyangar & A. Thillai Rajan, 2022. "WASH for all: A systematic review of Physiological and Sociological Characterization Framework segmentation in WASH policies, programmes, and projects," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 40(3), May.
    2. José Antonio Rodríguez Martín & Juan Dios Jiménez Aguilera & José Antonio Salinas Fernández & José María Martín Martín, 2016. "Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5: Progress in the Least Developed Countries of Asia," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 129(2), pages 489-504, November.
    3. Caroline Jennings Saul & Heiko Gebauer, 2018. "Digital Transformation as an Enabler for Advanced Services in the Sanitation Sector," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-18, March.
    4. Subramaniam, Mega & Pang, Natalie & Morehouse, Shandra & Asgarali-Hoffman, S. Nisa, 2020. "Examining vulnerability in youth digital information practices scholarship: What are we missing or exhausting?," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    5. Bruno F. Sunguya & Yue Ge & Linda B. Mlunde & Rose Mpembeni & Germana H. Leyna & Krishna C. Poudel & Niyati Parekh & Jiayan Huang, 2022. "Targeted and Population-Wide Interventions Are Needed to Address the Persistent Burden of Anemia among Women of Reproductive Age in Tanzania," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(14), pages 1-12, July.
    6. Yong‐Shik Lee, 2020. "New general theory of economic development: Innovative growth and distribution," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(2), pages 402-423, May.
    7. Leena Eklund Karlsson & Anne Leena Ikonen & Kothar Mohammed Alqahtani & Pernille Tanggaard Andersen & Subash Thapa, 2020. "Health Equity Lens Embedded in the Public Health Policies of Saudi Arabia: A Qualitative Document Analysis," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(4), pages 21582440209, October.
    8. Valensisi, Giovanni & Gauci, Adrian, 2013. "Graduated without passing? The employment dimension and LDCs' prospects under the Istanbul Programme of Action," MPRA Paper 86966, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Yue-Hui Yu & Man-Man Peng, 2022. "Development and Poverty Dynamics in Severe Mental Illness: A Modified Capability Approach in the Chinese Context," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(4), pages 1-13, February.
    10. Lisa F. Clark, 2018. "Policy conflicts in global food assistance strategies: balancing local procurement and harmonization," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 10(1), pages 211-222, February.
    11. Simon Meunier & Dale T. Manning & Loic Queval & Judith A. Cherni & Philippe Dessante & Daniel Zimmerle, 2019. "Determinants of the marginal willingness to pay for improved domestic water and irrigation in partially electrified Rwandan villages," Post-Print hal-02179229, HAL.
    12. Jussi T. S. Heikkila, 2020. "Classifying economics for the common good: Connecting sustainable development goals to JEL codes," Papers 2004.04384, arXiv.org.
    13. Menon Martina & Perali Federico & Veronesi Marcella, 2017. "“Leaving No Child Behind:” Preferences for Social Inclusion and Altruism," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 17(3), pages 1-19, July.
    14. Shannon L. Sibbald & Nicole Haggerty, 2019. "Integrating Business and Medical Pedagogy to Accomplish the Sustainable Development Goals," Journal of Education for Sustainable Development, , vol. 13(1), pages 92-101, March.
    15. Dedy Rahman Wijaya & Ni Luh Putu Satyaning Pradnya Paramita & Ana Uluwiyah & Muhammad Rheza & Annisa Zahara & Dwi Rani Puspita, 2022. "Estimating city-level poverty rate based on e-commerce data with machine learning," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 195-221, March.
    16. Józsa, Krisztián & Török, Balázs & Stevenson, Cerissa, 2018. "Preschool and kindergarten in Hungary and the United States: A comparison within transnational development policy," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 88-95.
    17. Kasuga, Hidefumi & Morita, Yuichi, 2022. "The health gap and its effect on economic outcomes," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    18. Soumi Roy Chowdhury & Alok K. Bohara & Hari Katuwal & José A. Pagán & Jennifer A. Thacher, 2019. "The Impact of Ritual Bathing in a Holy Hindu River on Waterborne Diseases," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 57(1), pages 36-54, March.
    19. Samuel Dorevitch, 2015. "Health Effects of Waterborne Contaminants: A Focus on Emerging Concerns," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-3, October.
    20. Santangelo, Grazia D., 2018. "The impact of FDI in land in agriculture in developing countries on host country food security," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 75-84.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:20:p:3948-:d:277386. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.