{"id":3316,"date":"2013-09-18T14:04:16","date_gmt":"2013-09-18T21:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/?p=3316"},"modified":"2025-02-27T10:24:30","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T18:24:30","slug":"survey-launched-to-help-improve-family-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/2013\/09\/18\/survey-launched-to-help-improve-family-health\/","title":{"rendered":"Survey Launched to Help Improve Family Health"},"content":{"rendered":"

Web Extr<\/span>a<\/p>\n

by Marcia Hill Gossard \u201999, \u201904 Ph.D.<\/em><\/p>\n

Traveling by bicycle, community interviewers visit homes in Asembo, Kenya, to learn how animal and human disease impacts a family\u2019s health, access to education, and economic well-being. They will visit more than 1,400 households four times each year over several years to ask about their nutrition, family members\u2019 health, household assets, and health of their animals. They collect the data on a handheld computer, or PDA, so that it can be sent back to Pullman the next day for analysis.<\/p>\n

The goal is to reduce poverty and hunger and improve health and education.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnimals are a major financial and nutritional asset for these families,\u201d said Guy Palmer, director of the Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health<\/a>. \u201cWhen animals are healthier, families tend to be healthier.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last February, the Allen School launched the Population Based Animal Syndromic Surveillance and the Socio-Economic Survey in collaboration with the Kenya Medical Research Institute and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (known as the KEMRI\/CDC Research and Public Health Collaboration) and the University of Washington. The project is led onsite by Dr. Thumbi Mwangi, clinical assistant professor in the Allen School.<\/p>\n

Besides asking about nutrition in the house, the health of their animals, and demographics such as age, occupation, and number of children, researchers are also asking about household assets. For families in east Africa, assets may include their livestock, plows, bicycles, tractor, radios, or motorcycles. Previous research has shown that when the health of animals improves, it increases the family\u2019s assets. And these increases tend to go to education and health care for children.<\/p>\n

If their hypothesis is right and healthier animals can lead to more money spent on children\u2019s health and education, it could have long term positive affects for these communities. For example, in rural populations and peri-urban or urban slums, children often do not receive adequate nutrition or health care. According to Dr. Palmer, children in these regions have the greatest incidence of stunted growth from insufficient protein combined with diseases that cause diarrhea. Roughly 40 percent of children in sub-Saharan Africa are affected by stunting.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things we are looking at is the flow of food\u2026its availability to a household and how it is distributed in the household,\u201d said Palmer. \u201cDoes it go to the most vulnerable populations\u2014pregnant women and children\u2014within the home?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, they are looking for effective interventions to improve the quality of families\u2019 lives. Palmer emphasized that it will be important to assess any interventions not just once, but on an ongoing basis.<\/p>\n

\u201cIntegrating continuous assessment into the program drives a continuous improvement,\u201d said Palmer. \u201cWe can be more effective if we focus on the most impactful interventions. And we will reduce costs by eliminating ineffective ones.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Traveling by bicycle, community interviewers visit homes in Asembo, Kenya, to learn how animal and human disease impacts a family\u2019s health, access to education, and economic well-being. They will visit more than 1,400 households four times each year over several years to ask about their nutrition, family members\u2019 health, household assets, and health of their animals. They collect the data on a handheld computer, or PDA, so that it can be sent back to Pullman the next day for analysis.<\/p>\n

The goal is to reduce poverty and hunger and improve health and education.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1015,"featured_media":3309,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wsuwp_accessibility_report":null},"categories":[511],"tags":[619,493,614],"wsuwp_university_location":[332],"wsuwp_university_org":[425,474],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3316"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1015"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3316"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3318,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3316\/revisions\/3318"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3316"},{"taxonomy":"wsuwp_university_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wsuwp_university_location?post=3316"},{"taxonomy":"wsuwp_university_org","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvm.wsu.edu\/advance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wsuwp_university_org?post=3316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}