Decreasing the Burden of Childhood Disease - Western Cape ...

safest for them. (also explore pasteurized EBM and Donor
EBM options)
Underlying level
‣ Parental survival programs (including linking parents into local HIV
management programs)
‣ Community based employment, food and income generation
projects
‣ Maternal Education: Maternal education is an effective intervention
but since levels of female education in the Western Cape are
generally high the potential for further intervention in this area
would be limited unless such an intervention is explicitly targeted to
areas where average educational status is low.
Basic level
‣ Addressing poverty, inequality and their underlying determinants
through social and labour policies that create employment and
improve welfare. Here improved coverage of told age pensions and
the Child Support Grant are key
‣ Address inequalities in access to land, and those micro- and macroeconomic
policies, including trade policy, that are impacting
negatively on employment, incomes and diets.
‣ Make public transport more accessible and affordable through
subsidised transport to ante natal care (
‣ Creative pro-poor economic interventions for indigent pregnant
women (whatever these may be)
‣ Address issues related to population movement between EC and
WC.
‣ Address issues of poverty, inequity, poor access to health care and
population movement between WC and EC.
Conclusions
Poor child health and nutrition impose significant and long-term economic
and human development costs – especially on the poorest communities,
further entrenching their status. Improving child health and nutrition is
not only a moral imperative, but a rational long-term investment.
The greatest burden of childhood death and disease is concentrated
among the poor and the rate of improvement in these groups in the
Western Cape is minimal, with both the country and the province being
extremely unlikely to attain MDG4. Moreover, the gap in health outcomes
between richer and poorer groups is growing.
The dominant causes of mortality and morbidity remain nutritional
deficiencies and infectious diseases, with HIV/AIDS contributing
significantly.
The above, proximal causes of childhood illness and death are underlain
by such distal factors as low and declining real incomes, poor female
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